3 December, 2008Police raid homes, abduct, arrest and beat union leaders and workers protesting the government's refusal to allow workers to withdraw their full paychecks from the banks.
ZIMBABWE: Japhet Moyo, general secretary of the National Engineering Workers' Union of Zimbabwe (NEWU) and deputy secretary general of the national center, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), has been arrested after participating in a ZCTU demonstration protesting government restrictions on bank withdrawals.
According to Stephen Nhlapo, regional representative for Africa for the International Metalworkers' Federation, Japhat was arrested this morning by the police for organizing and participating in the march against the banks in the country. "While I was busy talking to him the police took the phone and I am not sure exactly what is going to happen to him," Nhlapo reported.
Zimbabwe's inflation rate has continued to skyrocket to a shocking 13.2 billion per cent a month, or 516 quintillion per cent a year, the second highest inflation rise in history. 1946 Hungary is history's worst.
One government remedy to control inflation has been to introduce measures to force employers to pay employees through the banks. The government also introduced a law that restricts withdrawals from the banks. The current maximum withdrawal per day is Z$ 5000 million which means a worker who earns Z$ 50 000 million per week needs around 10 days to be able to withdraw their salaries. "Some workers are still withdrawing their June salaries even now," Nhlapo reported, adding "in most cases when workers go to the bank to withdraw money, they find that there is no cash in the bank."
Nhlapo noted, "Transport to and from work is around Z$ 20 000 million a day, if you are lucky to get a lift, which is more than your daily limit for withdrawals and one wonders how workers are travelling to work and what are they eating?"
The ZCTU called for the one-day national protest to force the country's central bank to lift restrictions on cash withdrawals. Throughout the country workers held demonstrations at bank sites. Trade union leaders and workers who participated in the protests also called on employers to pay workers directly with cash or food parcels and demanded that they be paid in US dollars since everything in the country is sold in dollars.
Riot police armed with batons broke up many protests, arresting some 70 union leaders and members and assaulting another 10, including NEWU member Martha Kajama. Despite the violence, workers successfully delivered petitions to many offices of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, making their demands clear.