By Own Correspondent

Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Minister, Edgar Moyo has been dragged to the courts for failure to gazette key reforms governing contract work in Zimbabwe.

In court papers filed by labour lawyer Caleb Mucheche recently, the Minister is accused of violating the Labour Act by not publishing regulations mandated by the 2015 amendments. Specifically, section 12(3a)(b) requires the government to set a legal cap on the number of times employers can renew fixed-term contracts.

The provision was introduced after the Supreme Court’s 2015 ruling that allowed companies to dismiss employees on three months’ notice, sparking mass retrenchments.

Parliament responded with amendments designed to curb “casualisation of labour” and strengthen job security.

But 10 years later, the regulations remain unwritten, leaving teachers, nurses, factory workers and bank tellers trapped in an endless cycle of short-term contracts.

Mucheche is seeking a declaratory order compelling the minister to act, arguing the inaction violates workers’ constitutional rights to fair labour standards and equal protection before the law.

“It is now 10 years long since 2015 ever since section 12 (3a) of the Labour Act as amended, created a legal obligation on the part of the respondent to prescribe or peg the number of times a fixed term/casual/seasonal contract for a worker or employee can be renewed before it changes into a contract without limit of time with better legal rights and protection for a worker or employee not covered by any national employment council to afford such a worker or employee better legal rights and minimum conditions of employment, for protection.

“This yawning loophole legal gap (lacuna) caused by the delay by the respondent to comply with section 12(3a)(b) of the Labour Act since 2015 leaves those workers or employees not covered by any national employment council, precariously legally naked without job security and susceptible to wanton, brazen, blatant and flagrant violation of their constitutional labour legal rights by some arbitrary, capricious, nefarious, barbaric, spineless, heartless and rapacious employers,” he said.

Mucheche said this also leaves such vulnerable employees or workers marooned on an island of social injustice, unfair and unjust discrimination and lack of equal benefit and protection of the law as protected in terms of section 56 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe.

He is asking the High Court to declare that the minister has acted unlawfully and to compel the immediate gazetting of the regulations.