The Sunday News
Vusumuzi Dube Sunday News Reporter
OVER 1 000 National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ) employees yesterday staged a peaceful demonstration in Bulawayo, with the workers demanding the immediate dismissal of the parastatal’s management. The went ahead after High Court judge Justice Charles Hungwe overruled an earlier decision by the police to bar it from taking place at four of the parastatal’s depots; Bulawayo, Harare, Gweru and Mutare.
Addressing the workers, who marched from the main station in the city before finally converging on the Large City Hall, Ms Sithokozile Siwela, the secretary general for the Railway Artisan Union (RAU), said they had lost patience with management, which she said was only interested in furthering their personal wealth.
“We are sick and tired of this management; they are just not serious about turning around the fortunes of this parastatal. As workers we are proud of what we do and give our all but this management does not appreciate all this.
“Right now they owe us our salaries for a good 10 months. They are refusing to give us our allowances, they owe us money dating back to the Zimbabwe dollar era and they unilaterally slashed our wages, which we have now termed the circumcision of our salaries without our consent,” said Ms Siwela.
She said the workers did not even know when their payday was, as their salaries just come haphazardly.
“When they circumcised our salaries they gave us the excuse that they were doing that so that our salaries come on time but this has never happened. We are demanding our salaries on time and we want our 100 percent increment immediately.
“If they are saying that the parastatal does not have money as they continue to claim, why is it we have these very managers putting in place a provision that sees them being able to go for another five years when they reach the retirement age of 60 years. It is clear that they are benefiting while we continue to suffer,” said Ms Siwela.
She said as workers they believed that since Government had appointed a new board it was about time the management was fired and a new one took over.
“We have nothing against the new board but we believe that it is about time we get a new management and get rid of this useless one. Schools are opening next week but as it stands the majority of us will not be able to take our children to school because we cannot afford but the managers continue taking their children to expensive schools at our expense.
“We cannot even afford any medication because the company is not remitting to Railmed, which is funny because every month they claim that they deduct monies meant for Railmed. Where is that money going to? Today we could not even manage to print T-shirts for everyone because our funds were limited while this very management claims they subtract monies for the unions every month,” she said.
Some of the placards that were being brandished by the workers had messages that read; A malfunctioning NRZ, missing link to Zim Asset, NRZ no managers, No to modern-day slavery and Full salaries now!
