Zambia Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) Secretary-General, Cosmas Mukuka, says the change of government has brought renewed hope among workers and their families.
Speaking when he officially opened the 12th National Union of Communication Workers (NUCW) at the Zambezi Source Lodge in Kabwe today, Mr Mukuka said workers and their families are expecting improvements in their living standards and general welfare.
Mr Mukuka observed that under the former Patriotic Front (PF) government, unemployment and poverty levels had skyrocketed and repeated calls by unions to reverse the situation fell on deaf ears.
He also observed that wealth was only circulating in the hands of a few people while the majority were condemned to wallow in poverty and squalor.
“We reached a point where the general citizenry and the workers felt helpless, especially that leaders who tried to speak out were intimidated with impunity,” Mr Mukuka said.
Mr Mukuka said the workers will demand nothing short of improved living standards and that the principle of free collective bargaining will be respected.
Meanwhile, Mr. Mukuka has urged the government to fully embrace the 2030 agenda which places decent work for all at the heart of policies for sustainable and inclusive growth and development.
“We demand that while the country strives for economic growth, people must begin to see opportunities of finding decent work. We want working people to earn enough wages and salaries that can lift them and their families out of poverty,” he said.
Mr. Mukuka said the labour movement is saddened that most workers are still working under unsafe and unhealthy conditions.
“This is unacceptable because it puts the lives and safety of workers under great risk. Most employers have put profits first before the physical welfare of their workers,” he charged.
He has urged the new dawn government and other employers to urgently build a culture of prevention that respects the right to a safe and healthy working environment as well as ensuring both employers and workers know their rights.
He added that it is also imperative that employers implement International Labour Organisation (ILO) fundamental rights and standards because workers require to be protected and their working conditions improved.
And Mr Mukuka said women’s economic empowerment is fundamental to gender equality.
He noted that to most women workers, their most important source of economic empowerment and dignity is a job.
He said closing gender gaps in employment, ensuring decent work for all women and equal pay for work of equal value is key to achieving gender equality.
“I wish to call upon trade unions and employers to work together in ensuring that all forms of discrimination against women workers and indeed all girls are completely eliminated,” he implored.
Iam surprised.ZCTU was strong supporter of PF all along!
F00Iish man. If you didn’t get rich under pf then you are just a lazy self entitled little roach. It means you will always fails regardless of which govt in power. The problem is you and your lazy attitude towards work. If anything under upnd you will suffer more because your hh is influenced by the west who don’t believe in helping each other in society. There’s is an individualistic society
This man supported debt swaps and pf today he has changed his colors. Bembas are like that. I have never seen a principled one
KZ is right. If you didn’t get rich under the PF, then you probably are an honest hardworking person. And that’s the ones they didn’t want in the party, they were only looking for thieving corrupt liars, like Edgar China Lungu, GBM, CK and KZ himself!
No corruption don’t feed the Eastern rat troll. It’s hallucinating now that it’s fellow rat lungu is gone. Let it go to southern province. There my people will kill it.
Same thing again …it wants to have this alias like Jay Jay …you can have Tarino Orange if you want it. I dont have time for these childish games!!
What this man is saying doesn’t match the expectations of borrowing money from IMF , the monster IMF doesn’t have any employment to give out to our people, what we experienced in the last regime will be overshadowed by the hardships that IMF is bringing unfortunately that is the reality.
IMF has it’s own vigorous ways of recovering their money from their clients.
Maybe five years from next year that is when things may start looking up again, however we shall see nothing on the ground our thoughts would have worked better just to empower Zambian people with small loans to do fish farming etc would have worked better not evolving these cruel lenders .
We say this from the experience we went through both in 1988 and in 1991 .
Now the same thing is repeating itself this is…
Yawn…this is now becoming boring as f#@ck….why are we still talking about PF…Just why…you meet a new girlfriend and all you talking about is your ex girlfriend…yak….trust me your relationship won’t last…HH CHIMBWI NO PLAN PRESIDENT
Ba mukuka, if you think upnd is worker friendly,then you have got another thing coming. These are capitalist friendly, being supported by capitalist institutions like IMF, etc. Capitalism regards workers as a necessary evil and not partners.
Mwalalila, loleleni fye!
Labour Unions serve no purpose except to enrich their leaders
We used to hear how labour leaders at ZCTU used to buy expensive beers for ECL on every visit, in Cephas Mukuka’s mind how was that going to help reduce unemployment? They were dining with PF. Up to now workers are like orphans with no one to speak for them because their leaders have opted to build mansions and guest houses at the expense of the voice for workers. The labour movement died a long time ago. It’ll be good for Cephas and his colleagues to shut up. Union funds are not accounted for. The first thing these chaps did upon election was to look for a plot and the 2nd was to register a company. They’re traders and not labour leaders
I told under ba under5 government, I stand to be corrected ati we have wage freeze and retired people are the one who will get replaced no more employing by government.
This Mukuka and his former have contracts with the mining companies. On top of that they force these companies to employ their nephews and other relatives. They just want to curry favor with the new government. PF didn’t fail alone they failed with the unions and previous goverments.
Deja Vu – The unions are on record to support the take over of KCM to the point where a liquidator was running the day to day business and syphoning cash to his personal account. Union members need to give these leaders a vote of no confidence most of them have supply contracts with these very mines and are the first ones to paid which is a conflict of interest.
#14 We know it and one union official owned company which has contracts with the mines starts with Mech…
I will reveal more later.
Good morning ZCTU. I trust that you slept well for 7 years. Thank God that you are now awake.
Yup very true , all economic indicators were trending down that’s why poverty/unemployment increased sharply.
Very Useless boy when you talk of unemployment remember companies are no more …they were sold
Umm aren’t these the same unions that backed PF? Have some shame.
St. Sweet Angus.
To tell you the plain truth UPND has no capacity of creating any jobs as they have gone in the wrong direction , where they have turned to no no not even a single job will come from the western world it just doesn’t happen and it will never , all what the western world wants is to take from you so that you remain begging for peanuts from them and that is their agenda for Africa.
This government is the poorest sitting government it is the shame of Africa, HH mortgaged Zambia to cruel masters .
These short sleeved jackets are so irritating, they are so Kombonic, I think HH should ban them, they remind of ECL and Freedom Sikazwe.
Mr. P on no 3, you are a pathetic tribalist. The only thing that you see in anything is tribe. The fact is that no matter what your efforts to degrade the bembas, you will never achieve because they are God’s creation too, You on the other hand are the people who should be worried because you think you are even more morally upright than God himself