High Court ruling vindicates our position, says PDP

Justice Matanda -Moyo yesterday ruled against the idea of retrospective application of the retrenchment conditions for workers who were released on three months' notice following the Supreme Court ruling in the ZUVA case.

The People's Democratic Party be mourns this sad development which exposes ZANU-PF's lack of care for the working class.

We stated that the changes to the labour act were just but a dog's breakfast which would not stand the taste of time; our position has been vindicated by the court.

In our statement on the issue we stated that ZANU-PF was not willing to protect the rights of the workers because they were conflating their party with comprador activities where most of the ruling elite are deeply imbedded in tender- preneurship, they own companies which hire and fire.

The cartel masquerading as the ruling party has since abandoned their pseudo socialist approach embracing corruption ridden state capitalism.

A proper pro-labour law would disadvantage them therefore they insincerely made a half hearted commitment with the aim of being seen to be doing something in reaction to what had been a crisis.

Our party's contention has always been that parliament needed only attend to the grey area exposed by the Supreme Court instead of a wholesale approach which left workers in a worse off position.

We mentioned that young workers would not benefit from the new arrangements in that most of them had not worked for long periods therefore being paid two weeks salary for every year of service would mean they hardly get anything on termination.

More importantly ZANUPF did not pay attention when we stated that employers would soon flock the courts challenging the constitutionality of the new arrangement.

In the Holistic Program for Economic Transformation (HOPE) we propose a highly consulting state which will work through the Zimbabwe Development Council (ZDC) a policy making platform which includes government, business, labour and the broader civil society.

ZDC which will be modelled along the lines of the South African NEDLAC is the PDP's way of addressing the interests of key actors in the economy. If ZANUPF had been using this approach workers in Zimbabwe would be protected. At the present moment they are exposed to the employer who is profit driven.

We therefore suggest the establishment of the Tripartite National Forum as a matter of urgency; among other issues the platform must address the labour laws of the country. We are however aware of the fact that ZANUPF is deliberately dithering in the establishment of the TNF, they want to continuously act unilaterally at the expense of the people of Zimbabwe.
 
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