NATURE AND PURPOSE OF LABOUR LAW
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two big camps – bourgeois and communist
within these are various labour relations theories –
classical and modern ones – unitarism; pluralism; societal corporatism-state corporatism;
feminist; critical race theories; 3rd world nationalist theories
left / communist theories – marxist; marxist feminist; anarchist; stalinist]
the different theories are divided on two major divides: basic questions of labour relations;
and on philosophical foundations
Gwisai divides the two camps using their different answers to three fundamental questions.
 ownership/control of the means of production: private or social –
 nature of how work carried out: co-operatively/consensually or unilateraly/authoritarian –
 consumption and distribution of product of labour: individually-privately or collectivelyegalitarian
NATURE AND PURPOSE ACCORDING TO AUTHORS
MADHUKU- UNITARISM MIXED WITH PLURALISM
GROGAN- PLURALISM
GWISAI- MARXISM
ALL THREE AGREE THAT LABOUR LAW IS A CAPITALIST INSTRUMENT.
THE THREE DIFFER ON PRINCIPLES.
MADHUKU- UNITARISM MIXED WITH PLURATISM
DEFINITION OF LABOUR LAW ACCORDING TO MADHUKU
In a narrow perspective, labour law refers to the collection of legal rules
which govern the employment relationship. In a broad sense, labour
law covers not only the rules which govern the employment relationship
but also embraces the rules regulating the existence and operation of all
the institutions of the labour market, such as trade unions, employers’
organizations, the State in its dual capacity as employer and regulator
and the labour dispute resolution entities.
- MADHUKU DEFINITION IS PLURALIST
- REFERS TO A SYSTEM OF RULES-CAPITALIST DEFINITION OF LAW
- POSITIVIST DEFINITION- THEORY THAT WE ARE ALL GOVERNED BY RULES
“The following statement from Deakin and Morris aptly captures the scope of labour law: Labour law
stems from the idea of ‘subordination of the individual worker to the capitalist enterprise’; it is
above all, the law of dependent labour, and hence is specific to those categories of economic
relationship which in some way involve the exchange of personal service or services for
remuneration. Labour law is concerned with how these relationships are constituted, a role which in
common law systems is accorded primarily to contract, and with how they are regulated, a role
shared by the common law and social legislation but also by extra-legal sources such as collective
bargaining and workplace custom and practice. Its scope accordingly extends from the individual to
the collective, from the contract of employment to relations between the institutions of organised
labour and capital and to the conduct and resolution of conflicts between them” EXTRACT FROM
MADHUKU BOOK
-MADHUKU BELIEVES SUBORDINATION IS CENTRAL TO EMPLOYMENT RELATIONSHIPS
-MATURALLY EMPLOYEES SHOULD BE SUBORDINATE TO EMPLOYERS- CAPITALIST IDEA
PURPOSE OF LABOUR LAW ACCORDING TO MADHUKU
Labour law has two main purposes:
1. To perform the social function of protecting employees from
the full operation of market forces through creating a minimum floor of rights for employees, such
as maximum hours of work, protection from unfair dismissals and minimum wages. This is a social
justice purpose.
2. To balance the inequality of bargaining power inherent in the employment relationship by
facilitating the operation of organized labour as a countervailing force to capital. In this
regard, labour law facilitates the operation of workers organizations, sets out the framework
for collective bargaining and creates a platform for the withdrawal of labour as a
countervailing tool in the hands of organized labour.
MADHUKU INTEREST IN SOCIAL JUSTICE SHOWS HE IS A PLURALIST
PLURALISISTS SUBSCRIBE TO IDEA THAT LABOUR LAW IS FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE.
EVIDENCE OF MADHUKU’S PLURALISM
- HIS IDEAS ON THE PURPOSE OF LAW AS A SOCIAL JUSTICE INSTRUMENT
- HIS BELIEF IN LABOUR LAW BEING A TOOL TO BRING ABOUT A BALANCE OF POWER
EVIDENCE OF MADHUKU’S UNITARISM
- SAYS 1 YEAR RULE ON MATERNITY PROTECTION IS REASONABLE (GO TO MATERNITY
PROTECTION IN NOTES TO SEE WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT)
- IDEA OF SUBORDINATION IN EMPLOYMENT RELATIONSHIP
- SUBSCRIBES TO NO WORK NO PAY PRINCIPLE
GWISAI
GWISAI IS AGGRESIVELY SOCIALIST
Gwisai defines law in general as a set of rules with class character that express above all thewill of
the political and economic elite and advances the interest of this class.
DEFINITION OF LABOUR LAW ACCORDING TO GWISAI
Labour law refers to the system of rules that regulates the voluntary relationships arising from the
workplace and whose enforcement is guaranteed by the state as law.
NATURE AND PURPOSE ACCORDING TO GWISAI
Firstly, it is class derived and has a suppressive function involving the use of direct state force to
suppress workers in favour of employers.
Secondly, labour law has an ideological or reformist function. Through concessions and reforms
granted to the working class and sanctions on individual transgressing employers, labour law can
ameliorate the excesses of exploitation and oppression , whilst at the same time seeking to foster
illusions of fairness and social partnership between workers and employers.
ANALYSIS OF PURPOSE OF LABOUR LAW ACCORDING TO GWISAI
-Gwisai’sreference to suppressive function shows his socialism. Criticizes pluralist ideas by critiquing
telone case(see it under section “cases that support unitarism” and criticizes unitarist ideas by
critiquing nyamande v zuva case (also under cases that support unitarism)
- Gwisai’s reference to reformist function shows gwisai is willing to accept that while labour law is
fundamentally flawed it is not entirely bad. Labour law does help in enhancing worker regards even
if it is to asmall extent. Gwisai acknowledges the help section 65 has brought to workers even
thiough he argues it could be better drafted and executed.
- Gwisai’s major issue is that labour law is an instrument of capitalist exploitation because it implies
there is an acceptable standard of exploitation.
EVIDENCE OF GWISAI’S SOCIALISM
ARGUES THAT 1 YEAR RULE IN MATERNITY PROTECTION IS ARBITRARY AND UNREASONABLE AS
OPPOSED TO MADHUKU
ARGUES THAT NO WORK NO PAY PRINCIPLE IS TOO UNACCOMODATIVE OF CIRCUMSTANCES
ARGUES AGAINST WORKERS BEING DISMISSED ON NOTICE AS IN NYAMANDE CASE
Communist theories Communist theories are divided into two parts, namely a critique of the process
of work and labour law under capitalism and a projection of the process of work under communism.
The essential elements of the communist critique of work and labour law under capitalism were
outlined in the preceding section. Under classical Marxism, socialism and communism follow the
overthrow of capitalism. Socialism is the period immediately following the overthrow of capitalism,
in which the working class becomes the ruling class in control of the state and the means of
production are communally owned and controlled. The law and the state, including labour law,
continue in existence, but change significantly in their character, with the massive diminishing of
their suppressive, authoritarian and undemocratic aspects as the reformist and democratic aspects
greatly expand. The above will be possible because for the first time in history, the dominant class
will be composed of the majority of society, namely the working people. With time, especially with
the increase of participatory democracy, the public control of the means of production, the gradual
disappearance of classes as the capitalists are defeated and all layers of society becoming working
people, the historical role of law and the state as necessary conflict resolution mechanisms,
gradually diminishes such that they will wither away as means of regulating the process of work and
society. Instead they are substituted by social customs or conventions, that is social rules whose
enforcement does not rely on special organs above society like the state and law. The main
convention under communism will be that everyone will be required to work for the society to the
best of their ability and to get a share from the fruits of this collective labour according to their
needs as human beings.8 The philosophy of historical and dialectical materialism, developed by Karl
Marx and Fredrick Engels, provides the most powerful analytical tool of the development of human
society, hitherto developed. It holds that human society changes qualitatively over time, from low to
higher forms of economic and social organization. It states that the source of changes in human
society and its institutions, like the law and the state, is found in how human beings organize
themselves in the process of work and in interaction with nature to fulfil their needs of survival. This
is in opposition to the philosophy of idealism, which holds that in the universe there is an
everlasting, and unchanging hierarchy of powers and authorities, at the top of which is a super
being, spirit or idea called god, 8 For a summary of the Marxist conception of the state and law see:
Marx and Engels (2003); Engels F The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (Lawrence
& Wishart); Lenin V.I State and Revolution (International Publishers, 2002)); Harman C A People’s
History of the World (Bookmarks Publications, 1999) and Hyman R Industrial Relations: A Marxist
Introduction (MacMillan, 1975) 10 mwari, allah, umlilo, jah ,nyaminyami in different societies. This
exists outside society and determines the natural and human structure of society including its
institutions like law. For example, it is the ‘law of nature’, which predetermines the pre-ordained
rights, status, and duties of kings and subjects, rich and poor or employers and workers. Marxism
rejects the existence of a “Supreme Being” and holds that change comes from the process of work,
in particular the struggle between two key elements within it, the productive forces and the
relations of production. Productive forces refer to the totality of tools, technology and raw materials
(called means of production) as well as the human power with a particular level of skills that is used
in production. Relations of production refer to the systems that human beings develop as they
collectively use the means of production together, for these cannot be worked individually. Relations
of production essentially revolve around questions like: how are the means of production owned privately or collectively; how is the process of work done – consensually or autocratically,
collectively (mushandirapamwe) or individually – nationally or internationally; and finally how are
the fruits of labour consumed - privately or communally (gutsaruzhinji…ukama igasvu hunozadziswa
nekudya) and nationally or globally. The broad groups that emerge in the process of work are called
classes. The productive forces and relations of production are in constant struggle due to the fact
that productive forces develop faster as human beings discover and invent new tools. This contrasts
to the reluctance of people to change the way they work as they become attached to ways of doing
things over time. Marx argues that historically the contradictions between the productive forces and
the relations of production become so severe that they can only be resolved by a fundamental
overhaul of the relations of production to match up with the new level of development of the
productive forces. This is when classes that represented the advancement of the productive forces
overthrew the old ones and became the new ruling class establishing an entirely new mode of
production that restored the equilibrium between the two. Where the forces of the old triumphed,
society regressed. A system where the productive forces and the relations of production are in
equilibrium is called a historical mode of production or economic base. Corresponding to each
economic base is a body of ideas and institutions that humans build around and in support of it. This
is called the superstructure. It includes things like customs, conventions, religions, the state, law,
cultural beliefs, art, music and so forth. The superstructure of any society is ultimately shaped and
determined by its economic base, even though it too has some influence on the latter. It primarily
reflects the influence and interests of the economically dominant class, which also becomes the
politically dominant one. As modes of production have changed so have the form and character of
the superstructure. Since the emergence of modern human beings there have been four modes of
production — primitive communism, slavery, feudalism and capitalism, each with its own
corresponding superstructure. Primitive communism was the first and longest historical mode. It
was characterised by low levels of development of productive forces and the fruits of labour were
communally shared but were often scarce. In this society there was no state or law, but society and
the process of work were regulated by customs and conventions. About 10,000 years ago, this mode
was replaced by slavery in which private property in the means of production first emerged to
facilitate the further development of productive 11 forces that were becoming hampered by the
communal bonds of the previous society. Subsequent to it were the two modes, which are also
based on private property, feudalism and capitalism. At a global level, capitalism developed about
400 years ago in Europe and expanded to Africa as an extension of European conquest, trade and
colonialism, decisively in the nineteenth century. In the last three modes, the struggle between the
productive forces and relations of production is reflected in the struggles between the classes: the
slaves and the plebeians (urban working people) against the slave masters in slave society; the
peasantry, plebeians, middle classes and the bourgeoisie (capitalists) against the feudal aristocracy
in feudal society; and the proletariat (workers), urban poor, peasants, the lower middle classes and
sections of the neo-colonial national bourgeoisie against the multinational bourgeoisie and the local
elites under global monopoly capitalism today. The state emerged as a special body of armed
persons with substantial social monopoly over the use of violence, and responsible for the
enforcement of law. The mandatory social rules enforced by the State, emerged and evolved from
the womb of primitive communism only about 7000 years ago to minimize class conflicts and
prevent them from potentially engulfing the entire society in a perpetual civil war that would
destroy production and threaten the very foundation of society itself. The state and law did not
emerge under a voluntary social contract for the equal benefit of all but instead was designed to
protect the interests of the dominant economic class. Historically this was an essential and
progressive step because it enabled the advancement of productive forces to eventually reach the
unprecedented levels of scientific development reached under capitalism, whereby for the first time
in human history, it is possible to house, clothe, educate and provide health care, to every single
person on the planet, even if at a basic level. However, what stops this is that production is that the
means of production remain the private property of an increasingly few giant multinationals and
other capitalists whose aim in production is to maximise their profits even if this is at the expense of
the majority of the world’s peoples. Such a system, which is based on the limited capitalist market,
has now in fact become a break on the further development of society, as science, law, states and
society are all made subordinate to the dictates of a market that excludes the vast majority of the
world, even as production becomes globally based. This is generating social and political tensions
and conflicts across the world, that threaten total social disintegration, as is already in the increasing
number of failed states in the neo-colonial states. These fundamental contradictions can only be
resolved by socialization of the productive forces at a global level and allowing production to be
determined by the needs of the billions of the planet’s population rather than the profits of the few,
in other words, a true global socialist revolution. Differences of interpretation on communist
theories exist and predominantly evolve around the extent the law can be used by the working class
as a tactic in the overall struggle, and whether socialism already exists. Stalinists argue that what
exists/ed in countries like China, the Democratic Republic of Korea and Cuba and the former Soviet
Union and Eastern Europe was socialism and describe the law in such countries as socialist.
However, the collapse of the former Soviet Union and the unprecedented theft of public property by
the oligarchs in the early 1990s, as well as the full adoption of free market policies by China has
challenged the legitimacy of such claims and vindicated 12 Trotsky’s prediction that sooner or later
nationalized property would be turned into private property. Trotsky’s argue that socialism by
definition can only exist internationally and on the basis of the abundant wealth created by
developed capitalism, rather than in one country, especially a poor one. They argue what exists in
many of these countries is State Capitalism, which emerged as a nationalist response in less
developed countries to counter domination from major capitalist countries. 9 Historically it first
emerged in Russia as a result of the slow defeat and degeneration of the first ever-national workers’
revolution, the October 1917 Russian Revolution. After its failure to spread internationally and in
conditions of economic isolation and backwardness, at end of the 1920s the Bolshevik Revolution
was defeated by an internal counter-revolution led by a layer of the state and party bureaucrats
under the leadership of Joseph Stalin. Although claiming the traditions of the 1917 Revolution in
order to cement its rule and retaining nationalized property, State Capitalism was not socialism as
the state was not under the control of working people. Countries, like the former Soviet Union, were
not under the control of the working class but rather were highly authoritarian and undemocratic in
their political structures, whilst also increasingly integrated in the global capitalist economy, albeit as
a weak link. Such model was copied by many post-colonial countries in the third world. These
countries were the most vulnerable to the pressures that followed the global recession and oil crisis
of the mid-1970s and the global debt crisis that followed with many collapsing in the 1980s. The
economic crisis resulted in the introduction of extreme forms of free market policies through the
dominant role played by international capital and creditors through the International Monetary
Fund and the World Bank in the 1980s and 1990s. Today, contrary to the premature obituaries of
communism, from the belly of the beast in the USA, UK, France to Venezuela, China, India, South
Africa and Zimbabwe struggles against neo-liberal capitalism by workers, the urban poor and middle
classes have intensified. Indeed one can still imagine a world.
Grogan J
1) Scope
Grogan traces common law contract of employment to locatio conductio (letting and hiring) of
Roman law. This includes 3 types that is locatio conductio rei: the letting and hiring of a specified
thing for a money payment, locatio conductio operis(the forerunner of the independent contractor),
locatio conductio operam: the letting and hiring of personal services return of remuneration.
However to reach satisfactory results, Roman Dutch and English law have been merged. Hence
Grogan views that many of the general principles of the law of contract apply to the contract of
employment, for example, the principles relating to contractual capacity, duress and undue
influence, legality and unjust enrichment. Also inspite of increasing statutory intrusion, the commonlaw contract of employment remains the basis of the employment relationship in the sense that the
legal relationship between the employer and the employee is created by it.
2) Purpose of Labour Law
a)To pay regard to the collective relationship between employees and employers which has become
of increasing importance with the growth of trade union movement.
b) To cater for the inherent inequality in bargaining power between the employer as the owner of
the means of production and the employees, who are entirely dependent on supply and demand for
their welfare and job security.
c) To pay regard to the enduring nature of the employment relationship, giving the employee no
inherent right to press for better conditions of employment as time goes by.
d) To discourage exploitation of labour
e) To provide effective protection to the job security of employees
3) Theory of Labour relations
Grogan is of the view that only employees proper are entitled to social security benefits and have
access to the statutory
 mechanisms in order to seek remedies for violations of their employment rights, and only
employers are bound by the labour statutes and vicariously liable for the delicate of their
employees
 A contract of employment may be said to exist when the agreement between the parties is
such that the reciprocal rights and obligations expressly or impliedly agreed upon conform
with the essentials of the locatio conductio operam.
[basic differences between communist theories and bourgeois theories are - public-socialised
ownership and control viz bourgeois private ownershipcontrol - democratic co-operative control of
all producers vi management or capital’s prerogative - social consumption viz private consumption role of state and law: class instrument for attaining exploitation and oppression of producers by
owners-controllers of means of production viz the state and law as neutral – facilitative platforms for
work]
Left-communist theories founded on theory of dialectical and historical materialism
whereas bourgeois theories on varied mixture of idealism and materialism as well as
metaphysical and historical theories]
The key distinguishing features in philosophy are
- on the ultimate source of nature and humanity: was it created by a
transcental super-being or not: is there a spiritual world being outside and
superior to nature and human society
- can humans understand nature and their society on their own on inherently
incapable and require intervention of such external force
- nature and source of change in nature and human society: is change/motion
merely and always quantitative or also qualitative : i.e. overtime does
phenomena transform from lower to higher forms; from the simple to the
sophisticated/ related to this: is nature and humanity one homogeneous
unvagiated mass or composed of diverse contradictory phenomena
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The main features of the process of work are:
Labour power or the capacity to work is turned into a commodity or exchange
value. This is a thing that is produced for sale on the market rather than for the
use of the producer.
Labour power under capitalism is sold on the labour
market for only a defined duration, by the worker, who is a free person with
the right of freedom of trade, rather than a person who is owned or under the
perpetual control of the other as the slave and peasant.
Slavery is prohibited.
The existence of a perpetual reserve army of the unemployed, which acts to
control the labour market in favour of employers.
Relations of work are exploitative, oppressive and alienating in character see CoZ section
banning picketing by security services SECTION 65(2) AND LABOUR ACT S104A
CAPITALIST PURPOSE OF LABOUR LAW
 To ensure the undisturbed continuation of the process of work principally for the well being of the
capitalist class.
 To ensure the dominance of the employer class in the employment relationship. The law imposes
a duty on the worker to obey the commands of the employer and gives the employer the right to
manage the business whilst it confines the workers’ share of the fruit of their labour, to the wage.
See TelOne (Pvt) Ltd v Communications & Allied Services Workers Union of Zimbabwe HH 74-2007
where Hungwe J in reversing an arbitrator’s award giving workers 130% of income, according to
their computations and not those of the workers because it was against public policy?? Which public
 To promote methods of dispute resolution that institutionalise labour conflicts into channels that
are least harmful to the capitalists and the state. Militant working class methods that threaten
production, like strikes, are suppressed.
 Promotion of division in the working class and undermining militant trade unions and organised
resistance of the working class. This includes granting privileges to some sections of the working
class and denying them to others. Usually, conceding rights to the most sections of the working class
or those that accept co-option by the capitalists. This leads to fragmentation in labour
 The class partisan character of the institutions of enforcement of labour law. This is especially at
the highest levels of the judiciary, the supreme courts, ‘which determine the principles of court
practice and rectify “incorrect” decisions made by the lower courts in favour of workers and trade
unions,’6 usually basing themselves on unitarist common law principles. [See Chirasasa & Anor v
Nhamo NO & Anor SC 133-2002 --- full bench of Supreme Court holding that an employer could
unilaterally terminate a fixed contract on notice without applying principles of natural justice. The
judges at the superior courts are drawn almost exclusively from the economic and political elites,
whilst workers usually lack the means to hire good lawyers to utilise even the limited scope available
under the law.
 The limitation of excessive exploitation and arbitrary powers of individual employers or segments
of employers to protect the capitalist system. By containing the extremes of exploitation, labour law
seeks to pre-empt the possibility of revolution, that lies latent in the struggles between workers and
employers.
UNITARISM: A CAPITALIST THEORY
developed from the free market economic theory of Adam Smith and the utilitarian or positivist
legal theories of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill.
According to these the maximum happiness for the maximum number of people can only be
achieved when society and the economy are regulated through the laws of supply and demand of
the market.
Emphasis is on the suppressive character of law. In summary its positions are:10 The notion that
employers and employees share the same values and goals in the process of work.
 Conflict in the workplace is unnatural and dysfunctional. If it occurs it is the result of agitators like
unions, workers committees or poor communication.
 There is a natural hierarchy of authority, rights and duties in the workplace as there is in wider
society. As the owner of the business the employer enjoys the right to appropriate profits and the
prerogative to manage the business including the power of command and variation of conditions of
employment whilst the worker enjoys the right to a wage and the duties of subordination.
 Collective bargaining, strikes or state imposed standards such as minimum wages, working hours
or dismissal regulation are seen as undue and inefficient interferences with the market. Such
regulation of the labour market violates the freedom of liberty of adults who know what is best for
them and ultimately harms society through reduced productivity. The free market is the most
efficient and just manner of determining the employment relationship. Thus unitarism calls for
labour flexibility and de-regulated labour markets.
 A good labour law system and judiciary is one that guarantees “ freedom of the employer and
worker from the interference of the state in the labour market, the freedom of choice of the
contracting parties and the freedom of private will to determine the content of the contract.”
Free market theories were developed and used to justify the massive exploitation of workers during
the industrial revolutions in England and Europe, under what was known as laissez faire capitalism.
These extreme forms of laissez faire or free market capitalism policies were resuscitated in the
1980s, as a response to the deep crisis of capitalism after the 1970s recession, but are now more
commonly known as neo liberal globalisation. In many third world countries, these policies were
introduced under the introduction of structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) in the 1980s and
enforced by global capital through International Monetary Fund and World Bank and western
governments in partnership with local elites.
UNITARISM IN ZIMBABWEAN CASES
Tel-One (Pvt) Ltd v Communications & Allied Services Workers Union of Zimbabwe- HUNGWE
REVERSED 130 PERCENT INCREASE TO WAGES MADE BY ARBITRATOR BECAUSE IT WOULD SINK THE
COMPANY-SAID SINKING COMPANY IS AGAISNT PUBLIC POLICY
NYAMANDE V ZUVA PETROLEUM AND ANOTHER-TERMINATION OF EMPLOYEE WITH NOTICE
ZULU V ZB INSURANCE
CITY OF HARARE V ZIMUCHA – NO WORK NO PAY
BAKER V UNION GOVERNMENT- REASONABLE WORKING CONDITIONS- EMPLOYER BIS NOT AN
INSURER
MARANATHA FERROCHROME V NYEMBA- NO BONUS FOR EXTRA TASK- GET ASMUCH OUT OF
WORKER AS POSSIBLE FOR THE LOWEST PRICE
KAY INTERNATIONAL V MAGODORA- CoE IS BINDING ONCE AGREED UPON
UNITARISM IN STATUTES
SECTION 65(2) BANNING OF SECURITY SERVICES FROM PICKETING/STRIKING
SECTION 104 OF LABOUR ACT- ARE SOLDIERS NOT WORKERS
SECTION 109 OF LABOUR ACT- DISRUPTION OF WORK AGAINST UNITARISM- LIABILITY ON WORKERS
SECTION 104 OF LABOUR ACT- DETAILING HOW STRIKES SHOULD PLAY OUT IN ORDER TO CALM THE
STORM AND STOP ARAB SPRING LIKE RISING-TOO MANY PROCEDURES SO BY THE TIME A STRIKE
GETS CLEARANCE PEOPLE WILL BE TIRED AND WWOULD JUST WANT TO MOVE ON
SECTION 200(4)- WHY CAN’T ORDINARY WORKER BE IN POLITICAL OFFICE
PLURALISM
EMERGED FROM CRITICISM OF UNITARISM
It emerged as a critique of the perceived weaknesses of the free market theories from the
sociological theories of law and society developed by German philosopher Max Weber and the
American realist Ross Pound.
It is also identifiable with the mixed economy and welfare state theory of English economist
John Keynes, which became dominant in the wake of the 1930s Great Depression.
Otto Kahn – Freund, a leading pluralist scholar thus described the contract of
employment as a “ a relation between a bearer of power and one who is not a bearer of
power. In its inception it is an act of submission, in its operation it is a condition of
subordination, however much the submission and the subordination may be concealed by
that indispensable figment of the legal mind known as ‘contract of employment.’
Unitarism is seen as resulting in harsh and inequitable treatment of workers because of
its failure to recognize the inherent power imbalances. This results in violation of the
right to dignity inherent in a democratic society
Pluralism sees society as composed of diverse interest groups competing for scarce resources, which
the law must allow the freedom to further the interests of their constituents within a plural
framework of rules and institutions.
To do so law must be interpreted and enforced in a manner that takes into account the various
social and historical differences in human society and the need to mitigate and mediate social
conflicts. In labour law its purpose is best achieved by promoting collective regulation of the
employment relationship within a framework of rules facilitated by the state.
Although private property is seen as legitimate, there can be no absolute right to private
property as property is derived from and protected by society. Regulation of the market
for the common good is therefore legitimate. Instead of a free market, pluralism calls for
a ‘social market’ in which emphasis is on the reformist character of law. However, it
rejects what it sees as the crude economic determinism of Marxism and its promotion of
social revolution as a solution to social conflicts.
Accepting that conflict is natural within the workplace but that common interest in the survival of
the organization makes compromise essential.
 Trade unions are seen as legitimate organizations that allow workers to counter their otherwise
inherently weaker position as individuals and thereby protect and further their interests.
 Collective bargaining is a voluntary, dynamic and democratic process for expressing and
controlling conflict. Compromise is not always possible on every issue, with tests of strengths
resulting in winners and losers at different times. 12 Davies and Freedland (1983) 18 15
 The acceptance of use of countervailing economic powers by either party to support its position in
collective bargaining, that is the right to strike by workers and to lockout by employers.
 Both parties have an inherent interest in maintaining the overall stability of the relationship —
hence though there is no requirement that equal power or compromise always be achieved in every
case, it will not work where one party always wins at the expense of the other or if parties use
tactics that destroy the enterprise completely or the employment relationship per se, hence the
need for some regulation of the rights to strike and lock-out.
 Promotion of specialized labour courts to deal with labour conflicts and dispense labour justice.
PLURALISM IS THE IDEOLOGY OF THE INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORG.
It is also the principal influence behind Zimbabwe’s Labour Amendment Act, 2002 that states that its
purpose is to “advance social justice and democracy in the workplace
PLURALSIMIN STATUTES
SECTION 65(1) OF COZ
SECTION 64(4) OF COZ
SECTION (2A) OF LABOUR ACT
SECTION ON BREASTFEEDING
SECTION 108 OF LABOUR ACT
SECTION 12A(6)
PLURALISM CASE LAW
SAMANYAU V FLEXY MAIL
MADHATA V TAPFUMA
DELTAV GWASHU
UNIVERSITY OF ZIMBABWE V GUDZA
SOCIAL CORPORATISM
It emerged in the underdeveloped capitalist countries, as a rejection of the premises of classical
pluralism of acceptance of conflict as natural.
This was seen as inconsistent with the developments needs of developing countries, where all social
groups were required to unite and participate in the rapid development of society under the
patronage of the state. It was popular in situations where the state played a key role in the economy
such as in the former Soviet Union, post-war Germany and Japan or post-colonial AfrICA
It is an uneasy balance between aspects borrowed from unitarism and those from pluralism with
dominant authority reserved for the state.
But it is ultimately for the benefit of the employer class, because it is the one, which controls the
state. Its main features are: Conflict is seen as unnatural because either the state is the employer or
employers are dependant on the state for patronage. Employees, and nominally employers, are
required to subordinate their own sectional interests such as higher wages and high price increases
to the national interest.
 Trade unions and collective bargaining are allowed, but must serve the national interest first whilst
strikes are seen as harmful to the national good.
 The State has the right to impose its standards on the content of the employment contract and in
dispute resolution mechanisms consistent with the perceived national interest
Feminist theories 3 main variants:
classical or liberal feminists – earliest and believed removal of de jure discrimination and equal
treatment of women by law and the state would achieve gender equity;
Radical feminists – reaction to failures of de jure equality or formally equality and anti-disrimination
has to end gender inequities in labour market ad society in general – called for special measures,
affirmative action and quotas to take into account historical and sociological discrimination against
women --- but largely continue to operate within parameters of capitalist relations of production –
ground on which attacked by
third variant Marxist Feminism – discussed in detail below – but holding that require overthrow of
capitalist private property relations of production and substitution with socialised property relations
of production with mandatory gender equity framework
HISTORY OF LABOUR LAW ACCORDING TO MADHUKU
Introduction
The history of labour law in Zimbabwe effectively begins with the colonial occupation of the
territory. Before colonialism, the feudal economy of the various kingdoms and territories that
constituted what is now Zimbabwe, had no wage labourers so there could be no law regulating the
rendering of services in return for wages.
It has been said that: The contract of employment moved towards the centre of the legal stage only
with the advent of capital and large scale employment in factories. Before that Blackstone assigned
the contract of employment to the law of domestic and family relations.
In February 1888, Lobengula signed the Moffat Treaty, in which he is said to have agreed that ‘he
would refrain from entering into any correspondence or treaty with any foreign State without the
previous knowledge or sanction of Her Majesty’s Commissioner of South Africa’. The importance of
this Treaty was that it provided a shaky ‘legal basis’ for British penetration of Zimbabwe. Later,
Lobengula sealed this ‘legal basis’ by signing the Rudd Concession where he is said to have agreed to
grant Cecil Rhodes and his people ‘the exclusive charge over all metals and minerals situated and
contained in my Kingdom and principalities.
In October 1889, the British Government granted a Royal Charter to Rhodes’ Company, the British
South African Company (BSAC).
Armed with the Charter, the BSAC occupied Zimbabwe in September 1890. The Charter gave the
Company the power to administer the territory and establish Governmental power.
Under the scheme of the Charter, laws were to be made in two main ways:
-(a) By Ordinances promulgated by the Secretary of State in Britain on the advice of the Board of
directors of the BSAC. Effectively these Ordinances were initiated by the Company.
-(b) By Proclamations issued by the High Commissioner at the Cape. After the defeat of Lobengula in
1894, a third mechanism of lawmaking was added, namely the making of Regulations by the
Administrator.
First Component of Labour Law: Proclamation of 10 June 1891 On 10 June 1891, the first
important instrument relevant to labour was promulgated.
This was a Proclamation by the High Commissioner at the Cape which provided that the law to apply
in Zimbabwe was to be the law applying at the Cape of Good Hope as at that date. The main
significance of the Proclamation was that it introduced the common law applying at the Cape as the
common law of Zimbabwe. That common law was largely Roman-Dutch but it also had English law
elements. This meant that the courts were empowered to refer to Roman-Dutch Law and to some
aspects of the English common law. The Proclamation also meant that Cape statutes in existence on
10 June 1891 automatically became part of the law in Zimbabwe.
Second Component of Labour Law: Hut Tax Ordinance of 1894
The next set of law was concerned with ensuring that Africans would 13 History of Labour Law have
no option but to seek wage employment. The Hut Tax Ordinance of 1894 (Ordinance No 5 of 1894)
imposed a hut tax on African residences on what was termed Crown land. As noted by the Colonial
Office: The usual inclination is to kill two birds with one stone, … to appropriate land with a view to
starving the natives into working for the white expropriators. The idea was to force Africans to seek
wage employment. Although the Ordinance was opposed by some sections of the Colonial Office, it
became operational at the end of 1894. There was heavy resistance by Africans leading to the First
Chimurenga of 1896-97.
Third Component of Labour Law: Public Service Regulations, 1898
With the growth of the Governmental apparatus after the defeat of Africans in 1897 and the
enactment of the Southern Rhodesia Order in Council of 1898, a civil service of some sort emerged.
It was therefore necessary to regulate work in the civil service and this was done thorough the Civil
Service of Rhodesia Regulations, 1898. The main purpose of the Regulations was to create a Civil
Service, and they provided for the following:
(a) all persons appointed by the Administrator (except Judges of the High Court) were to be regarded
as members of the Public Service;
(b) persons were to be appointed firstly on probation for at least 12 months and thereafter could be
permanently employed. The probationary period was not to be longer than 18 months;
(c) the power to make or unmake the rules regulating Public Service employment was vested in the
Administrator;
(d) drunkenness was a serious act of misconduct and a person could be dismissed from the Public
Service for ‘habitually using intoxicating liquor to excess’.
Fourth Component of Labour Law: Natives Employment Ordinance, 1899
The purpose of this Ordinance was to control the recruitment of African labour with a view to
ensuring that African workers were not taken out of the territory for employment in other
territories.
There was now a heavy demand for labour and it had become big business to be involved in the
recruitment of workers. The Ordinance required the licensing of any person who wanted to act as a
recruitment agent for African employees.
It prohibited the recruitment of Africans for work outside the territory and made it a criminal
offence to contravene its provisions.
It was later repealed by the Native Labour Regulation Ordinance, 1911, the major purpose of which
was to improve, and make more severe, the restrictions on the recruitment of African workers for
work outside the territory.
It also introduced a system of labour inspections whereby the Administrator was empowered to
appoint inspectors to inquire into any grievances by natives. The inspectors were also required to
‘enquire into and determine all breaches of discipline by any native labourer’.
Fifth Component of Labour Law: Master and Servants Ordinance, 1901
This was the first substantive piece of legislation dealing with rights and duties of employers and
employees. It applied to the individual employment relationship and did not cover collective labour
relations. Its definition of a ‘worker’ – described as ‘servant’ – included both whites and blacks and
was as follows: Any person, whether of European or Native or other origin, employed for hire, wage,
or other remuneration to perform any handcraft or other bodily labour in domestic service, mining,
agriculture, trade or manufacture.
Although the Ordinance did not distinguish between races and covered all workers, its enumeration
of the various types of work in the definition of ‘servant’ meant that Government workers were not
covered. These remained under the 1898 Regulations. The main provisions of the Ordinance were
(i)
that a written contract of employment could not exeed three years,
(ii)
(ii) the period of notice to terminate a contract was generally one month,
(iii)
(iii) a married woman could not enter into a contract of employment without the consent
of her husband,
(iv)
(iv) there was paid sick leave of one month, and
(v)
(v) more fundamentally, it criminalized breaches of the employment contract. It was a
criminal offence for a worker to commit any of the following forms of misconduct at the
work place: (a) refusal to commence duties at the time stipulated; (b) absence from work
without lawful excuse; (c) becoming intoxicated during working hours; (d) disobedience to a
lawful command.
Interestingly, conviction under the Ordinance did not have the effect of cancelling the contract of
employment. In terms of section 3 of Chapter 4 of the Ordinance: the servant or apprentice shall be
bound to return to his Master immediately after having complied with the terms of his punishment
in order to serve the unexpired period of his service.
Sixth Component of Labour Law: Industrial Dispute Ordinance, 1920
Up to the enactment of this Ordinance, no attempt had been made to regulate collective labour
relations.
The law had been concerned with the recruitment of workers and the regulation of the individual
contract of employment.
But by 1920, workers were becoming an organized group and labour disputes had become
inevitable. Accordingly, some dispute resolution mechanisms had to be put in place. The purpose of
this Ordinance was to provide a system of dispute settlement. It was only concerned with disputes
of a collective nature.
It was targeted at the white working class, although this was not said in the Ordinance. It provided
for the creation of conciliation boards appointed by the Administrator. These were tasked with
resolving disputes referred to them by the Administrator.
The focus was mainly wage disputes and this Ordinance suggests that some system of collective
bargaining was already beginning to take shape.
Seventh Component of Labour Law: Industrial Conciliation Act, 1934
This Act repealed the Industrial Dispute Ordinance of 1920 and became the first piece of legislation
recognizing the existence of trade unions.
However, it did not apply to Africans.
This was achieved through the definition of an ‘employee’ as ‘any person engaged by an employer to
perform for hire or reward work in any undertaking … but shall not include a native’. The Act created
an officer, called the Registrar of Trade Unions, whose duties were to register trade unions and
employers’ organizations.
Its significant contribution is that it mothered the concept of ‘one industry, one union’. Section 5 of
the Act provided that before the Registrar could register a trade union, he had to be satisfied that in
the area in respect of which the trade union sought to cover there existed no other trade union
which had been registered under the Act, and was ‘sufficiently representative’ of the interests
concerned.
The 1934 Act also created Industrial Councils, which are the predecessors of the current National
Employment Councils.
Eighth Component of Labour Law: Industrial Conciliation Act, 1945
This repealed the 1934 Act. It did not change the exclusion of natives from its scope.
The purpose seems to have been to provide a more elaborate framework for the registration of
trade unions and employers’ organization and for the operations of industrial councils.
Ninth Component of Labour Law: Industrial Conciliation Act, 1959
This Act was passed in the face of the militancy of African trade unions that had not been recognized
up to that stage. It did not include the provision excluding African workers from the ambit of labour
legislation.
However, it still maintained, in an unclear manner, the division between white and African workers.
This was done in two ways:
(a) trade unions registered under the 1945 Act were deemed registered under the Act. This gave
advantage to white trade unions;
(b) it allowed for the registration of trade unions based on skills. White workers claiming certain
skills could register a trade union almost exclusively for themselves.
The Act also created an Industrial Court headed by a president, and made provision for Industrial
Boards, which could be appointed to investigate and make recommendations in undertakings which
had no trade union.
In dealing with African trade unions, it had a long section prohibiting the use of trade union funds for
political purposes.
Post-independence Developments
At independence on 18 April 1980 labour law was regulated by three main statutes:
1. individual labour law by the Master and Servants Act (Chapter 268),
2. collective labour law by the Industrial Conciliation Act (Chapter 267) and
3. Public Service labour law by various Public Service Regulations. Post-independence
developments adopted a piecemeal approach to labour law reform
First Post-independence Development: Minimum Wages Act, 1980 (Act No. 4 of 1980)
This was the first piece of labour legislation in the post-independence period. It proclaimed, in its
long title, that its purpose was ‘to make provision for the fixing, enforcement and collection of
minimum wages, to prohibit discrimination in the payment of wages and to provide for matters
incidental to or connected with the foregoing’.
Its main pillar was that it empowered the Minister of Labour to promulgate minimum wages to
specified classes of employees and to direct their payment.
Section 5 of the Act specified the effect of a minimum wage notice.
It provided as follows: Where the Minister has made a minimum wage notice –
(a) no employer shall contravene any provision of such minimum wage notice;
(b) every contract and every agreement, determination or regulation made in terms of any
enactment relating to the employment of an employee to whom such minimum wage notice relates
shall be construed with such modifications, qualifications, adaptations and exceptions as may be
necessary to bring it into conformity with such notice;
(c) every agreement or arrangement of any kind whatsoever, express or implied, whether made
before or after the date of commencement of such minimum wage notice, by an employer or
employee to whom such notice relates, which conflicts with such notice, shall, to the extent of such
conflict, be of no force or effect. An employer could not terminate the contract of employment solely
on the ground of the requirement to pay a minimum wage.
Second Post-independence Development: Employment Act, 1980 (Act No. 13 of 1980)
This Act repealed the Master and Servants Act (Chapter 268) and dealt with individual labour law
only. The Act itself did not include many substantive provisions, but it created a framework for the
Minister to regulate employment.
Section 5(3) of the Act empowered the Minister to make regulations providing for:
• the rights of employees;
• the deductions which may be made from the wages of employees;
• the hours of work by employees;
• the leave, including sick leave, that shall be granted to employees;
• the provision of accommodation, food, clothing, fuel, transport and other benefits and allowances
for employees;
• the establishment of pension, sick, medical, holiday, provident, insurance and other funds for
employees and the levying of contributions by employers and employees thereto;
• special conditions for female and juvenile employees including the prohibition of the employment
of persons below a specified age.
The formula adopted was to leave almost the entire scope of individual employment law in the
hands of the Minister. It was clearly a short-term measure to buy time for a more comprehensive
labour statute. However, not all matters were left to the Minister.
The Act itself prohibited summary dismissal except in a narrowly defined set of circumstances such
as wilful disobedience to a lawful order given by the employer, lack of skill which the employee had
professed to possess, habitual or substantial neglect of duties and absence from work without the
permission of the employer or without reasonable excuse.
Third Post-independence Development: Resorting to the Emergency Powers Act (Chapter 83)
The new Government found reason to resort to the Emergency Powers Act [Chapter 83] to deal with
labour matters. Termination of employment and the establishment of workers committees were
some of the matters dealt with under this Act. Termination of employment was regulated by the
Emergency Powers (Termination of Employment) Regulations, 1982.5 The regulations prohibited any
employer from terminating any contract of employment by notice unless both parties mutually
agreed or the employer obtained written approval from the Minister. Summary dismissal in certain
circumstances was permitted.
Fourth Post-independence Development: Labour Relations Act, 1985 (Act No 16 of 1985)
This Act became the mainstay of post-independence labour law. Although it has been amended
several times, it is still the law in place to this day. It deals with both individual and collective labour
law.
It repealed the Employment Act, the Minimum Wages Act and the Industrial Conciliation Act. It is not
necessary to summarise the main provisions of this Act as they constitute the main pillars of our
current legislation. However, it is instructive to note the following:
• the Act entrenched a two-tier labour relations system. It covered all employees except those
‘whose conditions of employment are otherwise provided for by or under the Constitution’. The
latter are Government workers under the Public Service;
• it entrenched a set of rights for workers regarding trade union membership. The principle of ‘one
industry, one union’ was protected;
• it protected centralized collective bargaining, with every registered trade union having an
automatic right to be recognized by the employer for collective bargaining purposes;
• the right to strike, although granted to workers, was severely restricted;
• it provided extensive scope for Government intervention in employment matters. One such
intervention was the prohibition of summary dismissal through Ministerial regulations. Generally,
the Act reflected a broadly pro-worker orientation that was condemned by the capitalistic sector.
Fifth Post-independence Development: 1st Amendment of the Labour Relations Act (Labour
Relations Amendment Act, 1992)
This Act was the first amendment of the Labour Relations Act, 1985. The amendments were
designed to accommodate the dictates of a new economic policy thrust of Government, styled ESAP
(Economic Structural Adjustment Programme).
A key feature of this policy was deregulation of the labour market. The most far-reaching
amendment was to demolish the principle of ‘one industry, one union’. It was argued that a trade
union monopoly in any one industry militated against labour market flexibility.
However, the removal was half-hearted because it did not completely take away the Registrar’s
discretion to refuse registration to a trade union which was not ‘substantially representative’ of the
workers purportedly sought to be represented.
The result of the amendment was that, while more than one trade union could now be registered in
any industry, the Registrar still retained the discretion to refuse registration to what were
considered to be frivolous trade unions.
The amendment also widened the definition of ‘managerial employees’ who were prohibited from
trade union membership.
Further, these ‘managerial employees’ were not allowed to belong to the same workers’ committees
as non-managerial employees but could establish their own.
It repealed the old section 23(1) and substituted the following: Subject to this Act and any
regulations, employees employed by any one employer may appoint or elect a workers’ committee to
represent their interests: Provided that no managerial employee shall be appointed or elected to a
workers’ committee, nor shall a workers’ committee represent the interests of managerial
employees, unless such workers’ committee is composed solely of managerial employees appointed
or elected to represent their interests.
Other aspects of the 1992 amendments were the shortening of the labour dispute settlement
process and the demise of reinstatement
Sixth Post-independence Development: Public Service Act, 1995
This development did not involve any amendments to the Labour Relations Act, 1985. On the
contrary, it was meant to consolidate the two-tier labour relations system existing in the country,
whereby the Labour Relations Act did not apply to employees ‘whose conditions of employment are
otherwise provided for by or under the Constitution’.
The Public Service Act was enacted to supplement the Constitution in regulating labour relations for
Public Service workers. This was being done for the first time in the history of the country. Up to this
point, it had been sufficient to regulate Public Service employment through regulations only.
The purpose of this Act was aptly captured in the memorandum to the Bill that gave rise to the Act:
At present the control and management of the Public Service is vested exclusively in the Public
Service Commission, a body whose powers and functions are set out in Chapter VII of the
Constitution.
The purpose of this Bill (Act) is to redistribute those responsibilities between the Ministry
responsible for the Public Service and the Public Service Commission, and to prescribe and regulate
the conditions of service of public servants.
The Act subjected the Public Service Commission to a number of Ministerial controls, the most
important being a requirement to consult the Minister over issues such as the creation or abolition
of posts and the determination of terms and conditions of employment. For example, section 19(1)
of the Act provided that: Subject to this Act and the Constitution, the conditions of service applicable
to members of the Pubic Service, including their remuneration, benefits, leave of absence, hours of
work and discipline, shall be determined by the Commission in consultation with the Minister.
Seventh Post-independence Development: Export Processing Zones Act (Chapter 14:07)
This Act was enacted at the end of 1994 as part of what was claimed to be Government’s efforts to
attract foreign investment.
Section 56 of the Act provided that:
(1) the Labour Relations Act [Chapter 28:01] shall not apply in relation to licensed investors operating
and employees employed in an export processing zone; (2) the Authority may, in consultation with
the Minister responsible for the administration of the Labour Relations Act [Chapter 28:01] provide
rules for conditions of service, termination of service, dismissal from service and disciplinary
proceedings that apply in export processing zones.
These provisions were far-reaching.
They ousted the Labour Relations Act from the EPZs and left the workers at the mercy of the
common law.
The Act created a new category of workers who were outside the ambit of the Labour Relations Act.
It was only in 1998 that the EPZ Authority enacted regulations governing employment for those
workers.
The regulations provided for terms and conditions of employment that were inferior to those in the
Labour Relations Act.
Eighth Post-independence Development: 2nd amendment of the Labour Relations Act (Labour
Relations Amendment Act, 2002)
This Act brought several major amendments to the Labour Relations Act, 1985. It was the
culmination of close to ten years of debate on labour law reforms, during which several drafts were
written and discarded.
The original intention had been to bring into force a completely new Labour Act but the Government
eventually settled on effecting reforms through an Amendment Act. The first change made by this
amendment was to rename the ‘Labour Relations Act’ as the ‘Labour Act’.
The second change was very far-reaching.
-Except for the dispute settlement system, it harmonized labour law by bringing Public Service
workers under the ambit of the Labour Act. Thus, all workers in Zimbabwe were to be under the
same labour legislation.
For this reason, the amendment was christened by many in the field of labour relations as ‘The
Harmonised Labour Act’.
The third change was the introduction of the concept of ‘unfair dismissal’.
Fourthly, it added generous leave conditions for employees, including granting some paid leave for
trade union officials while on trade union duties, and providing for full pay for a female employee on
maternity leave.
The fifth change introduced a new framework for labour dispute resolution, with particular emphasis
on conciliation and arbitration while imposing more restrictions on the right to strike. At the apex of
the new labour dispute settlement system, it established the Labour Court, which replaced the
Labour Relations Tribunal.
Ninth Post-independence Development: 3rd amendment of the Labour Act (Labour Amendment
Act, 2005)
This Act made further amendments to the Labour Act. Most of the amendments were minor and
appear to have been aimed at remedying some defects in the 2002 amendments. However, there
were three major amendments.
The first was to reinstate the old position of a two-tier labour relations system, whereby Public
Service workers were not governed by the Labour Act. It repealed section 3 and substituted the
following: (1) this Act shall apply to all employers and employees except those whose conditions of
employment are otherwise provided for in the Constitution; (2) for the avoidance of any doubt, the
conditions of employment of members of the Public Service shall be governed by the Public Service
Act [Chapter 16:04].
The second amendment was the widening of the jurisdiction of the Labour Court. This was achieved
by granting to the Labour Court ‘the same powers of review as are exercisable by the High Court in
respect of labour matters’.10
The third amendment was the repeal of section 56 of the Export Processing Zones Act [Chapter
14:07] so that employees in EPZs were brought within the ambit of the Labour Act
Tenth Post-independence Development: Constitution of Zimbabwe, 2013
A new Constitution came into force on 22 May 2013, replacing the 1980 (Lancaster House)
Constitution. It provides for labour rights in its Bill of 10 See section 89(d1) of the Labour Act
[Chapter 28:01].
Labour Law in Zimbabwe Rights. Labour rights are captured in section 65, which has been
reproduced in full in Chapter 1. Although it is too early to assess in detail, the provisions of the new
Constitution will have a major impact on the development of labour law. Some of the implications
will be discussed in the next chapters under the appropriate subject
History of labour law in Zimbabwe ACCORDING TO GWISAI
Introduction
Labour law has a history of about a century in Zimbabwe. In this period it has undergone
considerable change with influences from international, regional and internal factors. Of note has
been the considerable influence of English and Roman-Dutch common law, given the country’s
colonial history, as a British colony run from South Africa. Four distinct phases of development may
be identified:
•
Primitive accumulation running from the 1890s to the 1930s, reflecting the establishment of
capitalism in Zimbabwe.
•
Colonial state corporatism running from the 1930s to 1980 reflecting the period of white
settler minority rule.
•
Postcolonial state corporatism, from 1980 to 1990, in which the colonial state corporatist
policies were expanded to the whole working class.
•
Neo-liberalism starting from 1990 to the present and marking the period of free market
policies and labour market deregulation consistent with the Structural Adjustment Programmes
(SAPs) imposed through the international financial institutions that are consistent with global
neo-liberal policies.
Primitive Accumulation
Capitalism was established through deceit, violence and war against the previous Ndebele and
Shona feudal societies by the British and South African capitalist classes. Military conquests such as
in the 1894 Matebele War and the 1896 First Chimurenga – Umvukela were formalized through
various judicial decisions and legal instruments like the Matebeleland Order in Council of 1894 and
the Southern Rhodesia Order in Council of 1898.12 Locals were violently disposed of their land and
1 See - In re Southern Rhodesia 1919 AC 221 and regulations like - Registration of Natives
Regulations,
2 ; Vagrancy Regulations, 1895; Natives Employment Ordinance, 1898 and Natives Registration
Ordinance, 1901
cattle and herded into dry infertile areas, designated native reserves, where they would practice
subsistence agriculture and provide a continuous source of cheap labour.
The Master and Servants Ordinance No. 5 of 1901 laid the basis of a primitive labour law system
designed to fast-track the establishment of a racist capitalist system on the back of cheap and forced
black labour. The key features of this system, aptly described as an “infamous charter of serfdom
from the dark ages”, included:
•
Reliance on criminal law to enforce the employment relationship. More than half of the
Ordinance’s provisions were penal sanctions.
•
The prohibition or non recognition of trade unions, collective bargaining or strikes.
•
Denial of full freedom of contract to black workers who were required to have permits or
passes to work, under a thinly veiled system of forced labour, called chibharo. Workers were
housed on ethnic lines in semi-militarised compounds.
•
Fragmentation of labour law, especially on race and gender lines. White workers were
mainly governed by common law whilst women could only enter or remain in employment with
the approval of their husbands.3
•
Some basic provisions to prevent extreme levels of exploitation that would have reduced
black workers to slaves. Contracts had to be in writing for a fixed period and the employer was
obliged to pay wages. In R v Millin 1914 SR 171 in convicting an employer who had failed to pay
wages, pleading inability to pay, the court stated “no one has the right to exploit natives on a
gambling venture of this kind.”
The above were augmented by various ideological measures used to promote a white supremacist
ideology. To bolster the penetration of the colonialists’ religion, Christian churches were given
monopoly over provision of education and health services in rural areas, provided they ensured that
“at native schools, pupils are systematically taught habits of discipline, cleanliness and industrial
work.” Blacks were prohibited from drinking ‘liquor’ and there were mandatory jail sentences for
white women and black men who engaged in voluntary sexual intercourse.4
Various factors explain this first phase of labour law. Firstly was that there was virtually no
distinction between the state and employer class, as Rhodesia was founded under the authority of a
private company, the British South Africa Company, whose primary goal was to extract maximum
profits in the shortest possible period. Secondly were key weaknesses in the working class. Rhodesia
was then a pre-industrial economy dominated by rudimentary agriculture and mining reliant on low
skilled and migrant labour, which floated between the rural areas and the formal capitalist sector.
This militated against the development of full proletarian or workers’ consciousness. The state and
employers also actively divided workers on ethnic, gender, national and racial lines. This made
collective organisation and resistance difficulty and easy for the state to crush the few and isolated
strikes that broke out such as the 1912 Wankie strike and the 1922 and 1927 Shamva strikes. The
first black trade union, the Industrial and Commercial Union, was formed in 1927, inspired by a
South African counterpart, but it never really went beyond a loose protest movement which did not
organise any strikes.5 White workers were more proletarianised and heavily influenced by
traditions of workers militancy from Europe and South Africa. By 1916 they had formed the Rhodesia
3 s 6, Master and Servants Act
4 See respectively the – Education Ordinance No 1, 1903, Sale of Liquor to Natives and Indians
Regulations, 1891 and Immorality Suppression Ordinance No 9, 1903.
5 Government of Zimbabwe Labour and Economy: Report of the National Trade Unions Survey Vol.
1 (1984) 13. Quotations in this chapter are from this source unless otherwise indicated. Also
Raftopoulos B and Phimister I (eds) Keep on Knocking: A history of the labour movement in
Zimbabwe, 1890 - 1997 (Baobab Books); ILO Labour Conditions and Discrimination in Southern
Rhodesia (Geneva 1978)
Railway Workers Union (RRWU), which led a major strike in 1919 that was also supported by black
workers. A Labour Party was briefly formed with some MPs. But the potential of the white unions
evolving to lead the rest of the working class, never materialized because white workers were
quickly co-opted by the colonial state as a privileged labour aristocracy protected from competition
of black workers by a ‘colour bar.’ Moreover, given the racist character of Rhodesia, many soon
“graduated” into the ranks of the middle classes as farmers, miners and small business people.
Settler Colonial State Corporatism 1930-1980
The changes in the period between the 1930s and 1960s laid the foundations of today’s labour law
system. The period can be divided into two parts. The first period was defined by the Industrial
Conciliation Act of 1934, which put in place a skeletal framework of a state corporatist labour law
system, but one based on openly racist lines. In the 1950s, this system was expanded to include
black industrial workers plus the expansion of collective bargaining and industrial safety and
compensation laws.
The 1934 Industrial Conciliation Act was modeled on the 1924 South African
Industrial Conciliation Act, which followed the 1922 Rand Revolt by white workers. The law for the
firs time recognized trade unions, the right to strike and collective bargaining. At the same time the
right to strike was severely circumscribed with strikes prohibited in essential services or disputes
covered by a collective agreement or arbitration. Secret ballots were introduced by subsequent
amendments. The Registrar had sweeping powers over unions including de-registration. Secondary
legislation provided for compensation for injuries or death resulting from accidents at the workplace
and for the training of skilled labour.6 But this was state corporatism under racist settler colonialism.
Thus the definition of ‘employee’, ‘apprentice’ or ‘workman’ excluded blacks, who continued to be
covered by the earlier unitarist laws.
There were several factors behind these changes in labour law. Firstly was pressure of the
proletarianised white working class. This was particularly so in the context of economic crisis and
changes in the character of the state. After 1923 Company rule was replaced by self rule. In 1933 the
Reform Party, later renamed the United Party, and led by Godfey Huggins won control of the state.
The party represented a strategic alliance of small to medium capitalists, farmers and miners with
white workers as junior partners. It won power, in the midst of the chaos of the Great Depression on
the basis of a populist and nationalist programme calling for greater state involvement in the
economy, protectionism from both international capital and blacks, unemployment relief, collective
bargaining and a job colour bar to protect white workers. In the area of labour, this was achieved
through the Industrial Conciliation Act. Prime Minister Huggins best summed up the ideology of the
settler ruling class:
“The European in this country can be likened to an island of white in a sea of black …with the artisan
and the tradesman forming the shores and the professional classes the highlands in the centre. Is the
native to be allowed to erode away the shores and gradually attack the highlands? To permit this
would mean that the leaven of civilisation would be removed from the country, and the black man
would inevitably revert to a barbarianism worse than before.’
Major changes were introduced under the Industrial Conciliation Act of 1959. This entrenched the
collective bargaining process and established an industrial court as well as signaling an end to the
openly racial fragmentation of the law. Laws like the Industrial Conciliation Act, the Factories and
Works Act and the Workmen’s Compensation Act now applied to black workers. However, they
continued to exclude workers in the agriculture, mining and domestic sectors, where the bulk of
black workers worked, as well as the public sector. At the same time was the tightening of state
control over unions in an attempt to separate them from the emerging anti-colonial political
struggles. Trade unions were prohibited from using their funds for political purposes or receiving
6 Workmen’s Compensation Act No. 19, 1936 and Manpower Development Act, 1936
funding from political and prescribed organizations or risked de-registration. Legislation was passed
prohibiting forced labour and child labour. The Factories and Works Act provided a state regulated
system of industrial safety.
Changes in the economy and heightened class struggle were the main factors in the above
changes. Rhodesia underwent an industrial revolution in this period that saw the emergence of one
of the most diversified economies in Sub-Saharan Africa with the black industrial working class rising
from 254 000 in 1926 to over 600 000 in 1956. This was also accompanied by the growth of the black
middle classes, who also suffered state induced racial oppression. Starting in the mid1940s, there
were growing economic and social pressures as a result of a working class and middle class that had
outgrown the parameters set by the colonial society as well as influences from the growing
anticolonial struggles in the world. There was an explosion of strike action and the emergence of
black trade unions, some of the notable ones including the 1945 Railway Strike led by the Rhodesia
Railway African Employees Association and union federations like the Federation of African Workers
Unions, the Reformed Industrial and Commercial Workers Union and later on the Southern Rhodesia
Trade Union and African Trade Unions Congress.
The 1948 General Strike was the first ever in the country and it shook the colonial state to its
roots, leading Huggins to observe: “What we are seeing is nothing new. It happened in Europe one
hundred years ago. We are witnessing the emergence of a proletariat, and in this country it happens
to be black. We shall never be able to do much with these people until we have established a native
middle class.” He advocated a racial partnership ideology in which there would be “a working
alliance between the European ruling strata and the more prosperous Africans, who include bus
owners, master farmers … senior employees” in what he termed a horse and rider relationship. The
1959 Industrial Conciliation Act was the outcome designed to preempt further radicalization of the
black working class by granting some reforms.
The workers’ struggles though had inevitably led to increasing political consciousness as they
assumed a growing political and anti-colonial character, especially as alliances were forged between
black industrial workers and the emerging black middle classes. Indeed the first mass black
nationalist party, the Southern Rhodesia African National Congress formed in 1954 which
subsequently mutated into the Zimbabwe African People’s Union, were initiated and led by trade
unions and their leaders like Joshua Nkomo, Jason Z Moyo and Joseph Msika.
The increasingly dominant financial, industrial and multinational wing of the capitalists also
favoured industrial and political reforms to ensure stability and adequate supply of skilled labour.
They were thus prepared to extend the state corporatist labour reforms to the black working class
and even national independence under a black middle class they controlled. But they were opposed
by the substantial white settler classes which feared being swamped by the blacks. Tensions
between these sections of white society were reflected in the delays in the promulgation of the 1959
ICA and the compromises that characterised it such as the exclusion of workers in agriculture and
mining.
The movement towards full state corporatism was aborted in the 1960s, with the coming to
power in 1962 of an intransigent and conservative white petite bourgeois layer centred around
white farmers led by the Rhodesia Front. This was a successful right-wing response to the growing
radicalisation of the anti-colonial movement led by the working class, demonstrated by the massive
Zhii strikes of 1961 in which twenty three protestors were killed, rejecting a constitutional
compromise deal that sections of the nationalist leadership led by Nkomo had reached with the
colonial power.
The Rhodesia Front state under Ian Smith massively increased state repression and laws against
the black working class as its central strategy to defeat the growing anticolonial struggle especially
from the 1970s onwards when the guerrilla war of liberation commenced .7 Most sectors were
7 Such legislation included the: Subversive Organisations Act 1951; Law and Order Maintenance Act
Chapter 65; Emergency Powers Act Chapter 81 and the Unlawful Organisations Act.
declared “essential services” where strikes were prohibited. Persons convicted under such laws were
forbidden to hold union positions. Strikes and independent unions were violently suppressed. Only
sweet-heart puppet unions were allowed with their leaders like Jamela and Mswaka co-opted. This
was helped by western imperialist aligned international labour centres like the International
Congress of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) and American Federation of Labor – Congress of Industrial
Organizations (AFL-CIO) African American Labour Centre (now Solidarity Centre).8 Unions were
further weakened by inter-party fights, especially after the Zimbabwean African National Union
(ZANU) split from ZAPU in 1963.
The working class was unable to offer effective resistance because of its failure to develop a
corresponding counter movement based on a higher level of classconsciousness and ideology, than
had been the case in the earlier years. A revolutionary socialist ideology and party was needed, as
was subsequently demonstrated by South African workers in the 1980s in their struggle against
apartheid. Instead the working class surrendered leadership to the black nationalist middle class
which shared the same bourgeois state corporatist ideology as the Rhodesian ruling class and was
riven with opportunistic individual and ethnic rivalry. This gave the Rhodesian state the chance to
regroup and ultimately destroy the working class’ capacity to resist, thus pushing the anticolonial
struggle into a middle-class led peasant based guerrilla war in which the urban working class, who
had had initiated the anti-colonial struggle, was marginalized.
Post-colonial State Corporatism 1980-1990
The victory of the black middle class – led anti-colonial movement over settler colonialism in 1980
brought several important changes in the labour law system, even if these ultimately did not change
the capitalist character of the labour relations system.
The changes were at several levels. Firstly, the repeal of the racist remnants of the primitive
accumulation phase under the Employment Act, No 13 of 1980.9 Agriculture and domestic workers
were incorporated under an amended ICA. Secondly, state intervention in the employment
relationship was substantially increased with the Employment Act empowering the state to regulate
hours of work, leave, wages and settlement of disputes. The Minimum Wages Act. No. 4 of 1980
allowed the state to issue mandatory minimum wages notices, the first one being the Minimum
Wages (Specification of Wages) Notice. S.I. 367 of 1980. Discrimination on the basis of race, sex or
age was prohibited. The Emergency Powers (Termination of Employment) Regulations S.I. 714B of
1982 prohibited employers from dismissing employees on notice or retrenching workers without
state approval. Women were granted full legal capacity in employment whilst the Industrial
Conciliation (Amendment) Act of 1981 introduced maternity leave of 84 days. Such changes were
made in the face of intense opposition from an unreconstructed conservative judiciary inherited
from colonialism. 10
8 P. Sithole, a radical ATUC leader, stated in 1971 – “the brainwashing of the African trade union
leaders by the IFCTU has reduced the status of African leaders to mere mercenaries answerable to
foreign masters and not to their own members.”
9 Repealed - Master and Servants Act, African Labour Regulation Act and Foreign Migratory Labour
Act.
10 See the attempts of the judiciary to roll back the new measures in S v Jovner 1982 (2) ZLR 252
and S v Lancashire Steel (Pvt) Ltd 1984 (1) ZLR 89 (S) and generally – Ghutto SBO and Makamure
‘Judicial
Subversion under the Cloak of Legality’ (1985) Zim. L R and Makamure K, ‘A Constitutional Theory
and
Practice for the Transition from Capitalism to Scientific Socialism’ (1987) 5 Zim L R 108
The Labour Relations Act (LRA) of 1985 spearheaded by Minister F. Shava replaced the ICA.
Although based on the later the LRA had significant modifications. Collective bargaining was made
totally subordinate to state regulation as the state had power to approve or vary all agreements as
well regulate on virtually every aspect of the employment relationship. Regulations made included
the Labour Relations (General Conditions of Employment) (Termination of Employment) Regulations,
S.I. 371 of 1985, which provided for mandatory state approval for all dismissals. The Act declared
certain fundamental rights of employees including protection from unlawful discrimination and the
right to organize as well as introduced the concept of “unfair labour practices” administered by a
hierarchical system of state officials and organs pinnacled by the Labour Relations Tribunal and
which enjoyed equity jurisdiction. Fragmentation of labour law was narrowed considerably with the
application of the Act to all employers and employees other than those covered by the Constitution
such as public servants.
At the same time state control of unions and restrictions on the right to strike increased. State and
employer compliant unions were promoted under the one industry one union policy. Sweeping
powers were granted to the state to regulate internal union affairs like dues and elections, the
prohibition of union funds for political purposes with the state reserving the power to suspend or
cancel the registration of unions that did not comply. The right to strike was virtually extinguished
other than in defence of the right to organise or in situations of an immediate occupational hazard.
Colonial repressive security legislation was retained, which the new state soon invoked against
strikers.11
The changes in the labour law framework after 1980 were primarily a result of
changes in the character of the state as well as intense class struggle. The black middle class now in
charge of the state, both desired and were under pressure to introduce minimum social reforms to
redress the grievances of colonialism, especially in relation to workers rights and access to
education, health and land. This was important for it, to retain legitimacy and consolidate its power
base, which was threatened from a variety of angles. At the same time, capitalism in Zimbabwe had
reached a level whereby it was possible to remove the relations of production that had been
essential for primitive accumulation purposes such as the limitations on the civic liberties of blacks.
The victory of the Patriotic Front and the removal of the war-security environment triggered a
massive wave of shop-floor strikes and peasant farm invasions which pushed the new state to grant
reforms quickly. It railroaded the formation of a single labour federation in1981 from the existing
five to create Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), but ensuring that it was led by ruling
party loyalists including Secretary General, Albert Mugabe and President, Alfred Makwarimba. The
state hoped such new centralised labour body would be a more effective safety valve and policing
mechanism of growing militant rank and file actions, which the discredited and divided unions from
the colonial era had failed to do and avoid a repeat of the labour explosions of 1980 – 81.
The significant social reforms in education, wages, health care, housing and rural development
and the iconic status of its middle class leaders for having defeated colonialism when the proletariat
had buckled under, allowed the new state to coerce as well as ideologically co-opt the working
classes. The new leaders never tired of reminding the workers the of the ‘debt’ they owed with
prime minister Robert Mugabe denouncing striking teachers and nurses as “people with unrevolutionary minds who never experienced the hardships of the liberation struggle.” The ruling
party liked to portray the state corporatist reforms it introduced as part of ‘the road to socialism”
(gutsaruzhinji) by a “party committed to scientific socialism … and ardently convinced that the
workers should play a leading role in the struggle for the establishment of a new socio-economic
order.”
But the hard reality was that, “independence” notwithstanding, the new state remained subordinate
to the white local and global corporations who retained ownership and control of the commanding
heights of the economy, including land. This reality was dramatically illustrated when the strikes
11 For instance the: Law and Order (Maintenance) Act and the Emergency Powers (Maintenance of
Essential Services) Regulations made under the Emergency Powers Act.
accelerated and the state invoked the same repressive legislation and methods used by the colonial
state. Similarly was the massacre of thousands of peasants and opposition ZAPU members, mainly
from the Ndebele ethnic groupings under Gukurahundi in Matebeleland and Midlands in defence of
its political power and private property of the white commercial farmers.” And if workers were
supposed to be playing the leading role as required by socialism, the new labour laws did not make
sense - as one trade unionist observed– “Now, where will the protection of a worker be if he is not
allowed to strike?”
Neo – liberal globalisation: 1990-present
From about 1990 the state corporatist policies that had prevailed since the 1930s and through
independence were abandoned and substituted by market liberalisation policies, called neoliberalism. These were a return to extreme free market policies dictated by the International
Monetary Fund, the World Bank, World Trade Organisation, multinational corporations and western
donors with the complicity of local rulers. In Zimbabwe these were led by economic minister,
Bernard Chidzero, with the new policy formally titled the Economic Structural Adjustment
Programme (ESAP). Workers, though, christened it
“Eternal Suffering for African People.”
The main legal instruments used were the Labour Relations Amendment Act No.12 of 1992 and
Export Processing Zones Act Chapter 14:07 and supporting regulations.12 The main features of these
statutes included:
• Substitution of the state corporatist controls on wages and dismissals by employer
dominated collective bargaining and disciplinary codes.
• Abandonment of the one industry one union policy and retention of the severe
restrictions on the right to strike and free trade unionism.
• Destruction of permanent jobs through easy retrenchment and dismissal laws and
their substitution by low pay contract or casual jobs.
• Establishment of special areas called export-processing zones where the main labour
legislation was excluded (back to chibharo!)
Further and more comprehensive labour law reforms were expected to follow. However, this did
not take place as the process of labour reform became entangled in the massive economic and
political crisis that hit Zimbabwe from the late 1990s. The legislative vacuum was partially filled by
the anti-working class Gubbay court.13
Eventually the long-anticipated comprehensive labour law reform did come in the form of the
new Labour Act that was brought in by the Labour Relations Amendment Act No.17 of 2002. This
statute was not the anticipated full-blown neo-liberal monster but is a transitional compromise law,
reflecting the fine balance of class struggle of the period. Restrictions on the right to strike and on
freedom of unions remain but somewhat relaxed and the state retains authority to impose
mandatory employment standards. On the other hand the Act stipulates its objectives as to promote
collective bargaining and social democracy and justice in the workplace; expansion of the powers
and jurisdiction of the Labour Court viz the formal courts, the superiority of the Labour Act over
other enactments; provisions protecting employees from unfair dismissal, enhanced leave benefits,
and expanded rights for women workers such as rights to equal pay for work of equal worth,
affirmative action provisions and higher maternity benefits.
The Labour Act was amended by Act
12 Such regulations have included the – Labour Relations (Codes of Conduct) Regulations, 1990 and
Labour Relations (Retrenchment) Regulations 1990
13 See Gwisai M ‘Judges in the Storm: The Judicial Review Debate’ (Unpublished, 1999) and: Hama v
NRZ 1996 (1) ZLR 664 (S); Ambali v Bata Shoe Co Ltd 1999 (1) ZLR 417 (S); ZIMTA & Anor v PSC &
Ors 1997 (1) SA 209 (S) and Lanchashire Steel (Pvt) Ltd v Mandevana Zvidzai & Ors S 29 - 95
No. 7 of 2005 which removed public servants from its coverage whilst incorporating export process
employees.
What explains this current flux in the labour law regime and will it last? The primary reason is the
escalation of class struggle. ESAP failed to deliver and instead led to deindustrialisation and greater
poverty, accelerating social struggles.14 Between 1996 and 1999 there were huge national strikes,
comparable to the 1940s. These were soon joined by the urban poor, students and war veterans and
peasants who invaded farms. The rise in economic struggles was reflected in rising political
consciousness leading to the emergence of a trade union initiated political party, the Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC). In the 2000 parliamentary elections and the 2002 presidential elections,
Zanu PF only narrowly defeated the MDC in flawed elections characterized by massive state and
ruling party violence and abuse of state resources. The ruling party was also decisively helped by the
MDC’s massive shift to the right in support of the white farmers whose farms were now being
expropriated by a corned ruling party to garner rural support. 28
With its back to the wall and facing the real danger of ouster from power as had happened to
other neo-colonial regimes that had implemented neo-liberal policies, notably Kenneth Kaunda in
Zambia, President Mugabe’s regime made a significant retreat from ESAP, by reintroducing state
corporatist policies like prices controls, freezing the privatisation programme and currency and
interest rates controls. It is in such context that the regime conceded to major labour law reforms to
pacify the rising working class, even as it knew the fundamental class boundaries not to be crossed.
Subjectively important contributions to the detailed content of the Act were made by the Parliament
Portfolio Committee for Labour which was dominated by trade unionist and socialist MPs from the
MDC. The Committee came up with a comprehensive report that in fact amounted to a parallel bill,
proposing the most radical labour reforms since 1934. Critical in shaping the Committee’s Report
were the submissions of the ZCTU, Zimbabwe Labour Centre and International Socialist Organisation
which in turn drew heavily from working class gains in South Africa. Some of the provisions of the
Committee Report that caused panic included:
•
Retrospective transformation of fixed term and casual contracts to permanent ones.
•
A reviewable national minimum wage equivalent to at least the Poverty Datum Line and a
compulsory retrenchment package with a future right of re-employment.
•
A full right to strike and removal of restrictions on the freedom of trade unions.
•
Affirmative action provisions for women, the disabled and blacks; full paid maternity leave
from employer – state contributions; 30 per centum women representation in all labour related
bodies and six months sick leave.
•
Ouster of the High Court and Supreme Court in labour disputes and substitution by
specialised labour courts with judges drawn from multiple disciplines.15 The final product, the
Labour Act, is a compromise of the government position, employers contributions and the
Committee Report. In the end the more radical reforms were not carried through by a parliament
14 Whereas annual economic growth averaged 5% in the 1980s in the 1990s it was less than 2%;
exports declined by 10.7% whilst manufacturing’s share of GDP declined by 14.2% with 50 000 jobs
lost. See generally Bond P, Uneven Zimbabwe: A Study of Finance, Development and
Underdevelopment ( 1998) 28 Raftopoulos B and Sachikonye L (eds) Striking Back: The Labour
Movement and the Post-Colonial State in Zimbabwe 1980 – 2000 ( 2001); Bond P and Masimba M
Zimbabwe’s Plunge : Exhausted Nationalism,
Neo-Liberalism and the Search for Social Justice ( 2002); Gwisai M “Revolutionaries, Resistance and
Crisis in Zimbabwe” in Zeilig L (ed) Class Struggle and Resistance in Africa (2002)
15 See Parliament of Zimbabwe, Report of the Portfolio Committee on Public Service, Labour and
Social Welfare on HB 19, 2001 (2002)
dominated by neoliberals. But critical was the serious decline in working class struggles, which
meant that there was no mass union mobilization when the bill came to parliament.
The future
The current flux in labour law is unlikely to last long. The definitive direction of state, opposition and
ruling class ideology is labour market liberalization. For now an impasse amongst the political elites
prevents an all-out neoliberal assault on the working class. Nonetheless the possibility of an elite
political settlement between the ruling party and opposition around a western supported neo-liberal
economic programme is the most likely outcome of the current crisis. And with it will come full scale
resumption of labour market deregulation.
However, it is not inevitable that an elitist settlement will result. The huge and unprecedented
economic, social and political crisis the country faces create possibilities of a working class led revolt
from below which can uproot the neoliberal project. But such struggle requires that the working
class build appropriate organisations to lead the struggle and develop an independent revolutionary
class ideology that guides them to victory. Critical to this, is the transformation of trade unions into
more democratic, united and accountable organs of workers and the building of an anti-capitalist
united democratic front of all progressive sections of the working people, urban and rural, unlike the
capitalist-dominated broad church of 1999. An immediate objective of such struggles would include
complete constitutional reform to expand democracy, enshrine fair labour standards in particular
the right to strike, nationalisation of the commanding heights of the economy, land re-distribution
and general subordination of private property to society’s needs.
But if such revolutions are to survive they must be intrinsically linked to regional and international
struggles against global capitalism, initially involving critically the powerful
South African working class. History has painfully taught us that revolutionary changes in poor third
world countries no matter how well intentioned, cannot sustain the
inevitable backlash from the local and global forces of capitalism and relapsing into the old society.
Growth of the anti – capitalist movement globally, from the south to the
north and east to west gives us hope of the growing possibility of international revolution
– the only way to prevent global barbarism, including a nuclear holocaust that the crisis of neoliberal monopoly global capitalism irrevocably pushes the world.
WOMEN AND LABOUR LAW
KEY ISSUES FOR WOMEN IN THE WORKPLACE
- SEXUAL HARASSMENT
- EQUAL PAY FOR EQUAL WORK
- MATERNITY PROTECTION
- FAIR LABOUR PRACTICE
WOMEN AND LABOUR LAW
- The right to work is recognised as one of the most fundamental human rights.2 Yet over time this
right has been excluded or marginalised for the majority of women, consistent with the general and
historical segregation that women have suffered in the economic, social and political spheres of
society
- A central reason behind such segregation is that the workplace has historically been structured in a
manner that is not “accommodative to pregnancy and parenting needs (or) sensitive to the reality of
women with both motherhood and job responsibilities.
-Labour Law seems to operate under the outdated presumption that the worker is male. This would
explain the anti-women provisions that have been passed in the past and continue to be passed.
- Under colonialism women were forced to stay in the rural areas by various draconian legal and
extra-legal measures, which took women as perpetual minors and amongst others denied them
maternity protection.
EXAMPLE- In terms of section 12 of the Master and Servants Ordinance, No. 5, 1901 all
contracts of service of a married woman, shall be made and executed by her as well as her husband,
except where she was living apart from her husband
-Historically the law played a major role in the exclusion of women from the workplace based on
their biological and motherhood roles. Under common law absence from work due to pregnancy
was sanctioned under the “no work no pay” principle. Where the absence was long, the employee
could be dismissed on the grounds of supervening impossibility.
- CITY OF HARARE V ZIMUCHA- NO WORK NO PAY PRINCIPLE AFFECTS WOMEN MORE BECAUSE OF
THINGS LIKE MOTHERHOOD AND BIOLOGICAL THINGS LIKE SICKNESS DUE TO MENSTRUAL CYCLES
The Constitution of Zimbabwe, 2013, like many recent constitutions in the region such as the 2010
Constitution of Kenya, marks a potentially decisive shift in recognising the centrality of women’s
rights as fundamental human rights. This includes constitutional provisions on maternity protection
-
DOES IT REALLY?- GOOD THINGS- EQUAL PAY- MATERNITY PROTECTION- FAIR LABOUR
PRACTICE
BAD THINGS- NO CHECKS AND BALANCES TO ENSURE EQUAL PAY- MATERNITY PROTECTION
IS LIMITED BY LANOUR ACT AND PUBLIC SERVICE REG- NO MENTION OF SEXUAL
HARASSMENT
INTERNATIONAL LAW SUPPORT FRO WOMEN WORKER RIGHTS
Whereas historically one of the oldest and most perverse forms of discrimination in society has
been against women, a fundamental value of modern society is the equality of all human beings,
and more specifically gender equality. This is aptly captured in the foundational human rights
instrument of international law, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948 (UDHR).
Article 1 of the UDHR provides that: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and
rights.”
The Preamble is even more elaborate declaring: “Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity
and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of
freedom, justice and peace in the world... Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in
the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the
human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote
social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.”
The equality standard finds manifest expression in relation to labour rights in various
international treaties that Zimbabwe has ratified. Purpose is to make sure women enjoy the
right to work.
Another example is the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against
Women (CEDAW) whose Article 11 (1) stipulates that, “States Parties shall take all appropriate
measures to eliminate discrimination against women in the field of employment in order to
ensure, on a basis of equality of men and women, the same rights…”
The Declaration on Equality of Opportunity and Treatment of Women Workers, 1975 provides a
summary of applicable international principles in relation to facilitating equality of opportunity
and treatment of women workers in the world of work. Article (3) of the Declaration provides:
(3) Because maternity is a social function all women workers shall be entitled to full maternity
protection in line with the minimum standards set forth in the Maternity Protection Convention
(Revised), 1952 (No. 103) and the Maternity Protection Recommendation, 1952 (No. 95), the
costs of which should be borne by social security or other public funds or by means of collective
arrangements.”
The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has defined sexual harassment as a sex-based behaviour
that is unwelcome and offensive to its recipient.[
The ILO further notes that sexual harassment may take two forms, namely, quid pro quo or hostile
working environment in which the conduct creates conditions that are intimidating or humiliating
for the victim.[3] ILO further notes that the behaviour that qualifies as sexual harassment may be
physical violence, touching, unnecessary close proximity, verbal comments and questions about
appearance, lifestyle, sexual orientation, offensive phone calls and non-verbal behaviour like
whistling, sexually suggestive gestures, and display of sexual materials.[4] The definition is wide and
covers all ranges of possible sexual harassment scenarios.[5]
Poverty, high levels of unemployment, lack of mechanisms to identify or detect sexual harassment,
and networks to help victims of sexual harassment are some of the factors that allow the
proliferation of sexual harassment in Zimbabwe.
SEXUAL HARASSMENT
CASE LAW
MBATHA V ZIZHOU AND CONFEDERATION OF ZIMBABWE INDUSTRIES- ‘SEXUAL MISCONDUCT IS THE
MOST HEINOUS MISCONDUCT THAT PLAGUES A WORKPLACE”- SOWHY DON’T THE STATUTES TREAT
IT SERIOUSLY?
MBATHA V ZIZHOU WAS A LEGAL FIRST ALLOWING CLAIM FOR DAMAGES FROM SEXUAL
HARASSMENT
1. The major problem in Zimbabwe is that the Labour Laws are inadequate in terms of the
content of the law and they lack clear policy and special procedure for detecting and
resolving sexual harassment cases. The Constitution, the Labour Act, the Public Service Act
and all labour regulations lack clarity or specificity with regard to sexual harassment and
how to deal with it- MBATHA CASE TOOK YEARS TO SETTLE BECAUSE OF THIS
1.
does not expressly provide for the right to be protected against sexual harassment,
although there are provisions which can be relied upon to protect women against sexual
harassment
2. There is no definition of sexual harassment in the Labour Act (28:01). Sexual harassment is
narrowly defined under section 8 as an unfair labour practice. It is defined in 58 (h) of the
Labour Act (28:01) as: Any employer or for the purpose of paragraphs (g) and (h), an
employee or any other person, commits an unfair labour practice if, by act or omission, he –
(h) engages in unwelcome sexually-determined behaviour towards any employee, whether
verbal or otherwise, such as making physical contact or advances, sexually coloured remarks,
or displaying pornographic materials in the workplace.”this definition does not explicitly
provide for sexual harassment definition, but the conduct it defines as unfair labour practice
is actually sexual harassment. That lack of explicitness on its own is a cause of concern
HOW CAN WE STOP SEXUAL HARASSMENT IF WE DON’T EVEN DEFINE IT PROPERLY???????
3. The penalties for unfair labour practices in terms of section 6(1)(2) as read together with
section 89 of the Labour Act are cessation of the unfair labour practice, compensation, and
criminal sanction. These remedies are clearly general and applicable to all unfair labour
practices. The challenge that exists in generalising remedies is that the underlying rationale
will be that all unfair labour practices are the same, which is not correct. Sexual harassment
on its own is a huge monster to which general remedies may not suffice. The generalisation
of these remedies could be the answer to why, despite those remedies being available in our
jurisdiction, the cases of victims seeking compensation or criminal sanction recorded are
very low.
MBATHA CASE WAS A FIRSTAND EVEN THEN SHE REQUESTED 500K AND ONLY GOT 180K.
HOW DO WE DECIDE QUANTUM OF DAMAGES?
4. The frightening thing is that the Public Service Act does not have a provision on sexual
harassment yet it is the most important statute on public sector labour.
PUBLIC SECTOR IS BIGGEST WORKING SECTOR SO IF IT DOESN’T REGULATESEXUAL
HARSSMENT THEN TIRIKUENDEPI NHAI MWARI????
5. The University of Zimbabwe Code of Conduct defines sexual harassment as unwarranted
conduct of a sexual nature that affects the dignity of men and women at work. It includes
physical, verbal and non-verbal conduct that is sexually coloured, offensive, intrusive,
degrading or intimidating. The definition, just like the one in the Labour Act, is inadequate in
that the content of the definition itself is insufficient and it does not include the mechanisms
to detect and resolve the cases of sexual harassment, for example the boards of inquiry,
counselling services, post-harassment support centre. The penalty that is available to the
perpetrators is dismissal from employment.
EVEN COMPANIES DON’T HAVE PROPER SEXUAL HARASSMENT PROCEDURES BECAUSE THEY
ARE NOT MANDATED TO UNDER STSTUTE.
6. Mbatha case didn’t even cite precedent. This shows that the problem of sexual harassment
isn’t litigated enough in Zimbabwe. Court couldn’t even refer to one previous case????????
CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS THAT CAN BE USED TO FIGHT SEXUAL HARASSMENT
Section 52
Section 65
Section 80
Section 14
Section 24
LABOUR ACT PROVISIONS THAT CAN BE USED TO FIGHT SEXUAL HARASSMENT
SECTION 8 OF LABOUR ACT- BREEZES PAST ISSUE- NO REAL DETAIL ABOUT SEXUAL
HARASSMENT
SECTION 58(H)- POOR DEFINITION OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT
SECTION 6(1)(2)- PENALTIES- VERY GENERAL REMEDIES- NOT SPECIFIC TO SEX HARASSMENT
MATERNITY PROTECTION IN ZIMBABWE
1. Section 65(7) of CoZ of Zimbabwe gives every woman right to fully paid maternity leave.
- Section 65(7) presents the first time this right has been recognized by a Zimbabwean
constitution.
2. Section 18 of Labour Act gives 98 days of paid maternity leave.
3. Section 39 Of Public Service regulations gives 90 days of maternity leave.
Are the provisions effective enough?
CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISION GRANTING MATERNITY LEAVE
-Section 65(7) presents progress and emancipation of working mother’s rights.
-It is the first time the right to maternity leave has been recognized by a Zimbabwean
constitution.
The enshrinement of the right to maternity leave in the Declaration of Rights is of crucial
significance.


Firstly, it reflects the specific importance of this right in the realisation of the equality
principle in society and more particularly that of gender equality.
Secondly it has specific importance in the interpretation model to be used in the
assessment of the recognition of the right to maternity leave and benefits in the various
statutes providing for the same, including the validity of the several conditions and
restrictions placed on the right under the statutes.
Section 65 (7) of the Constitution provides for paid maternity leave “for a period of at least three
months.” The period is phrased as “at least.” This means a longer period may be provided in
legislation, collective bargaining agreements or the contract of employment.
The above provision raises several issues in relation to its application scope as well as its relationship
with relevant statutes. These include issues of why only “women employees” the application to
employees in atypical forms of contracts of employment and the validity of legislative conditions.
The right under s 65 (7) of the Constitution is granted to “women employees.” Male employees are
therefore excluded. The same approach is followed in the applicable statutes. The Labour Act
provides (READ LABOUR ACT SECTION 18(1) and Public Service Regulations SECTION 39(1).
- Provision of paid maternity leave for all women employees can be seen as a fulfilment of the
obligation of the State “to provide everyone with an opportunity to work...” especially for women
under s 24 of the Constitution.
Case Law to Support Maternity Protection
Equally the judiciary has recognised as inconsistent with a democratic society based on equality,
justice and human dignity, the discrimination on the basis of pregnancy.
Webb (No. 2) v EMO Air Cargo Ltd [1995] IRLR 645, the House of Lords held as unfair discrimination
on the grounds of sex the dismissal of an employee because of pregnancy. The European Court of
Justice (ECJ) came to the same conclusion on the basis that pregnancy is something that uniquely
affects women.
Frontiero v Richardson, BRENNAN J held a 773: “There can be no doubt that our Nation has had a
long and unfortunate history of sex discrimination. Traditionally such discrimination was rationalised
by an attitude of ‘romantic paternalism’ which, in practical effect put women, not on a pedestal, but
in a cage...Women still face pervasive, although at times more subtle, discrimination in our
educational institutions, in the job market, and perhaps most conspicuously, in the political arena.
Moreover since sex, like race and national origin, is an immutable characteristic determined solely
by birth, the imposition of special disabilities upon members of a particular sex would seem to
violate the basic concept of our system that legal burdens should bear some relationship to
individual responsibility.”
In Chaduka NO & Anor v Mandizvidza S -114 – 01 the court held as invalid a college rule that
compelled suspension of pregnant female students as being contra bonos mores(against the public
good)
In ARDA v Murwisi103 the dismissal on notice of an employee on maternity leave was held unfair.
Whitehead v Woolworths (Pty)104 a requirement that employees be continuously available for at
least twelve months was rejected by the court as not being a sufficient operational requirement of
the job and amounting to unfair discrimination on the basis of pregnancy.
2. RIGHT TO MATERNITY PROTECTION IS UNIVERSAL
The second point to note is that the right is accorded to all women employees, without any
qualification whatsoever. Giving full effect to the constitutional provision and by reference to
international law standards means giving the widest possible definition of “women employees”
under s 65(7) of the Constitution.
Women employees must be interpreted as “any woman who is employed”
Use of wide interpretation to capture the spirit of the Constitution as said in Rattigan v Chief
Immigration Officer.
LIMITATIONS ON MATERNITY PROTECTION? S18 Of LABOUR ACT AND SECTION 39(1)
Limits Paid Maternity leave to employees who have served more than a year
GIVES DATES WHEN A WOMAN CAN GO ON MATERNITY LEAVE
--SEEM TO BE UNCONSTITUTIONAL
1 YEAR RULE LIMITATION- MADHUKU SAYS YES TO IT AND GWISAI SAYS NO
WHEN TALKING ABOUT LIMITATIONS ALWAYS TALK ABOUT IF THEY ARE REASONABLE
ACCORDING TO SECTION 86
An important issue that arises in relation to the application and scope of s 65(7) of the Constitution
is the qualification under s 18(1) of the Labour Act and s 39(1) of the employees who had served for
less than a year where required to take ninety days of vacation leave without pay. It was only
introduced in the 1990s in the era of the IMF inspired structural adjustment programme, ESAP,
when labour rights mattered little, if any at all. Gwisai says this is unreasonable and unconstitutional.
Madhuku says its okay because section 86 allows limitation of rights if limitation is reasonable.
TIME LIMIT TO WHEN A MOTHER CAN GO ON MATERNITY LEAVE
Under both the Labour Act s18(2) and Public Service Regulations 39(2) the employee may only go on
maternity leave, “not earlier than the forty-fifth day and not later than the twenty first day prior to
the expected date of delivery.” What about before? An employee may be able to utilise other forms
of leave, such as sick leave, special or compassionate leave. Compassionate leave of up to twelve
days is available under both enactments. The above however, is inadequate, because women are
forced to utilise such special leave for a reason related to pregnancy, something which males are not
required to do. There is need to amend the laws to provide for a special leave to deal with illness or
complications that arise out of pregnancy, before the maternity leave period kicks in. International
law provides a useful guiding framework.
Section 18(5) of the Labour Act provides that any “maternity leave requested in excess of the limits
prescribed in this section may be granted as unpaid leave.” This is worded in the discretionary. A
literal reading would seem to grant the employer discretion to grant or decline the request. This
means an employee who is declined such leave may be held lawfully dismissed if she fails to come to
work as was the case in Zulu v ZB Financial Holdings Ltd LC/H/176/13.
LIMIT ON AMOUNT OF TIMES A WOMAN CAN GO ON MATERNITY LEAVE
there is a cap on the number and frequency of paid maternity leave entitlement. Both enactments
provide that “A female employee shall be entitled to be granted a maximum of three periods of
maternity leave with respect to her total service to any one employer during which she shall be paid
her full salary: Provided that paid maternity leave shall be granted only once during any period of
twenty-four months calculated from the day any previous maternity leave was granted.”
This provision is problematic. It amounts to enforced family planning. It infringes on the
reproductive rights of women, in particular the right to decide freely and responsibly on the number
of children and spacing of children.
The international standard is well summarised in Article 8 (4) of the Declaration on Equality of
Opportunity and Treatment of Women Workers, providing: (4) All couples and individuals have the
basic right to decide freely and responsibly on the number and spacing of their children...”
GWISAI SUBMITS THAT ALL THESE LIMITATIONS ARE ARBITRARY- MARXISM BUT MADHUKU
AGREES WITH THE 1 YEAR RULE ONE AND SAYS IT IS REASONABLE- PLURALISM
A woman, who does not qualify for full paid maternity leave, is entitled to unpaid maternity leave.
Both enactments provide that any “maternity leave requested in excess of the limits prescribed ...
may only be granted as unpaid maternity leave.”87 Note that this is worded in the discretionary –
“may”, rather than the peremptory – “shall.
Despite this, the provision should not be interpreted as allowing an employer to refuse to grant such
right. The provision should be properly read as pertaining to the benefits the employee is entitled to
on maternity leave, and not the actual right to go on maternity leave. The non-discrimination
principle shows that the right itself remains absolute.88 This was also the case with the now
repealed public service regulations. Any other interpretation would allow for impermissible unfair
discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, sex and gender.
There is a relationship between maternity leave and sickness leave. Where a woman falls sick as a
result of the pregnancy, the woman can also rely on the statutory sick leave provisions. Under the
Labour Act, an employer is under an obligation to grant sick leave to employees in terms of section s
14 (1). To exercise the right, there must be illness or injury. The Act does not prescribe the illness.
This means, that a pregnant woman may, before the onset of maternity leave, utilize this provision
in cases of illnesses arising out of the pregnancy. Note that under s 18 (6) of the Labour Act, sick
leave may not be granted once paid maternity leave has begun or during a period of unpaid
maternity leave unless it is for medical reasons other than maternity. This is different from vacation
leave, where in terms of s 14A (4), an employee who falls sick during a vacation leave is entitled is
entitled to cancel their vacation leave and apply for sick leave.
MATERNITY BENEFITS
Maternity protection and cash benefits Maternity protection norms require that a woman on
maternity leave should be provided with cash benefits and medical benefits.
The 2013 Constitution goes a long way in fulfilling this, although there are still some areas of
concern. Under s 65(7) of the Constitution a woman employee is entitled to “fully paid maternity
leave for a period of at least three months.” The threshold of cash benefits under the 2013
Constitution not only complies but extends beyond that granted under ILO instruments.
The Constitution provides a 100% threshold of payment of salaries- MORE THAN WHAT
INTERNATIONAL LAW REQUIRES
This is better than the minimum provided under both the Maternity Protection (Revised) 103 of
1952 and the Maternity Protection Convention 183 of 2000. Both instruments provide that were
cash benefits are based on previous earnings, benefits should be no less than two-thirds (66%) of
previous earnings
The above are significant improvements from the previous regime where a woman was entitled to
only 75 per cent of pay if she forfeited her vacation leave days or 60 per cent if she didn’t. A further
improvement on the Labour Act and Public Service Regulations is that the constitutional provisions
do not impose a qualification period of one year service as the statutes.
WHO FUNDS THESE MATERNITY BENEFITS?
A major weakness in the Zimbabwean legal frame-work and one not addressed under s 65(7) of the
Constitution is the funding mechanism of maternity benefits. The section has retained the position
whereby it is the individual employer who pays. The section merely states that the woman employee
is entitled to the paid maternity leave. Generally, it is the employer who has the duty of paying
remuneration.
Breast-feeding and other benefits
A related aspect of maternity rights is those relating to breast-feeding. The imperative of equal
opportunities to work for women requires facilitation of breast-feeding rights. Section 24 of the
Constitution calls for the implementation of measures such as family care that enable women to
enjoy a real opportunity to work.
This is bolstered by s 56(2) and s 80(1) of the Constitution which provides women with the right to
equal treatment including the right to equal opportunities in economic and other spheres.
International law provides useful reference. Article 10 of the Maternity Protection Convention, 2000
provides that a woman shall be provided with the right to one or more daily breaks or a daily
reduction of hours of work to breastfeed her child.98 The Labour Act provides for benefits for
breast-feeding mothers. In terms of 18 (8) and (10) of the Act, the breastfeeding mother has the
right to take off a one hour period or two half-hour periods, which may be combined with other
normal breaks, as she may choose, for nursing the child. The proviso is that this is done “in
accordance with all the exigencies of her employment and nothing done to prevent any disruption of
normal production processes or any interference with the efficient running of an undertaking or
industry.” Appropriate examples include late commencement of work, extended lunch or tea breaks
or early knocking off. The onus is on an employer who may object to the woman taking her nursing
time to show that this results in disruption of normal services, taking into account things like the size
of the employer, the impact on the business of the employer, the grade or status of the worker or
their strategic importance to the firm. Further this section implies that if she so wishes a
breastfeeding mother should be allowed to have her child brought to the workplace for her to breast
feed it, as long as this does not disrupt the normal operations of the workplace. The woman is
entitled to this benefit “for the period during which she actually nurses her child or six months,
whichever is the lesser.”99 This is retrogressive. It puts pressure on women, to forfeit the breastfeeding right to impress their employers. If anything the
Employment security and protection from discrimination
The right guaranteed under s 65(7) of the Constitution and related maternity protection rights
would be meaningless if employers retained the right to terminate at will the contracts of
employment of women because of pregnancy or maternity or to discriminate against women for the
same reasons.
A crucial aspect of maternity protection therefore is employment protection and protection from
unfair dismissal due to exercise of maternity leave rights.
dismissal of a woman during her pregnancy or on maternity leave is prima facie unlawful
“ new Constitution enshrines the purposive model of constitutional interpretation. The purposive
model has been held to provide for “a generous and purposive interpretation with an eye to the
spirit as well as the letter of the provision, one that takes full account of changing conditions, social
norms and values. The aim must be to move away from formalism and make human rights a
practical reality.”
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Gubbay CJ in Smyth v Ushewokunze
Section 18(8) of labour act gives women the right to breastfeed a baby at work for an hour a day.
EQUAL WORK FOR EQUAL PAY
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The 2013 Constitution of Zimbabwe stresses the idea of equal pay. Section 65.
The Constitution prohibits discrimination of wages based on sex.
It is imperative to understand that historically, workplace remuneration inequitably
benefited men at the expense of women who do the same job.
Wage inequality is rooted in capitalist misogyny.
A survey undertaken in 2012 indicates that Zimbabwe’s gender pay gap is not only
astoundingly high but at 19, 4% it is one of the highest in the world.
International Women Policy and Research estimates that if women were paid the same as
men with similar qualifications and experience then women poverty would reduce by 40%
The concept of “Equal Pay for Equal Work,” was originally advanced by feminist groups,
particularly first-wave feminists in the early 19th century.
Typically, the law is slow to assimilate and adopt feminist doctrine with the consequence
being that a provision relating to “Equal Pay for Equal Work” only found itself in the
country’s constitution in the early 21st century. I
IT is imperative to understand that international law has been aggressively attempting to
rectify gender based wage disparities as enshrined in the 1951 Equal Remuneration
Convention, Convention 100 of the International Labour Organization which requires all
members to subscribe to the ideology of “Equal pay for Equal Work.
Section 65(6) not only guarantees a constitutional basis for the “Equal Pay for Equal Work”
movement but it also alleviates such issues as women having lower pensions and social
security benefits which alleviates female poverty
PROBLEM WITH EQUAL WORK EQUAL PAY IN ZIMBABWE
- THERE ARE NO CHECKS AND BALANCES TO MAKE SURE EMPLOYERS ARE DOING IT
- EMPLOYEES ARE ENCOURAGED NOT TO TALK ABOUT THEIR SALARIES AND THE
GENDER PAY GAP THRIVES IN SECRECY AND SILENCE LIKE SATAN. WHEN PEOPLE
DON’T TALK ABOUT THEIR SALARIES NOONE CAN KNOW WHAT THE OTHER EARSN
MEANING NOONE CAN COMPLAIN ABOUT THE GENDER PAY GAP
- THERE IS NO TRANSPARENCY