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Labour unions should unite

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A LOCAL think-tank the Zimbabwe Democracy Institute has called on the country’s labour unions to shelve their differences, re-organise and unite for the sake of workers.

A LOCAL think-tank the Zimbabwe Democracy Institute has called on the country’s labour unions to shelve their differences, re-organise and unite for the sake of workers.

by Everson Mushava

The Zimbabwe Democracy Institute (ZDI) said the continued job losses in the country threatened to decimate labour unions in their latest August 26 report titled The Economic and Political Contradictions in Zimbabwe Job Losses, which is an economic review.

“The current de-industrialisation and the court rulings as well as the amendments to the Labour Act which allow labour flexibility with a view by the government to invite FDIs, demands that labour unions such as the ZCTU re-organise and respond to stop further job losses,” part of the ZDI report said.

“The ZCTU and other democratic forces such as civil society appreciate the seismic shifts in the political economy for the past 15 years which has created a huge informal sector.”

Zimbabwe has lost over 65 000 workers due to company closures between 2011 and 2014 and further lost over 30 000 jobs since June 16 when the Supreme Court legislated the termination of employee contracts on three months’ notice.

supreme court

The ZCTU tried to sage a demonstration against the job losses after the Supreme Court ruling, but was thwarted by the police in Harare while the protests flopped in other provinces.

In the late 90s, ZCTU under the leadership of MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai used to garner over a million people to stage mass protests and job stay always against policies by President Robert Mugabe’s regime.

But the report said the ZCTU, which used to be vibrant in the late 1990s before the formation of the MDC-T risked sinking into oblivion if it did not re-organise quickly.

Part of the reorganisation, the report said, should be to follow up on former workers now operating in the informal sector and form an alliance to protect jobs.

ZDI said the job carnage was caused by government’s adoption of authoritarianism and neoliberalism in the early 90s after the introduction of the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme.

The situation, the report said, was made worse after the introduction of the land reform programme and indigenisation, where politicians became the new capitalists.

“The rulers became the owners of the means of production through the acquisition of companies, the commercialisation of politics and the politicisation of commerce,” the report said. It is disastrous to have paymasters cum legislators. It’s absolutely not fair to the mass of Zimbabwe. Simply because the former will always want to be on the advantage side,” the report said.