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Zimbabwe: Workers now aware of ZCTU's irrelevance

Zimbabwe: Workers now aware of ZCTU's irrelevance
Posted: Friday, April 6, 2007
The Herald

EDITOR — Let me take this opportunity to congratulate all the progressive workers of Zimbabwe for ignoring ill-conceived calls for a stayaway called this week by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions. The long-suffering workers have long realised that one can not solve anything by staying away from work.

They also now know that the labour body long deviated from its mandate of representing and articulating workers’ interests in pursuit of a political agenda.

Instead of concentrating all their energies towards deliberations in the Tripartite Negotiating Forum to come up with a social contract beneficial to workers, Government and business, ZCTU leaders have half-heartedly applied themselves to the initiative.

It is hard to comprehend why the labour body calls for a stayaway in protest over the same issues the TNF is trying to address.

What is now clear to everyone is that the opposition-inclined ZCTU does not want a successful social contract as it will scupper the MDC's hopes of getting into power on the back of public discontent over prevailing economic hardships.

Wellington Chibebe and Lovemore Matombo have not been of any value to the ordinary worker in Zimbabwe, though they may have been of value to the MDC.

The ZCTU leadership, like their colleagues in the MDC, has failed to read the mood of Zimbabweans and continue to call for mass actions, stayaways, and the like that no longer appeal to the public. If these opposition activists masquerading as trade unionists want to be remembered in history as having contributed something meaningful to the welfare of workers, they must go back to the TNF and vigorously pursue a social contract.

Having said that, Government on its part needs to act quickly to address the deteriorating economic conditions that have reduced workers to near destitute status. Urgent steps need to be taken to remove the economic distortions that the West and its opposition lackeys hope to exploit in their quest for illegal regime change.

Kennedy Chiwa

Harare

Email: zimbabwecrisis@yahoo.com

Visit: Zimbabwe Watch

Labels: ZCTU, ZIMBABWE

posted by MrK @ 6:48 PM