OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Thursday 2.00pm.
ZIMBABWE’s government called an emergency meeting with civil servants on Thursday after they threatened to strike if demands for a 150% pay hike are not met.
Sources in the various unions among the 155000 civil servants said the government — which last month awarded cabinet ministers and parliamentarians up to 300% pay hikes — has offered the workers 40%.
“We feel there is no justification for government to say they cannot give us 150% salary increases when they awared ministers 237%,” said one source in the teachers’ association, the largest of the government workers’ unions.
The strike decision was reached early this week following an impasse in negotiations between government and its workers, the union sources said.
The government was aiming in the resumed talks on Thursday to reach an agreement in time for salaries to be processed during the first week of January.
However, one union source said if no agreement is reached by the end of the day on Thursday, “then the inevitable will happen.”
The least that trade unions expect is a hike to match inflation, which peaked at 70% in October.
The umbrella body of all the trade unions in the country, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, has meanwhile called for a 40% cost of living adjustment for all workers from next month, in addition to traditional annual pay reviews.