May Day is a day where workers meet and discuss challenges which they are facing in different spheres of industry.
By Leonard Koni,Our Reader
It is a special day which is celebrated all over the globe to assess and improve the working conditions of the worker.
It is so disheartening to see the day in Zimbabwe being reduced to just any other day and workers’ issues not being attended to and addressed in a cordial manner. This has been happening for the past decade due to political indifference.
The largest labour organisation in Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, when Morgan Tsvangirai (now MDC-T leader) was still at helm, proved that it was such a strong body which represented the workers’ interests.
Today, with the biting economic hardships, low production in local companies and unfriendly environment for investment, among other problems, workers continue to suffer and cannot exercise their constitutional right to be fairly represented on labour issues.
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The July 17 2015 Supreme Court ruling last year caused disharmony between the worker and the employer, pulling the country back to colonial days when the employer used to abuse and fire workers willy-nilly.
However, in the post-Independecne era, every worker would celebrate May Day. Most of the workers from the public and private sector would be smiling and expecting wage increases and better working conditions. All this has been lost.
The true spirit of representing the workers has been drowned in political demagoguery and workers left in the cold.
There is no reason any longer to celebrate the Workers’ Day as most former employees are now jobless and most have resorted to vending to make ends meet. Some can no longer even pay school fees for their children and are living in abject poverty.
The promised two million jobs by the ruling party were just a political gimmick as more people are losing jobs instead amid massive retrenchments around the country.