Africa-Press – Zimbabwe. By Alois Vinga – PROGRESSIVE Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) president Takavafira Zhou says current and former teachers are owed a whopping US$2.5 billion in arrears arising from underpaid terminal benefits and unilateral salary cuts by government.
He described this as wage theft.
In a statement, Zhou said the arrears emanated from details revealed by the Auditor General’s office.
The union leader said Auditor General, Milred Chiri’s reports for 2018 and 2019 pointed out that government failed to collect, cumulatively, US$4.5 million from teachers in the form of revenue from departmental surcharges, treasury orders, penalties and fines dating from 2009.
The shortcomings were attributed to ineffective measures put in place by the finance ministry to monitor revenue collection and debt recovery system.
“However, there is also the other side of the coin which she did not cover to the effect that government owes former teachers and current teachers more than US$2.5 billion in terminal benefits and unilateral reduction of salaries from US$520-US$550 to US$35-US$45 by 2020, and current equivalence of US$100-US$130,” he said.
According to the country’s labour laws, any unilateral salary cuts not subject to and affected in concurrence with the works council which comprise employees and employers’ legal representatives are illegal.
In labour terms, wage theft includes not paying minimum wage, unilateral salary cuts, withholding overtime pay, or requiring off-the-clock work.
Zhou argued between 2000 and 2010, more than 110 000 teachers left the teaching profession and never received their terminal benefits.
“Working on a conservative average of $13 000 terminal benefits per teacher, a cumulative $1.3 million realised. On average teachers lost US$400 when government’s unilateral reduced teachers’ salaries in 2018.
“A multiplication of US$400 x 136 000 (number of teachers) x 12 months x 3 years gives the sum of US$1.95 million. This callous theft must never be accepted in an independent country 41 years after independence,” he said.
Zhou said teachers have a dispute of right to regain what they fraudulently lost, let alone to restore the purchasing power parity of their salaries amid calls to urging government to pay them a living wage as a matter of urgency.
He added, “The post-dated 45% to be effected in July remains a monument of Zimbabwean injustice, more so given disparities between teachers and other government workers whose salaries were trebled and quadrupled in June 2020 while teachers’ salaries remained static.”
