By Own Correspondent

THE existence of fragmented trade unions across the country’s key economic sectors continues to be a thorn in the flesh which needs to be urgently countered, Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions national organiser, Michael Kandukutu has bemoaned.

He made the remarks in a wide ranging discussion with The Worker   recently where  he proposed the need to explore alternatives to address the problem.

“The decline in union membership is a factor which is posing the biggest challenge to unionism. We also note the multiplicity of trade unions working against the trade unions. Trade unions are effective when they bring together all workers to enhance what we term the collective bargaining strength,” he said.

Kandukutu said without a defined working class unity, workers will not achieve all the desired objectives.

“You will note that we have a number of our industries which are represented by unions numbering from four to 12 in one industrial sector and the results have been far from pleasing because there is no collectivism, as the workers are organised as silos.

“As the Organising department we seek to work against atoism in the year 2022,” he said.

He said the ZCTU will also seek to campaign against casualisation of labour which has posed yet another challenge to trade union organising.

“Casualisation has also been the causative of union decline because the majority of workers who are on fixed term contracts of employment do not feel secure to join trade unions as they fear that employers would not renew their contracts of employment on their expiry,” he added.