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As a result, salaries are determined within the context of the social and economic forces which influence the demand and supply of labour.
In Zimbabwe’s case the supply of labour to the public service is a function of many variables involving direct measurable monetary rewards such as salaries and allowances and indirect monetary gain like job security and chances of success.

The effect of low levels of remuneration in the public sector perpetuates the vicious circle of poverty and under-development. It should be understood that individuals participate in the economy not only as factors of production but also as both consumers and recipients of the benefits generated by the production process.
The degree of participation of the population in the labour force has a vital role in determining the social and economic welfare of a given society. The larger the labour force with the capital, natural resources and technology, the greater the economic capacity to produce goods and services.

While the efficient utilisation of labour in an economic system facilitates the attainment of goods and services, the level of goods and services set by the economy also determines the demand for labour.
Low pay presents problems to an economy. Low wages translate into economic inefficiency resulting in capacity under-utilisation of labour. Labour, as one of the key factors of production, combines with other factors to produce goods and services.
Hence, the economy is adversely affected through inefficiency and poor service delivery. Socially, meagre remuneration causes poverty. Also, low wages offend people on the grounds of social justice and fairness.

Civil servants have since the advent of the coalition Government cried out for a living remuneration package because their salaries have been a far cry from what they expected.
The salaries averaging US$150 are way off the monthly budget for a family of six which stands at US$502. Last November, Finance Minister Mr Tendai Biti announced an increase in civil service earnings.
However, after three months of creating false hope, he backtracked on his pronouncement, agonisingly refuting that he ever revealed plans to double the earnings of Government employees.

He argued that the US$1,4 billion he set aside was not only for salaries but also for pensions, medical aid and social services. The Apex Council — an umbrella body representing the country’s close to 260 000 civil servants — has intensified efforts to have its constituency’s salaries increased oblivious to the fact that once a national budget has been adopted by Parliament, it cannot be altered willy-nilly and that changes to it can only be effected through a supplementary budget.

The labour unions representing civil servants have shown ineffectiveness in making timely, forceful and constructive engagement with Government. Minister Biti says Zimbabwe is operating on a tight budget and, hence, cannot meet the civil servants’ demands.
He has even challenged them to identify any sources of money that he can dish out. It is my considered view that members of the Apex Council should be proactive.

They should have represented workers before the presentation of the 2011 National Budget. They left things too late. It is clear that any change to salaries will only be marginal. The biggest letdown has been labour representation.
After last year’s hype around proposed salary increments, the lowest paid is earning US$128 per month, inclusive of allowances. Such a meagre increase is economically unsustainable against a backdrop of an insurmountable array of needs.

Civil servants are overburdened by an unbearable load of debts and arrears in the form of rates, electricity and water bills, school fees and rentals. Food costs also provide a challenge on their little salary.
Low pay is a salary too low to give the recipient an adequate standard of living and is measured relative to the cost of living. The Poverty Datum Line (PDL) — a standard measure of how well or worse off a worker is — is US$502 and makes the salary increase a mockery.
Civil servants want a minimum salary pegged against the PDL. However, Public Service Minister Professor Eliphas Mukonoweshuro thinks they are “crybabies”, arguing that nobody in Government is living a life better than theirs.

Was the minister concerned about the welfare of Government employees or was he, in fact, insulting their intelligence? Surely, increasing basic salary by just US$6 is an assault on their dignity.
I can confirm with absolute certainty that civil servants who are not engaged in other income-generating activities to supplement their sorrowful incomes are languishing in misery.
The country’s civil servants have proved to be a special breed of highly resilient people that can survive very traumatic circumstances.
They are generally characterised by deplorable wages, high stress levels and low morale among other pitiful factors.
That explains why the more daring ones — no doubt afraid of starvation — regularly engage in such vices as corruption and theft for survival.
An exodus of professionals in the public service would not be surprising. Government has shown inability to retain those workers who have sacrificed for far too long with the hope that their situation would improve.
It is a fact that the only way of improving living standards of civil servants is to raise their salaries to at least US$502 for the lowest paid. The current income discrepancies between and among civil servants of the same occupation and grade are unjust and unbearable.
For example, the incomes of teachers in the same grade are determined by the type and location of the schools they work for. A teacher at a former group A school gets a handsome incentive package of at least US$250 while someone at a remote rural school gets either nothing or as little as US$20 a term.
Even teachers who work in towns get different incentives depending on the nature of school. Civil servants in other ministries, despite having similar qualifications that attract increased workloads, do not get any incentives at all.
This goes to show the chaotic nature of the income structure of the civil service. One fundamental problem can be discerned from this: while Government needs workers, it cannot afford to adequately remunerate them. Unwittingly, Government is dividing civil servants by encouraging schools to offer incentives to teachers as a retention strategy while leaving non-teaching members of the civil service to make do with miserable salaries from Treasury.
This is not only unfair but also unethical. Government needs to come up with a holistic approach that provides lasting solutions to its pay structure. It has tried to offer non-income incentives such as houses or stands and cars, but it appears all this is a gimmick because it has no capacity to provide these to all civil servants.
Most non-monetary incentives require money which Treasury says it does not have. While it is recognised that revenue inflows are constrained, it is more of how the money is used than its insufficiency.
The big question is how has the Minister of Finance been allocating financial resources to the various cost centres? Government is implementing a lot of projects which are consuming a lot of money.
Activities like the constitution-making process, allocations to the Constituency Development Fund and various other expenditures are consuming so much.
Members of Parliament, I believe, are not supposed to be subsisted by Government given our economic circumstances and should not, therefore, rely on the fiscus for their upkeep when deserving civil servants are living from hand to mouth.
Moreover, the Government itself is bloated and chewing a lot of resources because its organisational structure was created to accommodate all the three political parties that form the inclusive Government.
The Finance Ministry is prioritising other issues, denying civil servants what they deserve. It is with much trepidation that negotiations for better remuneration and improved working conditions have yielded nothing.

Civil servants have in the past spoken of their intention to strike, but this route is less desirable as it will cripple business. Everyone in the country relies on the functionality of Government.
The civil servants have grown impatient. The Government, too, has been making empty promises and has caused frustration among its workforce. Treasury’s failure to improve the welfare of civil servants has created conditions for the flagrant violation of the mission, vision and ethics of the public service.

The Public Service Commission is committed “to providing quality service through a responsive, skilled and professional workforce that meets the expectations of the public it services” and its vision is “to build a responsive, skilled and professional workforce that will improve service delivery”.
Surely the low morale in the civil service will not encourage Government workers to provide quality service. Again, the vision to build a responsive professional workforce will not be realised as experts may migrate to better paying jobs.

The attitude of those who preside over the public service, including their conduct towards employees and other stakeholders, defines the ethics of the public service.
High standards of ethical behaviour demand that the public service treats its employees in a fair and honest manner. It is also a blatant display of unethical behaviour for the public service to fail to adhere to laws and regulations relating to fair employment practices.

The maintenance of high ethical standards improves proficiency of workers, eliminates high staff turnover, builds public trust, attracts and keeps employees of the highest calibre, resulting in efficient service delivery.

The manner in which civil servants are being treated definitely has far-reaching repercussions on the future operations of the sector. Causes of low pay in the public sector are found in the nature of decisions by those who preside over the civil service, depressed economic performance caused by sanctions which limits revenue inflows and a badly organised and weak union representation.
Just as the prices of goods and services are determined by forces of supply and demand in a competitive market, so is labour, as wages and income levels are basically determined by the number of workers willing to assume certain occupations and the willingness of employers to utilise workers at various wage levels and tasks.

If Government has managed to retain key personnel with a lot of other experts on the waiting list eager to join, then the Government might not be compelled to pay more.
Moreover, the Minister of Finance froze the recruitment of manpower even in critical areas such as health. Government seems not to be in a hurry to pay living wages because those who allocate resources appear to be thinking that merely arguing that people have a right to a certain wage is a weak economic argument.

Given the continued unsatisfactory salary levels in the public sector, it seems the existing wage determination system, among other related factors, has stifled the supply of labour, thereby militating against the economy’s development.

The country needs to find out how the wage determination system can be managed to attract and retain the labour force for the economy to realise growth and development.
It is against this background that labour studies are needed to provide linkages between wage rates, employment patterns and national output levels, unearth the effects of the existing wage determination mechanism on the demand and supply of labour; carry out diagnostic analyses to establish variables that cause unemployment in the economy, examine factors that determine availability of labour in the economy and recommend a wage determination system for Zimbabwe to ensure a constant supply of labour for economic growth and development.
l Maxwell Tungamirai Sunduza is an educationist and social commentator.-The Sunday Mail