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Minister Mupfumira

AS we reported in yesterday’s edition, senior officials once again met with representatives of Government workers’ unions regarding the payment of 2016 bonuses.

The meetings are typical of any collective bargaining process where the employer puts on the table what he/she believes is the best offer, while worker representatives counter that by demanding that they get their dues as promised, or even more.

It is always a give-and-take process, but the good thing, as Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Minister Prisca Mupfumira intimated is that they held fruitful discussions.

As one analyst argues, it must be borne in mind that “collective bargaining doesn’t guarantee results sought by workers and unions — it only guarantees both parties the right to bargain hard for their interests and balances power between employers and employees.”

But the bottom-line is that the spirit of dialogue and negotiation should be commended as the two parties seemed to disagree to agree, for every cloud has a silver lining. The meeting was inconclusive, since they slated another meeting for February 20.

Government has kept its doors open because it appreciates that without the workers’ brains and muscle, the whole bureaucratic system would grind to a halt and we believe that they appreciate that even though the issue was not concluded, they reciprocated the olive branches they extended each other, for the workers could have resorted to industrial action, before exhausting all avenues of communication.

This healthy development is a pointer that democracy is alive and well in Zimbabwe, contrary to what some media outlets claim.

However, it was unfortunate that the leaders of the workers’ unions rejected the three offers tabled by Government, even after Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa presented to them the state of the economy.

The current economic challenges are being felt by every sector in the country and when Government presented the three bonus options, we believe that this was done in good faith in order that the workers’ representatives appreciate that unlike in the past when they got their 13th cheque on time, the economic climate is forcing Government to look for alternative and innovative solutions, so that they fulfil their obligation as an employer.

This is why President Mugabe in the past made that assurance that civil servants should be paid their bonuses and Treasury had to get the money and the payments were staggered.

Thus we appeal to employee representatives to look at the issue holistically, bearing in mind the issues that Government has to deal with.

There is no way we can look at the economic situation without factoring the illegal sanctions imposed by the West since the beginning of the millennium. The devastation caused by the sanctions, including the closure of many manufacturing companies, is being felt even at household level.

The incessant droughts have also seen Government diverting funds from other social services in order to import grain. For many years, Government has also poured in lots of funds into the agriculture sector in order to support farmers who benefited under the land reform programme.

In 2016, it also embarked on an ambitious programme — Command Agriculture — to ensure that there is food security across the nation, starting at household level.

There are other areas that require funding from Government — health, education and the rehabilitation of the road network — to name, but a few. So, we believe that as the bargaining process continues, all these variables are taken into consideration, in as much as we understand the principle of rewarding and motivating workers for a job well done.

In the same vein, when we read between the lines some of the remarks made by the workers’ representative, we felt some political undertones. If there are some representatives speaking on behalf of political institutions, we feel that they are doing a disservice to the workers, who wanted their grievances attended to as soon as possible.

Notwithstanding, we encourage that communication channels remain open and that the workers’ grievance receive due attention .