(Last Updated on August 10, 2012 by Editor)
The students of Zimbabwe would like to join the rest of the world,
particularly the waged people in commemorating the International
Workers Day.
ZINASU will on this day recognize and note with greater concern the
continued suffering and toiling of the working people of Zimbabwe
under an insufficient wage bill that is continuously outdone by the
elusive poverty datum.
The workers play a crucial role and constitute an indispensable pillar
in the wellbeing, growth and development of the nation.
The Zimbabwean worker has been part of the broader community that has
resiliently fought continuously for the betterment of the country
through the attainment of the indispensable tenets of democracy,
granting and respect of the various rights and freedoms for the common
people.
It is the commonness of the intertwined plight of the workers and
students that has perennially necessitated the need for the existence
of unfaltering solidarity between the worker and the student of
Zimbabwe.
The protracted struggle of the working people, which spans from the
1800s unjust trial of the striking Cordwainers to the 1820s strike for
a 10hr working day from the 14,15,16,17 hr that was not so uncommon,
culminated then in the resolution of a declaration(against all odds)
of an 8 hour working day on the 1st of May 1886. The struggle has
continued and continues to be influential in shaping the discourse on
which the livelihood of the common people is hinged.
The synergy and common link between the workers’ and students’ plight
and the broader people’s emancipation agenda concretely exist in that
the student’s challenges outpour into the worker’s and vice versa.
The exorbitant fees that institutions of higher learning demand have
to be serviced by the poor wage bill of the common worker. The same
poor wage bill that is being outdone by the elusive poverty datum line
is expected to feed and educate the student so that he could one day
be a worker who would be expecting better livelihood.
The majority of academic programmes have work related
experience/internship/attachment as a prerequisite, which translate to
a period of workership in studentship. The students on attachment
expect better livehoods in the workplace hence the students union is
mandated to demand better working conditions for the workers, our
parents, our brothers and sisters.
The students and workers should and will always join hands, and reason
together in demanding progressive policy frameworks and practices that
revives and restores the vibrancy of our economy for the creation of a
broader job base which recognizes the dignity of the worker, on whose
the students and the broader citizen depend.
The students also join the workers in demanding responsible conduct
from those entrusted with the running of the nation’s affairs in this
transition, the respect of the workers’ rights and respect of labour
laws that are on constant threat from the draconic pieces of
legislation in the form of POSA, AIPPA etc. Trade union rights are
human rights. The fabric on which the crafting of our legislations are
hinged should continuously be a reflection of the respect of the
workers’ rights, the students’ rights and the broader citizens rights
as the struggle for emancipation continues.
A peoples’ emancipation is in that peoples’ own hands, so is their liberation.
Indeed the continued existence and strengthening of the solidarity
will see struggle of the worker and the students’ struggle and hence
the broader struggle for the emancipation of the common Zimbabwean
yielding results.