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Civil servants will stage a two-day strike on Wednesday and Thursday this week demanding United States dollar salaries at the same level as they were paid before October 2018 when Zimbabwe lifted the 1:1 pegging between the United States dollar and the bond note.
The government raised salaries by 100 percent this month, but unions say the pay award was arbitrary and fell far too short of their demands for at least US$540 to the lowest paid worker.
Inflation of 191 percent in June only roiled the workers.
Public sector workers were this month paid US$175 including a Covid-19 allowance, as well as a minimum RTGS dollar component of about Z$60,000 (about US$75).
A 14-day notice to the government to avert strikes expired on July 22, and now unions have decided to apply pressure through strikes.
In a letter to public service minister Paul Mavhima on Monday, the unions united under the banner of the Zimbabwe Confederation of Public Sector Trade Unions (ZCPSU) made a string of demands.
They said: “The ZCPSU hereby notify your office of a planned two-day job stoppage commencing on Wednesday, July 27, 2022, ending on Thursday, July 28, 2022.
“We wish to restate the demands as follows: a restoration of the value of our wages to pre-October 2018 levels, to be paid in USD and not in ZWL with immediate effect.
“A stop to the wave of suspensions, summary dismissals, illegal disallowances and victimisation of teachers and nurses for exercising their constitutional right to organise and to a fair and reasonable wage.”
Unions are also alarmed by threats to some of their members, and the collapse of their medical aid scheme at PSMAS.
“The employer should desist from the bashing of union leadership for exercising their representative roles as messengers of their voiceless membership,” they said.
“The employer should speedily implement all collective agreements fully as in school fees payment for the children of educators, regrading and performance advancement.
“A speedy alignment of the labour law regime towards the establishment of a long overdue collective bargaining council.”
Unions also want “the payment of a medical allowance to all civil servants without discrimination.”
The strike will involve health workers, teachers and the rest of the civil service after all the unions signed up. ZimLive
