Dynamics and Mechanics of PTUZ-ZIMTA suspension of Industrial Action
11 February 2019
I deliberately avoided adding my views to the talk of the moment in order to give members enough room to express themselves without inhibition. Yes we have received a barrage of attacks as leadership, some of which border on malice, some engineered by those who wish us away, some from borrowed bravado on whatsApp groups but which quickly evaporates like a morning dew in the theatre and terrain of conflict and trench warfare. It is part of leadership to make painful decisions to protect members.
Sadly, it is worrisome when some members express serious selective forgetfulness in their attempt to disparage leadership.
Firstly I want to applaud the hard core members who gave heed to two days incapacitation turn up a week, one day turn up a week and four days stay away. You indeed displayed untrammeled trade union energy, and quest for status restoration of our profession. Had all teachers responded in this fashion our struggle would have yielded instant results. Sadly many cowards stayed in or continued to work thereby weakening our modus operandi and militating against immediate results. So the blame for lack of immediate results goes squarely on these Judas Iscariots, some of whom have now borrowed courage to attack leadership.
My humble submission is that the theatre of our struggle is not won in boardrooms but in the operational terrain, viz, schools. It was in this operational terrain that we failed to vacate en masse with many teachers staying in rather than staying away. It was therefore foolhardy to expect immediate results without total abandonment of schools by teachers, never mind the spirited venture in many schools.
The purpose of a trade union is to advance the interests of members and defend any gains made. Having advanced the interests of our members in a spirited two days turn up a week, one day turn up and four days stay away, the employer targeted our entrenched hardcore fighters for decimation. The strategy was simply to withhold their February salaries. As much as we could have appealed to the courts against such a move, the wheels of justice do not turn so fast in Zimbabwe. One of the reasons for suspending the industrial action was in order to protect our hard core members who were in their trenches and were about to be sprayed with poison gas. We surely did not want to take Napoleon Bonaparte’s gigantic military fiasco of the Moscow campaign in 1812 in which of the original 600 000 military experts only less than 30 000 returned from the the Moscow campaign with Borodino becoming a major step to his Waterloo. Such a reckless bravery move could have incapacitated our future fights and also legitimised cowardice.
Another reason for the suspension of the industrial action was the total invasion of schools by rogue youths, war veterans, security forces, councillors etc and the threats and systematic targets of teachers. This posed serious threats to educators in their residential areas outside schools.
The decision to suspend industrial action was painful but worthy taking to protect all members who gave heed to a stay away. Such a protective measure would not have been important had all teachers gave heed to the stay away. Trade unionism is about collective security by acting as a group. I could personally not envision the enjoyment of cowards at the suffering of real cadres.
There are also direct benefits emanating from the industrial action in terms of education specific allowances negotiated under the armpit of the education sector. If this is expediated teachers’ parlous salaries could be cushioned by allowances.
The commitment from the Ministry officials to protect teachers from threats and intimidation from any angle is welcome and hope it will be operationalised and pursued by all means necessary.
A meaningful salary increase and improvement of conditions of service of teachers remain our clarion call. Teachers remain incapacitated and should gvt fail to offer a reprieve we are entitled to continue with the industrial action
That the industrial action was legal and legitimate needs no elaboration for any level headed teachers.
Lessons Learnt
-The collaboration or unity of action by Teacher Unions. PTUZ and ZIMTA smoothly co ordinated the industrial action. It is my hope that this co operation will in future include all genuine and legitimate teacher unions
-That Apex Council has limited relevance as a representative negotiation body.
-The importance of unionising all teachers as free riders riddled our industrial action
-Importance of trade union education to members as many teachers acted ignorantly and weakened our action.
-That we must not demobilise as continuation with a collective industrial action remains an option to fast track education sector allowances, increase of salary and other conditions of service
To those who wish us away, you are in for a rude awakening, because as long as teachers’ legitimate demands are not addressed we will remain as a permanent voice of reason. No amount of politicisation of educational issues will silence us. Ptuz remains as of old dynamic, tolerant, enthusiastic, forceful, revolutionary and radical. All the same our dynamism, radicalism and vision must never be misconstrued for pursuit of a political agenda, reckless bravery and suicidal decision making. It must be well construed within the advancement of interests of members, defending members and any gains made.
Venceremos
Dr Takavafira M. Zhou
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