Civil service strike losing steam

By Lance Guma
23 February 2010

A strike by civil servants appeared to be losing steam Tuesday with most government workers interviewed by Newsreel admitting they had gone back to work. Civil servants have been on strike for over two weeks now with government insisting it does not have the money to pay the US$630 a month salaries they are demanding.

Several teachers interviewed on Tuesday said most of them had gone back to work with no progress being reported during the strike. Union leaders, sensing the growing fatigue among their members, have since responded by changing strategy to include the staging of sit-ins at their workplaces starting Monday. They argue the move is designed to ensure no worker is being threatened into defying the strike action.

Tendai Chikowore who chairs the Apex Council that represents all government workers said the sit-in will continue until the 5th March, after which all public service employees will meet to get feed back. ‘If government remains adamant, it must prepare itself for a more crippling and economically damaging course of action,’ he said.

There have been accusations that the strike has been politicized by elements within the ZANU PF regime who see the industrial action as a usefull method of undermining the MDC. Lionel Saungweme, our correspondent in Bulawayo, reports that state security agents and ZANU PF militia have been intimidating teachers in the rural areas to join the strike. This he says has since put off many government workers who feel they are now being used by ZANU PF.

The President of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, Lovemore Matombo, condemned the politicization of the strike, arguing some of the union leaders were shortchanging workers with genuine concerns.

‘From the on-set of this job action we have been suspicious and we are watching it very closely. It’s surprising to see some of the strike drivers who for the past decade, during the economic crisis, refused to join us in such demonstrations but now are mobilizing civil servants to strike. We know these people and some of them have openly declared their patronage to ZANU PF,’ Matombo said.

Last week Friday more than 2000 angry civil servants gathered in Harare and vowed to intensify their strike action if the government did not meet their demands. The group marched in the city centre after hearing that government had refused to change its 10 percent wage increase offer. Just how effective the strike has been remains up for debate. Union leaders insist most of their members are on strike while other reports say otherwise.