HARARE, Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe’s health workers and teachers on Monday went on strike over poor working conditions as they rejected a 100 percent salary increase offered by the government at the weekend.
Health workers such as nurses,
junior doctors and radiographers staged protests at the country’s biggest
public hospital – Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals in the capital Harare – as
they began their indefinite strike.
Unions representing health
workers said the strike was a last resort after the government refused to negotiate
with them since April last year.
“The minister of Health and
Child Care (Vice President Constantino Chiwenga) has never met any health
employee and government continues to offer lies as opposed to what is
prevailing on the ground,” Apex Health Council leader Tapiwanashe Kusotera told
the protesting health workers.
“They have refused to listen
to us and we refuse to work.”
The strike is the second
walkout by health workers since the Covid-19 outbreak began in Zimbabwe in
2020.
Civil servants have been
pushing for a salary review citing galloping inflation, which jumped to 131. 7
percent in May.
The government workers want
their salaries to be pegged in United States dollar as the Zimbabwe dollar has
become very unstable.
Health workers in Zimbabwe such
as nurses earn an average of $79.37 a month compared to the $500 they were
earning before the reintroduction of the local currency in 2019.
Four major unions representing
teachers declared on Monday that their members would not report for work for
five days to protest against the poor working conditions.
“It is clear from the outcome
of the National Joint Negotiating Council held on June 17 that the government
is not serious about the welfare of civil servants,” the unions said.
“We cannot continue to be an
embarrassment in our community as a result of the poverty that the government
believes should remain as part of our working lives.”
The unions said their members
“will not report for work starting June 20 to June 24.”
Prior to the weekend salary
review, the government had last raised civil servants’ salaries in February
this year.
The Zimbabwe dollar has since
then lost 70 percent of its value against the US dollar and the surge in
inflation has stocked fears of a return to the hyperinflation era of 2008 where
the country was forced to abandon its currency.
Civil servants say they are
unable to fend for their families or send children to school in the face of the
rapid increase in the prices of goods and services.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s
government blames the latest economic crisis engulfing the southern African
country on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which has seen a steep rise in prices
of fuel, maize and wheat.
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