Stir The Pot

THE year 2000 marked the end of unionism in Zimbabwe. Labour leaders decided to engage in active politics, putting all their eggs in one basket and in the process letting the nation and the workers down.

Unionism in Zimbabwe started around the 1940s and marked its birth with the 1948 strikes. Benjamin Burombo was in the thick of things and so was Joshua Nkomo then a social worker at National Railways of Zimbabwe.

Unionism is a political movement. It looks after the interests of the working class. It speaks loudest about decent salaries, working conditions, job security, health of workers, housing, transport and pensions among other things.

It, once in a while chooses, which political horse to back at elections depending on its electoral manifesto aligning to the aforementioned interests. In other jurisdictions they have formed political parties and support them, but on the basis of their objectives as workers not simply the taking over of power for the sake of it.

Zimbabwe’s unions are a pale shadow of their glorious past. This has been a process and not an event. It began in the 1990s when the Zanu PF administration adopted the International Monetary Fund-sponsored Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (Esap).

Esap was a programme that sought to cut back on social spending. It sought to have governments run as lean, competitive corporates. It was about lean governments, economic liberalisation and forex deregulation.

A cutback on social spending meant Zimbabwe had to reduce the number of its teachers, nurses and doctors among other employees.