ZIMBABWEAN rail workers paralysed the country’s railway network on Thursday in a strike over pay and in defiance of a government ban, company officials said. “They are on strike and there are no train movements,” a spokesman for the National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ) said. Union officials said a majority of NRZ’s nearly 10000 workers went on strike late on Wednesday to protest against the state-owned operator’s decision not to pay Z$5,25-million in outstanding allowances. NRZ general manager Alvord Mabhena told workers on Tuesday it is beyond the railway’s financial capacity to pay backdated allowances from July 1997 to February 1999. Railway Artisans’ Union (RAU) President Wellington Chibhebhe said the workers had no option but to go on strike because the money had been outstanding for too long.
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