Following the recent announcement by Finance Minister Professor Mthuli Ncube that the Government had offered civil servants a 100 percent pay hike, I received an e-mail from a worker in industry, asking why the Government had not increased the salaries of workers in the private sector as well. 

“We are suffering due to poor remuneration. Our employers say they cannot increase our salaries because production levels are low and they are not making any profits due to persistent power outages. Why does the Government not increase our salaries as it used to do in the past?” reads the e-mail in part.

It is true that soon after independence, the Government determined salary increments for most workers in the country, including those in the private sector, through the Minimum Wages Act which was introduced in July 1980.

The Act allowed the Labour Minister to set national minimum wages for workers in all sectors of the economy.

However, the Act was revoked and the responsibility of determining salary increments for workers in the private sector is now in the hands of employers and trade unions.

In the public sector, salary increments are determined by the Government and workers’ representatives through their umbrella body — the Joint Negotiation Council. As can be seen, currently there exist two different systems of collective bargaining and wage/salary determination in the country — one for the public sector and the other for the private sector. 

 Through hindsight, it can be seen that when the Government gave employers and labor unions the mandate to determine salary increments for workers in the private sector, labour unions across the length and breadth of the country hailed this as a progressive move that would usher in a rich socio-economic harvest for workers in the private sector.

Workers began to envision a scenario where industry would be transformed into the biblical Garden of Eden with decent emoluments for all workers, improved working conditions and respect for workers’ rights. But alas, this has turned out to be mere wishful thinking.

Truth be told, since employers and labour unions assumed the responsibility of negotiating salary increments for workers in the private sector, workers in industry have toiled for wages/salaries that have remained characteristically pathetic and far below the alleviation of poverty stratum.

The Total Consumption Poverty Line (TCPL), commonly referred to as the Poverty Datum Line (PDL), for an average household of 5 persons stood at ZW$2 191.62 in September last year, according to the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (Zimstat).  The PDL reached $3 700 last November, a 15,7 percent rise from October’s $3 160.  This means an average household required that much to buy both food and non-food items for them not to be deemed poor.

The heart-rending reality is that the average worker in industry today toils for a measly ZW$300 a month, according to one survey.

This scribe’s views and perceptions are based on experience.  I joined industry in 1985 after a 5-year stint in the Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA). In industry, I became involved in trade unionism as a workers’ representative for several years.

As a workers’ representative, I attended a plethora of wage/salary negotiations at both company and National Employment Council (NEC) levels. 

One pertinent observation I made during the salary negotiations I attended, is that employers in industry always bury their heads in the sand like ostriches when asked to increase the salaries of their workers. They always contend that they cannot hike workers’ salaries because their enterprises are in the doldrums in terms of productivity and profitability. 

The tragic irony is that they use the same tired mantra today to keep hordes of workers in industry in the death-trap of economic destitution. 

Shockingly though, the same employers pay company executives hefty salaries that, according to some well-placed sources in industry, exceed ZW$17 000 a month when allowances are factored in. 

These company executives drive ostentatious German car models and own grandiose, mountain-side palatial mansions in exclusive suburbs.

Some of them spend their lucrative, company-sponsored annual holidays in Victoria Falls, Hwange National Park, Great Zimbabwe, Nyanga and various other holiday resorts. Others fly out of the country to spend their holidays on the ski-slopes of Europe.

It is quite heart-breaking to note that while company executives in industry live like Hollywood stars, ordinary workers are literally scrounging around to eke out a living. They foot or cycle to and from work daily — even during the middle of the night when they are on night shift.

These workers are so impoverished that they often fail to travel to their rural homes to be with their families during their annual shut-down. It is really sad.  

While workers blame employers for their economic woes, I think it would be naivety of elephantine proportions to exonerate labour unions, as they are equally to blame. 

If what is currently happening in industry is anything to go by, it would not be totally incorrect to conjecture that the struggle for economic justice in industry is now a lost one. Alas, it is a struggle that has failed ignominiously to yield the expected bumper harvest of decent remuneration for the generality of workers in industry.

This is primarily because the struggle has been hijacked by opportunism, hypocrisy, self-aggrandisement and an insatiable appetite for instant riches by some union leaders. 

It is no secret that labour leaders in industry have, for the proverbial 30 pieces of silver, abrogated their role of serving the interests of workers and are conniving with employers in sanctioning policies that perpetuate the economic subjugation of the very workers whose interests they are supposed to serve. What a shocking paradox! 

Parting point: With all due respect, my submission is that in order to bail workers in industry from the searing poverty that are in, the Government should revert to its previous role of negotiating their salary increments. 

Employers in industry are generally motivated by greed and avarice, and to expect them to pay workers decent salaries without being compelled to do so by some form of legislation is a naïve expectation that can only be found in a utopian world which does not exist.

• Cuthbert Mavheko is a freelance journalist living in Bulawayo.
• Source: Chronicle