Africa-Press – Zimbabwe. The government has reiterated the “no work, no pay” policy saying teachers who absented themselves from work “for no valid reasons” were not going to get salaries.
Teachers have since the resumption of schools this year been on strike and or go slow demanding better pay and working conditions.
The Minister of Information, Publicity, and Broadcasting Services, Senator Monica Mutsvangwa said workers had proper channels to table their grievances, therefore, the “no work, no pay” policy will address absenteeism issues.
Speaking in Chinhoyi during a Zanu PF provincial coordinating committee meeting on Saturday, Minister Mutsvangwa said:
Our Government has made it clear that those not going to work will not get paid and that’s the labour principle. But at the same time, we have a Tripartite Negotiating Forum for you to air concerns, negotiate and bargain for wages. Why then are teachers not attending to children when the Government had been paying their salaries for over one-and-a-half years under the Covid-19 lockdown period?
Our teachers should have a heart and be patriotic as teaching is meant to impart knowledge to the young generation. Most of these have lost over a year of learning because of the pandemic.
She said the lockdown had also presented a challenge mainly to rural learners who had no access to online learning, hence a valid reason why teachers were supposed to be considerate to address their plight.
The “incapacitated” teachers are demanding a restoration of their 2018 salaries when they were being paid about US$500.
The government and its workers have for long been having pay talks with the latter claiming that their pay in the local currency had been eroded by inflation that soared in the past two years.
More: Pindula News; The Herald
