Wage negotiations and lockdowns

Many National Employment Councils (NECs) are in a quandary over how to handle wage negotiations for 2021 given the two successive lockdowns that have negatively impacted on production and other related business activities.

The 2020 wage negotiations were affected by the first Covid-19 lockdown to an extent that some NECs hardly adjusted wages but opted for in-house works council-negotiated agreements as circumstances of organisations within industries were different.

Some workers had gone through periods of no work, no pay, paid half salaries, took vacation leave so as to be paid and other companies retrenched.

This put most trade unions in weak negotiating positions as their priority became keeping jobs and allowing business to recover.

The challenge now is that 2020 wage negotiations were not sitting on firm guidelines for many industries and we now have to start the 2021 negotiations in an environment where largely only essential services, agriculture, mining and manufacturing are running.

On the other hand the costs are hitting workers hard. These include rise in electricity charges, increased transport costs, increased price of basic commodities like mealie-meal, sugar, cooking oil and others.

That workers’ wages have been heavily eroded is a fact and its also true that many businesses are struggling and others are closing down due to the impact of Covid-19.

That having been said, there are many challenges that lie ahead of wage negotiations.

Many employers argue that NEC minimum wages should be left as they are and at works council, organisations top up with what they can afford. Organisations with robust works councils have successfully taken this route.

There are, however, some organisations where parties have used the conflict approach and not much has been achieved.

Some employers have simply applied the principle of no work, no pay arguing that its not their fault that workers are not at work.

Some have closed their businesses and others have retrenched some workers.

All this sends fear of losing jobs to the workers and leave trade unions handicapped trying to balance a living wage for their members and keeping jobs.

On the other hand, you have an employer who comes to a negotiating table arguing that he has no work going on and those allowed to trade are open for less hours with very few customers as people are on lockdown.

Some employers are proposing no wage increases until the pandemic is over.

Both employers and trade unionists have a difficult task in 2021 wage negotiations as whatever they agree must recognise that the wages are lagging behind costs and some workers are earning sub-human wages at the same time there are some businesses unable to pay more, otherwise they would fold.

There are also some businesses that are doing very well and as such the works council negotiations have become more important.

In conclusion, whatever NEC negotiations result in, there must be room for in-house negotiations and wage increase exemption options so as to cater for abilities of different members to pay within an NEC.-chronicle.cl.zw