Civil service unions threaten more demonstrations

By Lance Guma
09 March 2010

Leaders from the various civil service unions have resolved to begin a series of hunger strikes and other forms of protest, at the offices of the Public Service Commission, until their wage demands are addressed. The President of the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe, Takavafira Zhou, told Newsreel that despite state workers officially returning to work on Tuesday ‘they were only going back to sharpen their instruments of combat’ and the return did not mean an end to their 4 week strike.

‘We have agreed that the industrial action continues but it must now take on a new dimension involving the leadership,’ Zhou told us. He accused the government of deliberately avoiding the unions and this he says is why they will focus on the Public Service Commission offices in Harare. ‘We want to invite ourselves into their offices and tell them we will not disperse until and unless we have that meeting,’ he said. Some of the leaders have vowed not to eat any food until then.

Civil servants are demanding a basic monthly salary of US$630, but the government says it is broke and cannot afford to offer such increments. The unions have countered by pointing to the controversial diamond wealth that is being plundered by members of the army and other loyalists in Mugabe’s inner-circle. Zhou told us they needed a meeting with government, to try and finalize the matter either way. This he said would clear the way to ‘refer the issue for arbitration,’ if the two parties could not agree.

Meanwhile Newsreel has also been told civil servants are planning a countrywide demonstration on the 16th March, to coincide with the opening of parliament. Zhou appealed to teachers in Harare take part in a march on parliament as they seek to get MP’s to tackle their concerns. Other demonstrations across the country will target all institutions that they view as working against them.