A senior Zimbabwe labour official dismissed on Tuesday government threats to crush street marches planned for Wednesday by the main trade union, saying the authorities were panicking.
President Robert Mugabe’s government has been shaken by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) plans to hold the processions, judging by the prominence the proposed action has been given in state media, said ZCTU secretary general Wellington Chibebe.
”They are very much shaken. It’s not often that we get headline news [in state media],” he told said on Tuesday. ”They have reacted in a panicked manner.”
The security and labour ministers, as well as police, have all warned the ZCTU not to go ahead with the marches in statements carried on the front pages of the main government-run newspapers.
The marches — which have already been declared illegal by the police — will protest low wages, a fast-deteriorating economic situation and lack of access to anti-retroviral drugs for those living with HIV, among other issues.
Labour Minister Nicholas Goche was quoted as saying in Tuesday’s Herald newspaper that the marches were not justifiable.
He said it was not workers alone who were suffering from the lack of antiretrovirals (ARVs) in Zimbabwe, claiming it was a national problem.
The minister also accused the union, an ally of the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), of having a hidden political agenda.
But Chibebe alleged that the government, which is the biggest employer in Zimbabwe, was one of the worst violators of workers rights.
The union boss said that the government was still paying some of its workers a monthly wage of Z$9 000 ($36).
”They are not paying. They should not fool the world,” he said.
”And they said the scarcity of ARVs was very much a labour issue,” Chibebe said.
Workers who contribute 3% of their salaries to a government Aids levy were seeing no benefit in the form of free ARV treatment, the ZCTU boss noted.
Only 33 000 people living with HIV are currently receiving life-prolonging ARVs, out of at least 340 000 in need, according to official figures. Around one in five adults are infected with HIV.
Police on Tuesday said that the situation across Zimbabwe was calm, warning that the long arm of the law would deal with any malcontents, state radio reported. — Sapa-dpa