By Nicholas Aribino

University lecturers in Zimbabwe work like elephants and feed like rats at the end of the day because their salaries are too measly to allow them decent lives. Most university lecturers in Zimbabwe have well-polished academic furniture like PhDs and are indeed conversant with and deeply grounded in their areas of academic and professional orientations, but what they get as their employment costs do not justify their academic and professional positionalities. It is indeed, the object of this opinion piece to flag out the tribulations of university lecturers in Zimbabwe.
In a healthy economy university lecturers would safely be found in the middle class; they would constitute a good cash cow for taxation by the government. One of the signs of an ailing economy is the conspicuous absence of a middle class. Zimbabwe at the moment does not have a middle class, only two distinct classes stand out -the very rich and the very poor. The poor are getting poorer by the day and the rich are getting richer by the day through illicit commerce. Those who have worked hard like university lecturers in Zimbabwe to be where they are now are not by anyway enjoying the fruits of their hard work, rather they are just getting by through survivalist approaches which take away their self-respect and dignity. For example, university lecturers’ salaries do not come with any surplus for meeting the demands of their households. From the university lecturers’ employment costs there is no take home, because the so called take home is not even enough to take them home. Some university lecturers ask for a ride from their students into town after their lectures; this kind of practice constitutes status-inconsistence and others scramble for a seat on the ZUPCO bus with students coming from their classes. With respect to the former, it is unethical because how objectively can a lecturer assess the work of a student who would have given him or her a lift into town. The form, content and substance of university education in Zimbabwe is going down the tubes as a result of a demotivated academic workforce. Arguably, lecturers teach according to their values and movere (motivation). Academicians should have decorum; they should not be enticed by students into doing things that may end up compromising their personhood and the reputation of universities to which they are tied. University education is both a process and a product, as a process, lecturers should be involved in procedural justice in discharging their funded mandate by investing equal time in educating all the students. Where members of the academic staff are struggling to make ends meet, they are taken advantage of by students from rich families who would give them freebies or gifts and, in the process, lecturers may award undeservedly marks to rich students at the cost of students coming from disadvantaged social groups who have no freebies to offer. As a product, education should have intellectually, socially and morally tuned graduates, but alas, the process through which students undergo in universities which largely lack organisational and procedural justice has corrupted them because of a dejected academic community that can bend backwards to accept gifts to influence assessment.
Under-investment and over-investment of efforts by teachers / lecturers are now rampant in the education system of Zimbabwe; those students who can afford an extra dollar for extra tuition will get more attention from the teacher/lecturer (over-investment) and those students who cannot afford an extra dollar for extra tuition known as ma-eke (literally meaning eking out a living) will get very little attention from the teacher / lecturer (under-investment). In higher education those students who spoil lecturers with money for data, lunch and transport may access privileged information and even examination papers. The education system in Zimbabwe is now highly privatized, corporatized, commercialised and commodified. Public schools have remained public schools by way of just definition, everything that happens in these public schools has taken the face of a free-market economy where services are structured according to the capability and capacity of the consumer to pay for education. The same goes for public universities, for example to access public universities one needs official fees for his or her education and ‘user-fees / pays’ also for lecturers that may come in many forms. For example, there are evidential pieces in Zimbabwe to prove that in some universities female students’ thighs have become tables on which assignments and examinations are marked. Low remuneration may also impel some male lecturers to regard female students as commodities in the market to enjoy. When lecturers lose self-respect and dignity because of meagre salaries, they may do all horrible things out of frustration.
The policy of Education 5.0 (community service, lecturing, research, innovation and industrialisation) in Zimbabwe will not succeed as long as the working conditions of university lecturers are not addressed by the government. Surprisingly, very few political elites send their children to public universities, as they consider private education and good institutions in the global North for their children. The rich in the global periphery (developing countries) are in the habit of sending their children to private education in the global metropole. In the context of Zimbabwe, the academic community is further demotivated to carry out research in various facets of social phenomena because the fiscus does not ring-fence significant economic resources for research and development. Innovation and industrialization are informed by research, brain circulation between and among academic communities, logistical and technical support, brain -exchange activities between and among universities, but the government of Zimbabwe’s expenditure of effort towards research and development is failing to stand out like a diamond in a coal-field. One cannot expect a goose to lay golden eggs if it is not given adequate food. Similarly, university lecturers cannot effectively embark on community service, lecture effectively, carry out research to improve on innovation and industrialization if their presence in intellectual landscapes are just seen like mosquitoes sitting on an elephant. Zimbabwean universities need support from the national budget in order for them to retain critical academic staff who can help the country to realise the goal of being an upper middle -income society by 2030. The country has adequate resources in the form of mineral wealth that can be used to transform Zimbabwe into a global economic power-house. Many lecturers are leaving Zimbabwe en-masse to develop other economies because Zimbabwe has failed to retain its pool of talent; skills-flight can only be mitigated with the restoration of the dignity of the academic community.

Dr. Nicholas Aribino : ZIMCARE Trust Country
Director and is writing in his own capacity.
Contact : +263715617095

By Shadreck Zangairai

Last week I started a debate on whether decline in strike activity reflects that conflict is no longer an important feature in contemporary employment relationships. This week I will continue with my analysis. It seems employers have taken advantage of the vulnerability of workers to exploit labour at will. Some employers went further to bar employees from subscribing to unions. A research by Tarugarira concluded that employers further threatened to draw upon the wide pool of desperate job seekers in the event of a strike action. Such environment and conditions forced workers to suffer quietly thereby desisting from strike action. Their voices are suppressed. Those employees who cannot stand the heat will leave employment and cross borders in search of greener pastures. Conflict is there but people have leant to ignore or live with it. This contributed to the decline in strike activity thereby supporting the notion that conflict is not an important feature in contemporary employment relationships.
To add on, the unemployment rate in Zimbabwe reflects the imbalance of the working class versus the unemployed. Due to the retrenchments and company closures experienced since the turn of the millennium, many people got involved in informal employment. This weakened trade unions since their powerbase and strength is in numbers and unity. Trade unions also became disjointed because of failing to serve the interests of its members who in turn looked at other alternatives. This means that those workers who were left at work could not match the bargaining strength of the employers hence they are suppressed and keep quite. The image portrayed is that conflict is not important in the workplace because people have leant to live with it. According to the Marxist conflict theory, it emerges because company owners are seen as making profits by paying workers less than their work is worth, thus exploiting them. Here lies the core of industrial conflict.
Furthermore, the decline in strike activity is also necessitated by the restrictive laws passed by the government such as Maintenance of Peace and Order Act Chapter 11:23 or political interference. These are aimed at disrupting labour meetings, restricting information deemed to be politically volatile and frustrating any efforts to organize meetings. These laws made it practically impossible for legal strikes to take place. Period 1996-1999 was evidenced by mass strikes being initiated by the ZCTU. To combat the situation, the government introduced such laws which prohibited workers or their representatives to engage in collective job action without seeking authority from the police.
Trade unions were seen as a threat to the government hence imposition of the restrictive laws. Since then, the impact of strikes began to weaken. For example, in 2021 and 2022, a call for strike action by the nurses association was not a success because the government used the state machinery such as media, police and army to discourage people from participating. Even calls for strike by teachers unions recently was a flop because the government used everything at its disposable to deny the action. All this brought fear to workers who were left defenseless and this led to decline in strike activity. However such laws only reduced strike activity but cannot eradicate conflict in the workplace.
All in all, reasons for the decline in strike activity to some extent, deals with the effectiveness of the negotiating strategies available for settling disputes. If procedures exist whereby grievances can be speedily formulated and efficiently channeled into negotiating strategies, strikes will be unlikely. The use of the economic power such as strikes, to control conflict in employment relationships should be the last resort because of its adverse effects on the economy. Parties in employment relations have leant that before resorting to strike, they have to exhaust mediation and conciliation efforts to try and solve the dispute amicably and avoid industrial action as much as possible. Of late organisations have engaged in strategies that help create good workplace relations and manage conflict so as to avoid collective job action. Such positive strategies have seen the decline in strike activities reflecting that conflict is not an important feature in employment relations. However there are some negative strategies being employed that have led to the decline in strike activity. This includes use of restrictive laws to control strikes, disjointment of trade unions and use of power by those who own the means of capital. High unemployment may have made workers reluctant to strike over pay. Workers may have become more defensive, trying to protect their jobs, rather than trying to improve their standards of living by increasing their wages. In my next article I will focus on the disjointment of trade unions and its implications in resolving industrial conflicts.

Disclaimer; Shadreck Zangairai is the Principal Human Resources Officer at Masvingo
Provincial Hospital. He writes in his personal Capacity
(shadreckzanga@gmail.com)