Civil servants resolve to go on partial strike

RESTIVE civil servants have resolved to go on a partial strike which will see them work just two days a week after insisting their current earnings can no longer sustain their livelihoods.

This comes as recent meetings between the government employees and their employer under the National Joint Negotiating Council (NJNC) failed to find a solution to the wage dispute.

In the latest meeting between the two parties before Easter, the government had proposed a 25 percent pay rise backdated to last month while another 50 percent would be implemented in June, but the workers rejected the offer.

This also comes as Home Affairs minister Kazembe Kazembe yesterday told senators that the government understood the civil servants' plight and is working to improve their welfare.

Speaking after an Apex Council urgent meeting in the capital yesterday, organising secretary Charles Chinosengwa said the government was negotiating in bad faith with its workers.   

"It was agreed we are incapacitated and we will be working two days per week from now on.

"We are demanding that the roadmap agreed in November 2020 be followed.

"The government is negotiating in bad faith. They are now using social media to negotiate and we are now writing informing them of our incapacitation," Chinosengwa said.

The meeting, which was attended by all the 16 unions represented under the Apex Council - the union that represents civil servants in salary negotiations with their employer- then agreed to work two days a week, which are Mondays and Tuesdays.

Meanwhile, responding to senators yesterday during a question and answer session, Kazembe said the government employees should be content with their current salaries since the economy was on the rebound.

The senators had said because of poor salaries, members of the police force were now resorting to taking bribes to make ends meet and wanted to know what the was government doing to address this problem.

"On salary issues, we all know that Zimbabwe is going through a phase known as a transition period where the country's economy is stabilising.

"President Emmerson Mnangagwa has implemented a number of policies to tackle the economic hardships the country was facing.

"For now, our economy is stabilising which is why the government is consulting with its employees to solve these salary disputes.

"Workers should not be complaining much about salaries because they are in line with the economic situation the country is going through," Kazembe said.