zimfinalpush
PRESS STATEMENT
ARREST OF THREE STRIKING NURSES
The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions deplores the arrest of three nurses from the Harare hospital for allegedly inciting nurses at Parirenyatwa hospital to go on strike.
The police have shown overzealousness in dealing with the matter.
What is more irking is the fact that government dithers in addressing concerns raised by striking doctors and nurses and instead dwells on trivial issues such as arresting innocent people. Nurses and doctors are no different from any other ordinary Zimbabwean worker hence their demands for a wage increase. It is insulting for government to pay nurses at the rate of $108 000 when the Poverty Datum Line that now stands at over $400 000.
If press reports that more than 60 000 people have lost their lives since the beginning of doctors' and nurses' strike are anything to go by, then government should be held solely responsible.
We demand that government should, as a matter of urgency, address the needs of striking nurses and doctors in order to avoid any further loss of lives at hospitals. The nurses who have been arrested should be released without conditions immediately. We also stand by our demand that government should device an effective system of reviewing health personnel and other civil servant's salaries before strike action.
It is high time that business and government address the issue of poverty datum line linked minimum wages at Tripartite Negotiating Forum level to avert strike action in all sectors. Teachers are currently on a go-slow, and indications are that more crippling strike actions are in the offing if wages are not linked to the PDL as a matter of urgency.
Meanwhile, labour is disturbed by utterances of some business community representatives that they fully support the freezing of prices and wages. Dreaming is allowed but not all dreams come true!
This would ideally work in an environment where wages and the PDL are at par. What labour proposes is that prices be frozen first while wages are gradually brought up to the level of PDL. When these two are at par, only then can such proposals be entertained.
The workers of Zimbabwe, who include civil servants, those in the army and police, have been reduced to beggars as they are earning slavery wages and they demand long lasting solutions to the current rot that Zimbabwe finds itself in. Workers are tired of piecemeal and stop-gap measures when it is clear that the crisis we find ourselves in, centers around issues of governance.
We urge government and all other stakeholders to deal with issues of salaries and wages as top priority now to avoid a volatile and potentially explosive year as the workers are now caught between a rock and a hard place.
Workers will react in the way they know best – strike action.
2 February 2007
Wellington Chibebe
SECRETARY GENERAL
Khumbulani Ndlovu
Information Officer
Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions
P.O Box 3549
Harare
Zimbabwe
Information Officer
Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions
P.O Box 3549
Harare
Zimbabwe
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