Calls to revive Tripartite Negotiating Forum
Zimbabwe’s largest labor unions have sought an audience with President Mnangagwa in a fresh bid to revive the Tripartite Negotiating Forum (TNF), an official said.
The TNF, a social dialogue platform that brings together Government, business, and labor to discuss socioeconomic matters was formed in 1998, initially as a voluntary forum, but later legislated through the Tripartite Negotiating Forum Act of 2019.
The revival of the social platform collapsed after the partners failed to agree on a national minimum wage. Labour is demanding a minimum wage be negotiated at a national level and partly paid in foreign currency while the Government and business argue that negotiations for wages should be done at a sector level and rejected the proposed blanket policy of compelling companies to pay in foreign currency.
The Zimbabwe Federation of Trade Union (ZFTU) and the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Union (ZCTU) recently wrote to President Mnangagwa seeking a meeting to ask for his help to break the impasse.
“As labor, we are disturbed that we have not been able to find each other,” ZCTU secretary general Japhet Moyo said. “We had a meeting in Victoria Falls in December last year but it yielded nothing. We are now seeking the audience of the President to have something done. “We have to keep on pushing because there is no alternative to social dialogue. As social partners we need to agree,” he added.
The ZCTF was not immediately available for comment. The labour maintains while it believes the TNF will help in resolving some of the socio-economic issues, lack of seriousness especially from other social partners remains a challenge.
On the other hand, the business says the biggest challenge is a trust deficit between the Government and other social partners.
It claims that there is consensus within TNF that there is a need for a social dialogue to come up with a social contract specifically to address the issue of economic stability and to give dialogue and consensus building around major economic policy interventions a chance.-ebusinessweekly
