By Admore Marambanyika

Teachers have failed to report for duty citing incapacitation as schools open for the first term and the strike season appears to beckon with workers from across sectors demanding a living wage and threatening to embark on industrial actions.

Thousands of teachers and headmasters have declared incapacitation and teachers unions are demanding that government improves their members’ remuneration for them to attend classes. They are demanding that their salaries be restored to the pre October 2018 levels when their earnings were USD540-00 per month. The teachers are also demanding that they be exempted from paying school fees for their own children.

According to reports from ARTUZ which has been leading the struggle for better remuneration of educators, school children were sent back home on the first day of school while others spent the day playing in school grounds.  

“It is apparent that no teaching and learning is taking place in over 96 percent of our schools. Some of the teachers who reported for duty were saying they won’t be reporting for duty tomorrow since they were overwhelmed by work. Those teachers who will continue reporting for duty are the ones receiving incentives from parents,” said ARTUZ in a statement.

The combative teachers union has urged all teachers and other unions not to relent until their demands are met while calling for a holistic all stakeholders dialogue to find solutions to the education crisis.

“ARTUZ is engaging parents communities across the country, strengthening our Parents Teacher Associations. The Union firmly believes that both the teacher and the parent have been systematically dispossessed of their political power to decide for Zimbabwe’s education. The two parties should therefore work in Unison to reclaim the power to decide the future of education. The parents teachers’ coalition must make Zimbabwe ungovernable until the education crisis is resolved.”

“The union implores Mthuli Ncube to dump the ruinous austerity measures and rescue the education sector from collapse. Mthuli is committing an academic genocide and destroying a whole generation. Barring the poor from accessing education is a sure recipe for entrenching inequality and sow seeds of future conflict. The anti people professor, Mthuli Ncube is working round the clock to frustrates efforts to attain, Zimbabwe’s vision 2030, SADC’s Vision 2050, Africa Union’s 2063 agenda and Sustainable development Goal, SDG 4,” said ARTUZ.

ARTUZ called on learners to rise up and defend their right to education in the mould of the Soweto uprisings in South Africa, the Zimbabwean  pre independence generation which swapped the pen for the gun during the liberation struggle.

“We encourage sister unions in the Federation of Zimbabwe, Educators Unions, FOZEU to press on until teachers’ demands are met. Going forward we encourage teachers to resist any form of bullying and deceit from Zimbabwe’s State. The old no work no pay threat should be flatly ignored. The poisoned carrot of being told by yellow unions to go to work while negotiations continue should be rejected with the contempt it deserves,” read the statement.

The Zimbabwe National Union of school Heads (ZINUSH) said their members were incapacitated to report for duty as their earnings were too little to sustain them. ZINUSH secretary general, Munyaradzi Majoni told  government that their members won’t be able to report for duty due to incapacitation.

The move by the teachers is likely to burst the bubble for a wave of strikes across sectors. Most workers are earning salaries way below the poverty datum line which is currently at RTGS $71000-00 according to the Consumer Council of Zimbabwe.

Workers from across sectors said it was time for action during the recently held Zimbabwe Congress of Trades Union regional labour forums as they demanded a living wage in US$ wages and salaries as the local currency has failed and decent work.

Some of the issues that workers need to be addressed urgently include the need to push for better payouts for pensioners, reliable and efficient public transport, and abolition of casualisation of labour among others.