Civil servants strike ends

THE Government fulfilled its promise to pay teachers their salaries yesterday.

This has convinced civil servants to immediately call off their three-day national strike that was scheduled to end today. They called the strike on Tuesday over delayed payment of their June salaries.

Apex Council president Mrs Cecelia Alexander said in a statement yesterday that all civil servants should report for duty today.

"The Apex Council, sitting today July 7, 2016, hereby advises all civil servants and health workers to resume work from tomorrow, 8 July 2016. This follows the expiry of the period we had notified the employer as well to create space for further dialogue with the employer regarding the issue in dispute," she said.

Mrs Alexander acknowledged the adjustment of health workers' pay date from July 14 to today but also demanded similar adjustments to be extended to the rest of civil servants.

"While we appreciate the backward adjustment of the pay date for health services to the 8th of July, we further demand that the same adjustment be extended to the rest of civil service whose pay dates should be brought forward to Monday 11 July 2016 or at the latest Tuesday 12 July 2016 in the name of parity," she said.

Mrs Alexander said civil servants would not tolerate what she described as harassment and intimidation by civil service inspectors over the job action. This comes following reports that the inspectors were visiting schools to check on teachers that did not report for duty during the strike.

"The Apex Council will not hesitate to act against whoever harasses or intimidates the generality of its membership for exercising their constitutional right to disagree," she said.

Zimbabwe Teachers' Association (Zimta) president Mr Richard Gundane said teachers should not be victimised for failing to report for duty.

"The strike was always about capacitation. It was driven by the Government's failure to pay teachers their salaries. We made it clear that the educators should not be victimised. The inspectors can do their work because they have been capacitated to do so. But for the educators they also need to the same capacitation to be able to do their job," said Mr Gundane.

Zimta chief executive officer Mr Sifiso Ndlovu described the job action as successful, saying it had achieved its objective of warning the Government against taking its workers' welfare for granted.

"We made a statement to the Government that they should take our issues seriously. We achieved our objective and we feel from now going forward Government will appreciate that we are serious and need to be taken as such," said Mr Ndlovu.

Progressive Teachers' Union of Zimbabwe president Mr Takavafira Zhou congratulated civil servants for embarking on the job action, noting that the Government had heeded their pleas.

"I would like to congratulate all civil servants for the job action. Government has heard us and now we are going back to dialogue. Every industrial action has lessons to be learnt. This one taught us the importance of speaking with one voice as workers," he said.

The health sector is expected to receive their salaries today following President Mugabe's intervention. He underlined the importance of paying critical sectors on time.

The health sector and other civil servants were expected to receive their salaries next week on Thursday.

Teachers who spoke to The Chronicle yesterday said the salaries started reflecting in their bank accounts on Wednesday evening.

"I received a message on my cell phone yesterday stating that my salary has been deposited. Others also said they received similar messages today," said a teacher.