COMMUNIQUE’ TO ALL EDUCATORS : BY TAPSON NGANUNU SIBANDA (ZIMTA SECRETARY GENERAL). 14 – 08 – 20.
Greetings to you all fellow educators. This serves as a brief update on Collective Bargaining at National Joint Negotiation Council (NJNC) level and the challenges that bedevil the process.
The covid – 19 environment is posing a serious threat to our bargaining process as our face to face interaction with the employer has been seriously minimized, in the pretext of compliance to the WHO lockdown covid – 19 regulations.
Obviously, this covid – 19 environment has worked to the employer’s favor as the initially scheduled NJNC meetings were deffered to later but unspecified dates. This therefore creates uncertainty on the future of our negotiation process. In fact the resolution on teachers welfare is long overdue. However, despite all these challenges, ZIMTA is frantically pushing behind the scenes for the resumption of the negotiation process for the speedy resolution of issues to do with teachers’ welfare.
In part, our position paper to the employer has the following urgent demands.
a) That our salary be restored to its 2018 value in US$.
b) That our salaries be wholly paid in US$.
c) That Government address the unjustifiable disparity between salaries of the security forces and the rest of the Civil servants. It is disheartening to note that teachers are amongst the least paid civil servants as of now.
d) While we appreciate the US$75.00 covid – 19 allowance given to us in June, we reiterate the fact that it is very much inadequate to alleviate the financial challenges of teachers at the moment.
e) We therefore demand, as stated in (b) above, that it be paid in hard currency, as opposed to the current set up where its only redeemable in Zimbabwe dollar.
f) That the US$75 covid – 19 allowance transaction system be made user friendly and be easily redeemable in the same way across all banks.
g) That the negotiation process desire to further debunch the grading system for the education sector with the explicit intention to reflect distinct seniority.
h) That the employer implements and award teachers the long overdue sector specific allowances like rural, acting, responsibility, TIC, HOD allowances as a motivator to the already disillusioned teaching force.
It is in this background that ZIMTA is frantically pushing for the resumption of the negotiation process urgently so as to tackle the above stated demands.
I thank you.
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