THE government has set the basic salary of a domestic worker at $168 per month.

Through Statutory Instrument 37 of 2020, Public Service minister Paul Mavima, set the minimum wages that gardeners, housekeepers and old age minders can be paid.

“With effect of date of publication these regulations, the First Schedule and The Second Schedule of the Labour (Domestic Workers) Employment regulations, 1992, published in Statutory Instrument 377 of 1992 are repeal and following are substituted … Grade 1 yard/garden worker monthly $160,00, weekly $39,95, daily $6,72 and hourly 75 cents,” the SI read.

Cooks, housekeepers will now earn a minimum of $168,48 or $38,91 per week according to the new schedule which has become a subject of ridicule, with the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, (ZCTU) describing it as pathetic.

ZCTU president, Peter Mutasa, said these were slavery wages which needed to be resisted by all people who have respect for dignity.

“This is pathetic. This government is putting workers into the slave age. They are showing contempt of the worker and setting them towards a path of conflict. We can only mobilise to fight back, nothing else short of that will help,” he said.