Press Release
1st May, 2014
FDD’s LABOUR DAY MESSAGE
As Forum for Democracy and Development (FDD) we wish to pay special tribute to all our hardworking workers as they commemorate their special day which falls on this day, the 1st of May, 2014.
Labour Day is a very important day in the calendar of every employee as it is a day when workers celebrate their contributions and achievements.
We should not commemorate Labour Day with just the usual traditional marching and making rhetorical speeches. As a nation we should use this day to make honest and sober reflection on the plight of our workers and devise mechanisms to address the numerous challenges our workers are facing.
It is common knowledge that the bulk of our workers are working in difficult conditions. Low wages, poor conditions of service, lack of transport and housing are the order of the day for the majority of the Zambian workers. The majority of our workers are actually what one can term as the ”working poor”, who live from hand to mouth. They have neither Living Wages nor discretionary income hence providing essential goods and services such as education, health, food and decent accommodation for their families is a real hustle. Even those that have worked for years have to get a loan to purchase a simple second hand Japanese Car.
These problems are as a result of the failure on the part of our governments to formulate a clear Labour Policy that will not only guarantee dividends for employers and their top management but also guarantee prosperity for the ordinary employees who create the wealth that corporate entities are amassing. This unfortunate situation has been exacerbated by the general poor economic management of our country which has led to a high cost of living due to sky rocketing prices of fuel, food, transport, shelter and other essential goods and services. With the continued depreciation of our currency and the rising inflation it has become increasingly difficult for most of our workers to make ends meet.
In light of these challenges facing our workers, we as FDD propose the following to the government:
1. Lift the wage freeze and start the process of collective bargaining with all concerned stakeholders to resolve this issue.
2. Devise a comprehensive Labour Policy that will ensure steady creation of quality jobs that will guarantee security of tenure, dignity and a decent retirement package for our workers instead of creating menial and temporal jobs.
3. Revise our labour laws to protect the workers and end exploitation.
4. Take a forensic audit of our labour market to ascertain the type of skills available and/ or skills lacking with a view of providing training and retraining of our human resource. Because in an Information age, only knowledgeable human resource can maximise production and create wealth for all.
Prepared and issued by
Edith Z. Nawakwi
FDD President
These measures won’t work and actually Ms. Nawakwi was part of the problem when she was Minister of Finance in the MMD. What we want as workers is the funeral scheme, the National social health insurance scheme, Pension reforms, the credit Union bank and a living wage that was promised by PF in 2012. These are real measures that will transform our labour Market. HH’s message was better structured and closer to these expectations than Nawakwi’s message