Civil servants hopes dashed

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SALARY negotiations between the government and civil servants unions will not yield any results due to the reluctance by the employer to increase salaries

SALARY negotiations between the government and civil servants unions will not yield any results due to the reluctance by the employer to increase salaries to the poverty datum line levels of $540, civil servants said yesterday. FELUNA NLEYA STAFF REPORTER

Civil servants said most of them had already psyched up for yet another disappointment.

In separate interviews with our sister paper NewsDay, some civil servants said they wanted the government to credit them with the $79 it had proposed while negotiations proceeded.

The two parties are today set to meet for the third time after failing to agree on the package to offer civil servants due to the divergent views.

A teacher at Prince Edward High School said he had learnt from the past that negotiations with the government hardly yielded positive results.

“It’s just a formality that our representatives meet the government in the name of negotiating, but to expect anything more than the $79 tabled by government is just a fallacy,” he said.

Another government employee Nonsikelelo Moyo said: “I don’t think tomorrow’s (today) meeting will yield anything better than what they have already offered.

“We have just psyched our minds to get $79; there is nothing we can do.

“Although it is just too little for us to call it an increment that is what we are now expecting.

“We are only surviving by God’s grace.

“The good thing is that I do not pay any rentals because I stay at my parents’ home, but as for the other bills such as council and Zesa I ignore because I cannot afford to pay them and still feed my family and take them to school.”