By Own Correspondent

Lecturers at the University of Zimbabwe have threatened to embark on an indefinite strike beginning Monday, March 24, 2025, following years of unresolved salary disputes with their employer.

The collective job action, organised by the Association of University Teachers (AUT), is expected to continue until their demands for restoration of pre-2018 salary scales are met.

“Our collective job action is moral, justifiable and legitimate! It is indefinite! We will resume our duties only when our demands are met,” reads the statement from the AUT.

According to the AUT statement, lecturers’ salaries were cut in October 2018 from $2,250 USD per month for a junior lecturer to less than $300 USD monthly plus “a pitiable local currency component which translate to less than USD200 when converted.”

The lecturers claim this represents a devastating 87 percent reduction in their salaries, leaving academic staff struggling to meet basic needs such as accommodation, food, and transportation.

They said the current salary levels had made it impossible for lecturers to even afford sending their own children to the universities.

“We cannot afford to pay for our own children to attend this very university we work for. We cannot afford to feed them. We cannot afford to pay for their transportation to and from this University,” the statement notes, highlighting the dire financial situation facing the teaching staff.

They said their employer was not willing to negotiate in good faith choosing to be “prescriptive rather than consultative,” noting that despite “countless requests” for meetings over the past seven years, university management has only agreed to meet twice.

The lecturers also claim the university has failed to meet contractual obligations including payment of funeral policies and health insurance while prioritising executives.

 “Even as we struggled to do the bare minimum, the university management shamelessly awarded themselves lavish packages which include expensive cars for the Executive and hefty payouts in the order of thousands of united states dollars. The university has also prioritised non-essential projects in lieu of staff welfare,” read the statement.

In a message directed to students, the AUT assured them that their action was not targeted against them.

“We love you! And we love our profession. This is why, from October 2018 when our salaries were slashed down from the SADC regional parity to less than $300 USD per month plus a small local currency component; we continued to come to work, sacrificing our little resources for you.”

They added that the current situation has rendered them “incapacitated” to provide quality education: “In fact we feel we are being forced to be part to a big lie. The situation is not conducive for us to provide the quality education that you deserve.”