Civil Servants go on Strike
HARARE — Zimbabwe’s civil servants, including teachers and doctors, went on strike Friday to demand an increase to their monthly salaries of 150 dollars (110 euros), their unions said.
“Our members have declared that they are not going to work from today,” Cecilia Alexander, president of the Public Service Association, an umbrella body for the civil servants’ unions.
Doctors and nurses demonstrate in Harare in December 2008
The government has proposed increases of between seven and 21 dollars for civil servants, who say their wages do not cover even basic living expenses.
“They say they will not come back to work until government gives them something meaningful, some reasonable, something acceptable,” Alexander said.
After Zimbabwe’s unity government took office nearly one year ago, the local currency was abandoned and civil servants were awarded flat salaries of 150 US dollars.
Finance Minister Tendai Biti had repeatedly said that the cash-strapped government simply does not have the money to pay them more, as the country struggles to pull itself out of a decade of economic collapse.
Posted by Wellington Chadehumbe
on February 5, 2010. Filed under Local News.
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