ZIMTA Pleads With Teachers To Return To Work
The Zimbabwe Teachers’ Association (ZIMTA) National Executive has appealed to teachers who live close to their workstations to resume their duties as soon as possible.
ZIMTA officials met this Saturday to deliberate on the salary offer made by the Government to civil servants during a National Joint Negotiating Council (NJNC) meeting held yesterday.
The ZIMTA National Executive, which is made up of 26 elected members and 5 appointed officers, decided that educators should return to class while negotiations with the Government for better working conditions under the NJNC framework continue.
In a statement issued after the meeting today, ZIMTA expressed hope that its members will understand the need to resolve their differences with the Government amicably before their relationship completely breaks down. ZIMTA said:
The National Executive acknowledged that these principles should be put in the kit, while like “Oliver Twist”, we go back for some more as NJNC resolved to pursue quarterly reviews.
With finer details of the awards continuing to be exposed, we believe our members will understand the desire to de-escalate this tiff before it crosses the rubicon of peace and degenerates into a full industrial conflict.
Thus, we plead with members, in particular, those within school environs or who are within reach and without heavy financial challenges to give our learners a chance to get back to school and commence lessons as soon as is practically possible.
Here are the other issues that the ZIMTA National Executive observed and took note of following yesterday’s NJNC meeting:
- The ZWL component of the salary had in the D1 grade as adjusted represents an equivalent of USD $200 at obtaining auction rate.
- The USD component as adjusted from March 2022 and made up of salary + Covid allowance will be USD $175.
- This will give a total of USD $375 movement towards the restoration of the pre-October 2018 salary level of USD $540 for D1 grade then. This will represent 69%.
- Discounted for current inflation and as set in the ZIMTA demand for 2022, of USD $671 this movement would represent 55% of the distance covered towards the minimum poverty line.
- De-bunching/ Decompression of salaries whose provision has been made by Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, and to be applied with immediate effect has an effect of compounding the ZWL offer and improving it beyond 20%.
- The National Executive agreed to approach the Government within the next 24 hours so that the whole scale suspension of teachers and members can be lifted following which members shall be comfortable in reporting for duty.
- Meanwhile, we appeal and urge Government to avoid stoking the furnace by applying retributive measures and at the same time be considerate of the teachers’ response time, which may include waiting for the payday for some teachers.
- We take this action to preserve goodwill and utmost good faith in education and its personnel, while we continue to negotiate with all the relevant authorities.
