TODAY, Zimbabwe joins the rest of the world in commemorating International Workers’ Day. This day, also known as Labour Day or May Day, is a way of appreciating industry’s vital cog, the worker.
Comment: NewsDay Editor
Clearly, the significance of the worker towards the functionality of a country at large and organisations in general cannot be overemphasized.
Through this day, the worker is meant to be celebrated in pretty much the same way the entire stadium rapturously celebrates the exploits of their gallant sports heroes.
It is a day set aside to bestow honour on the worker. In the true spirit of social equality, the Zimbabwean Constitution has a wide scope for human rights protection, including the right to fair and satisfactory conditions of work as well as the right to form and join trade unions.
Regrettably, the Workers’ Day has become a sad reminder of how the governing Zanu PF has over three decades destroyed the economy and turned most able-bodied persons from workers to loafers.
It is mind-boggling for Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare minister Priscah Mupfumira to want to claim that the future is bright for Zimbabwean workers, when her own Zanu PF government has failed to fulfil its 2013 election promise of creating 2,2 million jobs.
Instead, through bad governance and economic decay nearly 50 000 workers have lost their jobs since the July 2015 Supreme Court ruling, which allowed companies to dispose of their employees without the obligation of compensating them.
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One then wonders, how then can the future of the workers be expected to look bright when the ruling party has failed to initiate at least one project that could generate employment for Zimbabweans.
Is it not ironic that more than 700 000 people laid off from formal employment over the last few years have become informal workers.
While they may have capacity to look after themselves, the major impediment is that they cannot borrow from financial institutions as their creditworthiness is almost zero.
It’s doom and gloom for the majority of Zimbabweans as most mining, manufacturing, farming and other industries are either defunct or operating at quarter mast.
We believe the Zanu PF government has reduced itself to a bad joke, and hence must stop its witticism.
We call on government to revisit all its populist policies for the good of the country. Government must allow industry to retool. They must also stop the continued pillaging of State resources through endemic graft, land grabbing and other abuse of State resources by those at the top.
Under this state of the economy, really what’s there for the workers to celebrate today?
As if it is not enough, most of those lucky to be employed elsewhere in the economy today, are somehow owed their salaries as the companies fail to meet their obligations.
Poor governance by the Zanu PF elite has reduced working to a privilege rather than a right for all as guaranteed by the country’s Constitution.
At this rate, there won’t be any workers to talk about in the not too distant future if Zanu PF is not restrained. Zimbabweans must demand change before it’s too late, whether within Zanu PF itself or outside — change is just a requirement for now!
