The Sunday News
Dickson Mangena, Business Reporter
WORKERS in the tourism sector have been awarded a minimum of $6 or a 1,5 percent salary increase following negotiations between employees and employers last week.
After the negotiations, the National Employment Council for the Tourism Industry resolved that its three sectors get a salary increase from 1,5 percent to 14 percent. In an interview on Friday, Employers’ Association for Tourism and Safari Operators president, Mr Clement Mukwasi, who represented the National Employment Council for the tourism industry said the sector had negotiated for a minimum of $6 or 1,5 percent to a maximum of $15 salary increases translating to 14 percent.
“We have resolved that we will raise salaries for the three sectors of the industry that include Sector One (leisure), Sector One B (hunting) and Sector Two which is the conservation. For Sector One and One B there will be a 1,5 percent to three percent increase. However, because there are salaries in the sector that can be as low as $250, so we therefore put a minimum increase of $6,” said Mr Mukwasi.
He said for Sector Two the increase had to be regularised to a $15 increase because of the low salaries that workers were earning.
“For Sector Two we regularised salaries for a $15 increase. This also translated to the lowest paid, which is about $120, to get about 14 percent increase. This sector is characterised by very low salaries and that is why we decided to increase by a regularised amount which we thought was fair to both parties, the employer and employee,” Mr Mukwasi said.
Mr Mukwasi said the increases were informed by three factors, the stability of the industry, inflation rate and current basic salaries.
“The resolutions were arrived at after considering the stability of the industry which was considered to be stabilising with a growth projection. The second being the current inflation rate which is stable and expected to remain stable for the coming year, there is a gross domestic growth for the sector and the economy at large. And the third reason being the basic salary in Zimbabwe and cost of living which we are trying to meet or at least try,” Mr Mukwasi said.
He however, said the sector was still characterised by the same challenges that include high cost of doing business and therefore that also informed the amounts to be awarded.
“In as much as we wanted to make the employee happy there was also consideration that the industry is still characterised by high cost of doing business. So we tried to balance,” said Mr Mukwasi.
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