Strange bedfellows
Thursday, 25 November 2010 14:04
ZFTU, CFU plot renegade NEC
Shame Makoshori, Chief Business Reporter
A STRANGE marriage is shaping up in the agriculture sector where the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU)-backed Agricultural Labour Bureau (ALB) and a Zimbabwe Federation of Trade Unions (ZFTU), affiliate, the Horticultural General Agric-ultural and Plantation Workers’ Union (HGAPWUZ), have plotted a breakaway National Employment Council (NEC) following sharp differences over wage hikes.
The CFU, whose membership revolves around white commercial farmers most of whom have lost large tracts of land through controversial land reforms led by President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party, is among the biggest opponents of the farm expropriations and has totally different views from the ZFTU, whose architects include war veteran, Joseph Chinotimba, who led the violent land invasions in 2000.
It was not clear this week if a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between the ALB and the HGAPWUZ recently signalled the genesis of new thinking in the fractured trade union movement in Zimbabwe, torn along political lines.
But divisions in the 100 000-member-strong NEC erupted after collective bargaining teams in July agreed to increase wages to about US$55 from US$44 per month, depending on specific sub sectors.
CFU affiliates, the Timber Producers’ Federation (TPF), and HGAPWUZ, have rejected the wage hikes, claiming they were not consulted.
Sources said this week the two organisations have directed their members to stop paying subscriptions to their NEC, which collects at least US$200 000 per month, leaving it on the threshold of collapse.
The Financial Gazette has documents detailing that top law firms, Kantor and Immerman and Gill Godlonton & Gerrans, have been roped in by the TPF and the Horticultural Promotion Council (HPC), which has fought in the corner of the timber industry, to force a freeze in wage hikes until several sticking points have been resolved.
“Please be advised that the TPF totally rejects the fraudulent purported ‘wage agreement’ for the timber sector,” TPF chief executive officer, Malcolm Smith said in a letter dated November 12 2010.
“Mr (Denford) Chibwanda (NEC deputy chairman) has nothing to do with the commercial timber sector, and you know that . . . the TPF was not consulted and was not involved in any way in the purported wage negotiations. We will ensure that legal action is taken to challenge the so-called agreement. You were advised several months ago that we would not engage in any wage negotiations until the wage exemptions before you have been properly dealt with, and you know that,” the letter to NEC said.
The HPC said in a letter to its members; “There is no doubt that most of you will be under severe pressure to pay, (the new wages) but it is our constitutional right to challenge an agreement we were not party to”.
The ALB and the HGAPWUZ have since concluded an MoU, which may see them spearheading the formation of another NEC, to be called the “New NEC”, because they “are dissatisfied” and enraged by the conduct of their present representatives. It was not clear if the Ministry of Labour and Social Services will approve the new movement.
But its launch will result in duplication of work in the sector.
Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions secretary-general, Wellington Chibebe, who confirmed the deadlock, told The Financial Gazette this week that while the drivers of the new NEC were constitutionally current, labour laws allowed the formation of the new NECs where there are no correct representatives.
He said the “Old” NEC may challenge the new movement in the courts.
The sector has some of the worst paid workers.
Trade unionists were worried this week that employers could buy time so that they continue paying merger wages. While the battle for membership is raging, the army of labourers, most of whom earn 10 times below the US$500 poverty datum line, are drifting into serious poverty. Retailers began hiking prices last week as civil servants began receiving their bonuses.