The ManicaPost
Chenai Mutasa Post Correspondent
Civil servants with genuine concerns which they felt needed Government attention must have been disappointed with the way the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU)-sponsored January 14-15 industrial action was hijacked by opposition MDC hooligans and turned into an orgy of violence and destruction.
This is because civil servants value dialogue as a way of resolving issues. The hooligans must have felt good for lives were lost and property worth millions destroyed – almost living up to their naïve leader, Nelson Chamisa’s claims that his party would render the country ungovernable. The same cannot be said about civil servants, however, for their genuine concerns never reached their employer for redress.
A month before the MDC congress, which was held in Gweru between 25 and 26 May 2019, the media was awash with stories on how a showdown was looming between the ZCTU and its membership over the labour representative body’s decision to join MDC-Alliance.
It was revealed that the turmoil brewing in the labour body came after the MDC-Alliance resolved at its national standing committee (NSC) meeting to allot a quota of posts to the trade union.
According to documents gleaned by one local newspaper, ZCTU President Peter MUTASA and Secretary-general Japhet Moyo were being accused of abusing their authority by unilaterally forcing the labour body to join opposition politics.
Conversely, most of the over 30 ZCTU general council members are said to have rejected Mutasa’s plans to railroad them into joining the MDC-Alliance.
Sensing that the labour body was compromised and could no longer effectively represent the interests of the workers the Zimbabwe Teachers Association (Zimta) pulled out of ZCTU.
It is, however, important to point out here that the allotment of a quota of posts to the trade union which galvanised Zimta into action was a tip of the iceberg for workers had been abused by ZCTU for political expedience for a long time.
Some media houses had it that the above mentioned January demonstrations’ actual intention was to overthrow the current constitutionally elected Government. In short, the ZCTU called for the demonstration with the willful and premeditated intention of assisting the MDC to hijack them and usurp power.
The ZCTU scenario contrasts sharply with civil servants in the way that they engage Government in the events of grievances and concerns. Living up to its character of pursuing its own issues through the National Joint Negotiating Council (NJNC) via the Apex Council, Zimta recently said it was pursuing dialogue with Government over demands for improved wages and working condition at a time when it was fashionable for other teachers’ unions such as the Amalgamated Rural Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe (ARTUZ) and the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) to declare strikes.
Zimta seems to have come to the realization that in as much as militancy may bring food to the table of opposition leaders and pseudo-civic society leaders in the form of donor funds from proponents of the regime change agenda, teachers were not benefiting. It discovered that they were tools only in the grand scheme of things. However, the same enlightenment is yet to dawn on the minds of leaders of unions such as ARTUZ and the PTUZ.
Little-known ARTUZ called for a poorly subscribed industrial action between 3 and 5 June 2019. To account for the low participation by teachers, the union cooked up claims of security agents having intimidated teachers to turn up for work. What ARTUZ is failing to come to terms with is the fact that they cannot effectively serve two masters – their members and proponents of the regime change agenda. The handful of teachers under the small outfit must have realized that they cannot be accessories to the illegal scheme of attempting to remove from power a constitutionally elected Government and still continue to have a clear conscience serving the same Government as its employees. Their industrial action will not bring food to the teachers’ tables, something which dialoguing with Government can achieve.
Going forward, it is advisable for teachers unions to consider asking Government for non-monetary incentives such as residential and commercial stands to empower their members.
This is because Government has limited resources in view of the prevailing economic challenges.
Instead of attracting the global media attention through engaging in fruitless and confrontational protests, they should be seen fighting to have workers included in Government empowerment projects so as to ensure that the educators have multiple streams of revenue leading to financial security.
No amount of salary increments can equal being facilitated to buy a residential stand or house by Government.
This is because ordinarily most civil servants cannot afford to buy themselves houses until they retire when they can use their lump sum payouts to buy assets of that value.
One hopes that more civil servants will follow the teachers and Zimta’s examples as they promote harmonious labour relations between Government, the largest employer in Zimbabwe, and civil servants.
