LEAD President Worker’s Day Statement
Zimbabwe offers undoubtedly the best environmental conditions favouring not only human settlement but world class infrastructural and industrial development.
It took not only the war of liberation but also the land reform program to forcibly drive out the colonialists. It is in light of this background that Labour Economists and Afrikan Democrats (LEAD) was formed to defend the rights and interests of the workers on the economic, social and political front.
LEAD has become the largest if not the only labour party in Zimbabwe dedicated to the democratization agenda of Zimbabwean politics and reintroduction of the Pan Afrikan ideologies in a bid to defend and uphold the African Agenda.
This process of positive development and growth is underpinned by a set of common principles that promote labour value in political and public administration alongside the social value and public relevance of the Pan Afrikan Labour politics.
As we commemorate Workers’ Day on this 1st Day of May 2020 it is very unfortunate that 40 years after regaining our political independence we have shown little commitment to progress and ensure sustainable human development within our labour sector.
Our workers are still surviving mainly from a hand to mouth principle with little if not nil savings. The government has done nothing to protect workers with it being an accomplice in the fight to degrade workers from professionals to paupers.
It is sad to realize how our government presided over by those who experienced the brutal colonial practices which forced them to take up arms against the colonialists has turned itself into perpetrators of injustice towards workers whom they struggled to free.
It is also worrying to realize that over the years several democratic parties have been established with one of their aims being the need to cure the ills in this important sector but history has exposed them times without numbers to be accomplices in the neo-colonial project to bleed out our work force in the interests of the rich imperialists.
Because of the harsh economic conditions during the colonial era in the reserves, native Zimbabweans had few survival options and had no choice but to turn to the whites for wage labour. To keep the Africans coming the whites not only treated these workers as subhuman but offered them very low wages.
As early as 1910 Africans began to organize themselves to challenge not only the low wages but the whole idea of having to be treated as subhuman yet they were the means by which the white economy grew.
In 1922, there was a referendum on whether to have ties with South Africa but only 60 out of the 900 000 African workers and their families were eligible to vote. In response Abraham Twala a Zulu Anglican teacher wrote: “Experience has taught us that our salvation does not lie in Downing Street.”
Surprisingly, it’s now over 100 years and yet, we the African workers are still yoked to the same forces that forced Twala to sound these words of protest. Experience should be teaching us that our salvation does not lie at the factory door but it lies in parliament.
Experiences should be teaching us that our salvation does not lie at the tripartite negotiating table but lies in the August house that fashion the laws.
In August 1955 the workers’ revolutionary crescendo took a pitch higher when four young workers, James Chikerema, George Nyandoro, Edson Sithole and Dunduza
Chisiza formed the City Youth League which later changed to the African National Youth League (ANYL). This grouping later emerged as political and military leaders bent on and propelled by the desire to see the total emancipation of the Zimbabwean workers.
Feeling the heat, the settlers declared a State of Emergency in 1959. Shockingly, in the same spirit we still have such responses from a government presided over by blacks with scenarios such as the issuing of a show cause order to the NRZ workers who had gone for more than a year without getting their salaries. This exposed the level of hypocrisy, not worthy to lead and failures by our two major political parties.
It is unfortunate that our people have become too vulnerable to be rational when interpreting such events and they have surrendered their thinking abilities to politicians who in turn feed them with non-existing propaganda.
The right to work has at least two significant social functions:
It is a source of livelihood and income.
It is a source of dignity and self-realization.
For it to be a source of livelihood, everyone must have access to work which in turn must provide a just and favourable remuneration ensuring for them and their family an existence worthy of human dignity.
To be a source of dignity and self realization it must be work which a person freely chooses or accepts and he or she must enjoy safe and healthy working conditions and equal opportunity to be promoted to appropriate high levels subject to no considerations other than those of longevity and competence.
Section 14(2) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment 13 of 2013 postulates that, “At all times the state and all institutions and agencies of government at every level must ensure that appropriate and adequate measures are undertaken to create employment for all Zimbabweans, especially women and youths.” Section 65(1) provides that every person has the right to fair and safe labour practices and standards and to be paid a fair and reasonable wage.
It is also in light of this that section 65(4) entitles every employee to just, equitable and satisfactory conditions of work.
It is in light of this that LEAD is fighting for income fairness and distributive fairness. Nearly everybody wants a fair society but the question is what we mean by fairness.
A lot of people think that those who earn high incomes should be allowed to keep the fruits of their labour; there’s no reason why the state or the local authority should deduct heavy taxes in order to increase fairness in society. The greatest fairness we can have is when we are allowed to keep as large a part of our incomes as possible.
Social democrats by contrast consider it just to distribute what work produces in a fairer way.
We think it’s reasonable that those who have high incomes should be included in society by paying for more of its collective benefits than those who have lower incomes. That is what we are advocating for under distributive justice.
Today, we stand in solidarity with all informal traders who had their places of work demolished. We demand starter packs for them to be able to re-establish their work after the lockdown. Some decisions made by our government are retrogressive and violates our right o work and to create income for self-sustenance.
As the LEAD President, I implore government to ensure that they work on building stalls for vendors and to allocate our furniture industry proper buildings to work from.
In conclusion, we give special thanks to all frontline workers in the world who are tirelessly working to treat Corona virus patients. We salute you, we love you and may God protect you during this trying time.
Happy workers day Zimbabwe. Amandla ngawethu! Shinga Mushandi Shinga.
TogetherWeCan restore the dignity of workers in Zimbabwe.
Mambokadzi Linda Tsungirirai Masarira
LEAD President