ZCTU threatens more protests for better pay and living conditions

By Lance Guma
06 December

The President of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), Lovemore Matombo has announced plans by the union to call for more demonstrations pressing for better pay and improved living conditions for workers. In an interview with Newsreel Wednesday Matombo said the brutal response of the police towards their protest in September would not deter them from engaging in further protests. He says the General Council of the ZCTU decided at meetings held on the 1 st and 2 nd December that the action was necessary and has since started consulting the general membership.

Matombo says ‘no worker can ever be intimidated under the conditions they were living in.’ He says the September beatings have served to re-invigorate their fighting spirit and other beatings would just serve to inspire them further. The ZCTU will give opportunity to parliament for the budget presented by the finance minister to be debated in the interim. Once this is done and the budget is implemented in January next year the union will review the situation to see if there are any improvements to the situation.

Asked whether they might consider stay-aways as opposed to street demonstrations, Matombo said he understood why people were making those kinds of suggestions given the ruthless response of the police. He however reminded people of how they were constantly criticised for ‘recycling’ the stay-away strategy and that people were finally revisiting it only after witnessing the police brutality. Matombo told Newsreel they are open to all forms of protest and that they will soon decide what the best form of action will be.

The ZCTU leader expressed disappointment with the government attitude towards the labour union saying the regime was acting just like the white settler regime before independence that opposed any form of union activity. ‘The same policies of the settler regime have occupied the current government,’ he said. Matombo said it was a crime against humanity for close to 90 percent of the population to be living under the poverty datum line and as a union these were issues of concern to them since they affected workers.