The Sunday News
Dumisani Sibanda, Sunday News Correspondent
Lelilizwe alilamali,
Heyi alilamali,
Lelilizwe ligcwele olova
Heyi ligcwele olova
These are lyrics- about how the country is plagued by unemployment- from one of the great hits from none other than musical maestro, Lovemore Majaivana, who grew up in the sprawling township of Mzilikazi in Bulawayo.
The tune now being hummed by a fifty something year- old man while overdosing a cough mixture referred to in ghetto language as Ngoma used as a cheap intoxicant trying to erase off his mind everyday worries of where to get money to buy food to keep body and soul together.
When Majaivana was growing up in Mzilikazi, the likes of Sikhumbuzo would have been waking up before dawn to be the first at an Employment Exchange Centre near Makokoba known as KoVundu a few kilometres from Mzilikazi as he hunted for a job with options to try his luck at Dunlop Tyre Manufacturing Company in the Donnington area always in search of a labour force or Merlin Textiles Concern or Connolly engineering firm or Archer Clothing or National Foods Company, suffice to say the list is endless.
However, some of these industrial giants which used to employ thousands of people have either scaled down or closed totally, with some in extreme circumstances, having their premises now being used as churches- which are now pontificating the prosperity gospel in the midst of nothingness- reminding atheists of Karl Max’s popular theory that “religion is the opium of the people”.
That, church business is the booming one in the country is a pedestrian statement of the obvious as one does not have to look beyond the riches of some of these charismatic man of the cloth to make such a conclusion.
Remember, desperate as Sikhumbuzo is, these prosperity gospel preachers insist he should pay his tithes for God to change his fortunes.
But back to the job losses, when the tell-tell signs of job losses began to show in the 1990s, Majaivana who grew up in what could aptly be described as the Manchester of Zimbabwe or the country’s industrial hub, Bulawayo, composed the tune about loafers, making a distress call about the state of the economy.
His tune is true now than ever as for the likes of the jobless Sikhumbuzo, getting a job has been reduced to “utopian romanticism” or simple put is now a fantasy that therefore only exists in his dreams.
The man has also given up on asking for his redundancy package from his employer that should amount to $12 000 or even talking about it.
He cannot talk about how he would buy a Honda Fit if he were to be by a remote stroke of luck be paid his package so that he could use the vehicle as a pirate taxi, in other words carry passengers nicodemously when hopefully the traffic police would have retired to bed as such useless dreams could lead to some concluding he should be seeking treatment for a mental illness.
Such is the life of many who were retrenched when a July 17, Supreme Court Ruling led employers to stampede to lay off workers. In July 2015, the Supreme Court passed a ruling that empowered companies to fire workers on notice without compensation, triggering the wave of dismissals. It is estimated by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Union that about 20 000 workers, others put the figure at 38 000 workers were laid off during that period but the Employers Confederation of Zimbabwe puts the figure at about 5 000.
As Zimbabweans join the rest of the world in marking Workers Day, today, the workers here say they have virtually little if anything to celebrate as summed up by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Union chairperson of the Western Region, Mr Reason Ngwenya.
“The state of the worker is so pathetic, Workers Day is just a commemoration otherwise there is nothing to celebrate,” he says in his usual nonchalant manner characteristic of many local trade unionists who are beginning to becoming despondent at the prospect of having a happy worker.
“We will be at White City Stadium (in Bulawayo) and we have invited all the workers including those who were retrenched because they are part of the workforce.”
Even the ZCTU itself , which Mr Ngwenya represents is suffering as it struggles to survive financially.
Part of its revenue is from the subscriptions of its members but a look at the job losses sector by sector from the 1990s when the “devilish” Bretton Woods inspired Economic Structural Adjustment Programme was introduced reveals a grim picture.
Economic sanctions that were imposed on Zimbabwe over the land reform programme has not helped the situation either. The clothing and textile industries’ unions have seen their membership drop to about 8 000, from about 35 000 in the mid 1990s.
Such a sad tale is the reason the likes of trade unionist Mr Ngwenya say there is “nothing to celebrate”, today, May Day, which ironically sounds similar to Mayday, an internationally recognised word as a distress call.
In the 1980s to 90s, May Day was not a distress call as it is likely to be today, but a day the likes of Sikhumbuzo would be glued to their radios or throng various stadia such as Rufaro Stadium in Harare, White City Stadium in Bulawayo, Mkoba Stadium in Gweru, the home of shoe manufacturing concern, Bata, Rudhaka Stadium in the gold mining town of Kadoma, Sakubva Stadium in Mutare and Hwange Colliery Stadium in Hwange the coalmining town and many others, to hear announcements on increase in minimum wage or some other aspect on the improvement of a worker’s welfare.
Instead the day has been reduced to one to commiserating with the worker.
“Look there are no jobs, people are sent on early retirement, others are just retrenched and there are no packages that are offered to these workers,” says Mr Ngwenya. “ The Supreme Court Ruling triggered the retrenchment of 20 000 workers. Most of the casualties have not been paid their packages. Salary payments vary from company to company. But I can say about 50 percent of the companies are not paying their workers including parastatals. If you raise your voice about your salary- which is a right- you are retrenched.”
The trade unionist says what is now happening could be classified as “modern day slavery” as employers now have a carte blanche licence to do as they please.
“What is disappointing is that most of these companies are owned by us Africans and we behave in such an arrogant and cruel manner. At least in the past if President Mugabe raised alarm on these issues the white employers would be afraid and rectify the situation and not our black employers.”
Labour expert Mr Dumiso Davies Sibanda, also points out the situation of the worker is not an enviable one and says this is due mostly to the depressed economic situation in the country.
“I think the worker’s position is very bad infact extremely bad,” he explains. “We have salaries that can’t go round.
We have workers working without being paid. Those who are being paid have salary arrears. In 2008, it was better because there were jobs and there was some hope things would change. In a big city like Bulawayo you can actually count on your fingers the number of companies that pay salaries on time.”
Although, given the situation in the job market, some skeptics have said unions now virtually have no role to play, Mr Sibanda says to the contrary they are needed now more than before.
“Unions are needed to service employees who remain in the formal sector,” he says. “They are necessary to safeguard the rights of these workers. But the state of the worker is in a precarious situation because of the challenges presented by the state of the economy. At the moment, the labour legislation is dwarfed by the situation. Our labour legislation was not designed with the current labour situation in mind. It was not envisaged.”
Mr Sibanda says the retrenchment scenario presented by the 17 July Supreme Court ruling, has now opened doors for unscrupulous employers to resort to this measure as a way of dismissing workers instead of following the more expensive through the labour courts. The labour expert points it is necessary to have unions continue to highlight the plight of the worker.
“Workers unions should continue to be the voice saying things are bad and the Government will eventually listen and engage everybody for a lasting solution to the problem,” he says.
In December last year, the president of the Employers Confederation of Zimbabwe, Mr Joe Kahwema, pointed out that employers were finding it difficult to pay workers because of the economic situation and conceded that some employers were finding it difficult to pay the redundancy packages.
But others argue that while there have been job losses in the formal sector the informal sector has grown.
The situation where at every corner in the central business district in major towns, there is a vendor is seen as some form of employment.
But economists have pointed to the fact that there is now overtrading and very small incomes are being made from the informal sector which barely meet their daily needs.
According to a labour think tank , the Labour and Economic Development Research Institute of Zimbabwe, ( LEDRIZ), throughout the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (Esap) period from 1991 to 1996, the informal economy continued to expand as more workers continued to lose their jobs and those that were able to keep their jobs had to supplement their incomes from informal economy activities, due to the fall in real income.
A research by LEDRIZ established that labour market discrimination pushes many vulnerable groups into the informal economy, and, as a result, women, youth and people living with disability are often clustered in its most marginalised segments.
Presenting a paper in Harare recently on strategies of transitioning from the informal sector to the formal sector, a LEDRIZ official, Nyasha Muchichwa, described those in the informal sector as being in a “survivalist state”.
The Government has not folded its hands as it has started programmes such as the Distressed Marginal Areas Fund and the establishment of Special Economic Zones with the Zimbabwe Agenda for Socio-Economic Transformation placing at its centre employment creation.
