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Zimbabwe civil servants declare open-ended strike over pay
Published in Saudi Press Agency on 05 - 02 - 2010

Civil servants in Zimbabwe today announced an
open-ended strike after turning down what they called the
government's "pathetic offer" of a fractional wage increase, according to dpa.
"There has hasn't been a positive development to improve the offer
the government gave us (in January), which has been rejected," said
Tendai Chikowore, the president of Zimbabwe Public Service
Association (ZPSA), after a meeting of about 5,000 unionized workers
in the capital Harare, where they decided on immediate strike action.
The ZPSA represents around 200,000 civil servants, mostly
teachers.
The workers had asked for the salary of the lowest-paid public
workers to be increased from 120 dollars a month currently to 630
dollars.
The cash-strapped power-sharing government, which is still
recovering from a severe economic meltdown in 2008, had offered to
increase their salaries to 122 dollars in February, rising to 134
dollars in April.
Many teachers failed to turn up to school on Friday in
anticipation of the decision, which followed the expiration of a two-
week ultimatum by the ZPSA and associated unions to the government.
"This (striking) is the only language the government understands.
They stretched our patience for a long time. Enough is enough,"
Takavafira Zhou, president of the Progressive Teachers Union of
Zimbabwe, said.
Public Service Minister Eliphas Mukonoweshuro appeared surprised.
"I am yet to get that information (of the strike announcement),"
he told the German Press Agency dpa, adding: "I thought negotiations
would break this impasse."
The dispute comes as the unity government, headed by President
Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, prepares to mark
its first anniversary on February 11, with little to show in terms of
reforms.
For most of the past year, Mugabe's Zanu-PF and Tsvangirai's
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) have been at each other's
throats, both accusing the other party of stalling progress towards
economic recovery.
"When the GNU (government of national unity) was formed we
rejoiced as we thought it was the panacea to our socio-political and
economic challenges," Chikowore said.
Accusing the government of being more interested in self-
enrichment than the welfare of workers, she said: "Today we wonder
whether this was a correct premise."


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