The Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) has described the move by the Government to convert civil servants’ US$300 COVID-19 allowance into a salary as a mere “tissue of misrepresentation”, saying it will not improve teachers’ welfare.
The decision to turn the US$300 allowance into a salary was announced by the Minister of Finance, Economic Development, and Investment Promotion, Mthuli Ncube during the 2024 National Budget presentation.
Last week, members of the uniformed forces and the health sector received the allowances as proper salaries amid indications that State employees are now getting less than in previous years as their USD earnings are now being taxed.
Some unions representing civil servants, such as the Zimbabwe Nurses Association (ZINA), welcomed the conversion of the allowances into pensionable salaries.
However, PTUZ president Takavafira Zhou said the move was not a product of collective bargaining but was “a product of one-armed banditry”. Said Zhou (via NewZimbabwe.com):
Talk that the new salary will transform the teachers’ plight. This is high-sounding nothing and tissue of misrepresentation considering a myriad of taxes and increases announced by the Finance Minister that cumulatively heap burning coals upon the heads of the workers.
Salaries must be a result of binding collective bargaining and not a product of one-armed banditry, and primitive exploitation of the employer in a manner tantamount to slavery.
It is only through logical disputation, broad engagement and social dialogue that there could be industrial harmony in schools…
We therefore call for the urgent restoration of US$540 basic salary of teachers, payment of US$80 education allowance in US$, and other host allowances such as infancy, class teacher, bloated class, A level and responsibility allowances in US$s.
Over the past several years, civil servants have been demanding that the Government raise workers’ salaries to pre-October 2018 levels of US$540 per month for the least-paid employee.
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