Africa-Press – Zimbabwe. THE Amalgamated Rural Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (Artuz) congress held last week amplified calls for government to not only end slave wages, but also improve working conditions for the civil service.
The congress was held in Jahunda, Matabeleland North province, under the theme Engendering a Growth and Fight Back Strategy, as part of shaping the future of education, labour justice, democracy and solidarity.
Artuz president Obert Masaraure called for a bold and action-driven united front to confront the crisis crippling Zimbabwe’s education sector.
He pointed to massive school dropouts coupled by 3 000 schools shortage, dilapidated infrastructure, blatant corruption and the shrinking democratic space.
“It’s a pity that our government, as the employer, refuses to amend the Public Service Act to allow genuine collective bargaining?” Masaraure told the delegates.
“It’s high time we must defend our jobs and livelihoods as teachers. There is critical crisis in Zimbabwe and the profession has not been spared at all.”
Artuz secretary-general Robson Chere drew the lines in the sand for action against their employer.
“We have been patient with the employer thus far,” he said.
“We have reached out and negotiated in utmost good faith.
“We have received contempt and abuse in response.
“We are not cowards or second class citizens.”
He further claimed that there is abuse of resources that are enough to adequately remunerate all civil servants in the country.
“It’s over for us to continue begging for what rightfully belong to us. We will, therefore, take what rightfully belong to us,” Chere said.
“The future of our children will not be ruined under our watch. We will do everything and anything to resurrect education. The minerals of this country belong to all Zimbabweans.”
He added: “We refuse to live as oppressed men and women. We will gladly die as free men and women.
“The resolutions of contemporary labour challenges in the country are no longer going to be done through unending negotiations and summits, but by resolute and decisive labour and industrial action.
“We shall not provide our labour for dog’s tax. There are mountains and rivers we have borrowed from future generations. This must come to an end.”
He accused the government of dividing workers’ representatives.
“Our efforts on collective bargaining over the years have always been arrested by the insincerity of the employer and the duplicity of some sister unions,” Chere protested.
“We have consistently and correctly maintained a necessary hardline stance when it comes to sacrosanct variables like salaries and working conditions. The employer has been brazen and insincere.
“We have good reason to suspect that this attitude has been fuelled by some abuse enablers in the form of sellout fellow unions leadership who seem to be in bed with the employer.”
The labour activist further called for collective action.
“We are going back to the picketing lines. We are going to join hands with the peasants, the vendors, the unemployed, the working citizens, the diasporans to reclaim our collective dignity,” he said.
“Our profession has always been the provider of illumination and direction. People whom we taught in our classrooms are not going to continue to steal from us. It stops now!”
Zimbabwe’s education sector continues to face a critical shortage of teachers after many of them left the country seeking greener pastures regionally and globally.
For More News And Analysis About Zimbabwe Follow Africa-Press
