President of the MDC Allaince, Nelson Chamisa said on account of the disputed election in 2018, Zimbabwe has a crisis of confidence and deficit of trust born out of a political crisis of legitimacy.
Speaking to thousands of workers at Dzivarasekwa Stadium yesterday, Chamisa said the crisis of governance manifests itself as an economic crisis.
“We have been thrown back to the dark days of shortages of basic commodities, ubiquitous queues, hyperinflation and price increases.
“All workers have had their salaries’ purchasing power thoroughly eroded. Teachers, nurses, doctors and civil servants in general are suffering.
The generality of the Workers in the private sector have not been spared either. Farmers are not getting a fair reward out of their hard work. Corruption is rife and rampant on the back of inexplicable immunity and impunity. We have too many dealers instead of genuine investors,” Chamisa said.
The maverick politician said racketeering cartels connected to the political elites continue to be a national menace.
On account of all this, he said the MDC is united with the Workers in calling for an end to this suffering and that their struggle was just and the fight noble.
“We must never give in to cowardice and brutality. We must continue on our quest for freedom and prosperity. Those who have rigged your will and vote can’t rig the economy. I would like to assure you that the MDC will continue to be at the forefront of championing the workers’ cause.
“We shall remain united with our mother body in creating better conditions for our people. As we move forward, I would like to assure the leadership of the ZCTU that we are working on modalities that will create a platform for deeper organic integration and engagement between the MDC and labour to advance the working class agenda.”
Chamisa said there was nothing to celebrate on May day because of the plethora of hardships the country is going through.
“We want to ensure that the rights of all workers are respected. We must all unite in our demand for a decent living wage. We must all come
together to create decent working conditions.
“Our economy must grow to create jobs for our graduates. Gone are the days where a connected political elite plunder the God-given resources
of our beloved country whilst the worker wallows in poverty. The worker is the mainstay of our economy and well-being.”
Below, Spiked captures some of Chamisa’s message on Workers’ Day verbatim:
Our working class agenda
The MDC will run a professional civil service, strictly implementing the public administration and leadership principles provided for in section 194of the Constitution.
These principles will guide the use of public resources, personnel ethics, and transparency of processes, continuous professional development
and training with the goal to push the development agenda forward.
Beyond these, the government will honour the following obligation to its employees:
- Ensuring competitive remuneration in line with the standards maintained in neighbouring countries in the region.
- Provision for a public housing scheme for the civil servants.
- Affordable quality health insurance.
- Payment of a risk allowance especially for personnel in the medical services sector.
- Incentivising work in marginalised communities.
- Affording personnel continuous professional development and training including paid study leave.
- Ensuring that the security services of Zimbabwe are turned into institutions of excellence, serving the interests of Zimbabweans
- and assisting civilian authority in maintaining the security of the country.
Further, we shall institute a comprehensive labour market reform to achieve the following;
- One labour law for the country
- Institutionalization of the tripartite forum
- Social protection of workers and their families especially through reform of NSSA.
- Redollarisation to ring fence incomes
- Stopping of all harassment of Trade Unions
- Reindustrialisation to create jobs
- Strengthening of collective bargaining through TNF and emphasizing the PDL
- Free testing and treatment of chronic diseases to cushion all workers.
- Eliminate wage theft
- Institute discipline into the market
- Focus on production and entrepreneurship
- Promote technology transfer
- Massive creation of jobs through public works programmes, tourism,
- Resuscitation of industries and accelerated smart agriculture.