Public university academics strike over pay

Lecturers and non-teaching staff at public universities in Zimbabwe have gone on strike. The academics are protesting against poor working conditions, late salary payments and the government’s failure to pay them 2014 bonuses.

The strike, which began earlier this month, has put pressure on a government battling with a rising wage bill amid limited resources. The state has also failed to provide grants to students over the years.

Since lecturers went on strike, the government has managed to pay outstanding salaries. But academics say that it is not enough to get them back to work.

The dons have been angered by the fact that the government paid soldiers and the police bonuses late last year, and teachers, nurses and doctors received 13th cheques in January. But there has been no firm commitment to pay academics bonuses.

Letter to minister

In a letter to the new Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development, Oppah Muchinguri, and state university council chairs, lecturers said they would continue the strike action until their grievances were addressed.

“Zimbabwe state university workers are incapacitated to report for their normal duties with immediate effect. In future, the workers will not report for duty if their salaries are not paid by the end of each and every month,” read the letter.

“The government or employer must pay our 2014 bonuses forthwith. As state universities we demand a fixed pay date, as it is the case with all the other government-funded institutions, and to seek an audience with the chancellor, His Excellency Comrade RG Mugabe.”

President Robert Mugabe, in power since the country’s independence from Britain in 1980, is chancellor of Zimbabwe’s 10 state universities.

Cash crunch

The lecturers said they had held a meeting and noted that the government was deliberately neglecting its duty to pay their salaries on agreed dates.

Facing a cash crunch, the government has since told employees that there will not be a salary hike this year – inviting opposition from unions and risking a spate of strikes in the coming months by disgruntled employees.

Muchinguri, the higher education minister, was not available for comment and has not made a public statement during the strike.

The new minister helped to plot the entrance into politics in July last year of Robert Mugabe’s wife, Grace Mugabe. Muchinguri was chair of the ruling ZANU PF party’s powerful Women’s League, but stepped downed and offered the seat to the First Lady.

* Meanwhile, Zimbabwe’s National Aids Council said last week it had introduced HIV training for focal people at all tertiary institutions, to provide technical guidance to and raise awareness among students about HIV-Aids – particularly those in first year. Universities are recording the highest numbers of new HIV infections in the country. This has been blamed on prostitution, following the state’s failure to provide financial support to students.