DISUNITY continues to haunt the country’s social dialogue platform, Tripartite Negotiation Forum (TNF) after representatives from labour, government and business abandoned a recent meeting over failure to agree on priority issues.

A TNF insider who spoke to The Worker on condition of anonymity said the platform continues to face challenges in deliberating key issues affecting the country’s workforce.

“Representatives from labour tabled an agenda on the need to urgently resolve the current persecution of union leaders by government while business representatives set the agenda on the discussion centered on recent government’s economic sabotage accusations of their constituency in the wake of price hikes,” said the source.

She explained that government’s representatives were more interested in the issue of health delivery and due to the differences, the meeting could not proceed.

Added the source; “So the representatives could not proceed with the meeting because government did not bring background papers on the discussion topics, prompting the adjournment of the meeting before discussion because the government representative could not provide concrete solutions on issues raised by labour and government.”  

President Emmerson Mnangagwa launched a legislated TNF in June this year but the platform has not made any meaningful progress since then.

Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions president Peter Mutasa told employers at the Employers’ Confederation of Zimbabwe (EMCOZ) 37th congress held in Bulawayo last month that there has been no progress on the negotiating platform due to the lack of trust among the tripartite partners and lack of consultation by government.