LABOUR RIGHTS UNDER ZIMBABWE’S NEW CONSTITUTION:
THE RIGHT TO BE PAID A FAIR AND REASONABLE WAGE

BY MUNYARADZI GWISAI , RODGERS MATSIKIDZE & CALEB MUCHECHE

Introduction 

A fundamental change introduced under s 65 (1) of the new
Constitution of Zimbabwe is the enshrinement of the right of
employees to be paid a fair and reasonable wage. It reads:

65 Labour rights

(1) Every person has the right to fair and safe labour practices
and standards and to be paid a fair and reasonable wage.
This provision marks a milestone in the labour law regime of Zimbabwe.
It brings Zimbabwean law in closer conformity with relevant regional
and international instruments.

Although the philosophical basis of the Labour Act is pluralist, with
the Act providing that its “purpose is to advance social justice and
democracy in the workplace,” the regime covering wages has been
decidedly unitarist. Hitherto neither statutes nor common law had
prescribed the quantum of wages payable to employees. This, despite
perhaps one of the most rallying demands of labour in the last two
decades being the demand for a Poverty Datum Line-linked living
wage. This is understandable, when one considers that by 2011, nearly
93 per cent of formal sector employees were earning wages less than
the Total Consumption Poverty Line (TCPL), the generally accepted
measurement of poverty.5 Thus, for most workers, a living wage
remains a mirage. They are mired in dire and debilitating poverty.

The demand for a living wage, not surprisingly, has found echo in
popular musical hits such as Chinyemu by Leornard Dembo and Mugove
by Leornard Zhakata. Indeed, for a nation largely turned Christian, a
demand with Biblical foundations.

The conflicts over a living wage, became particularly intense in the
post-dollarisation era after March 2009. On the one hand, labour felt
it deserved a dividend for the immense sacrifices it made in the
preceding period of economic collapse and hyper-inflation running
into billions, which virtually wiped out wages. Employers on the other
hand argue for wage restraints to ensure sustainable economic
recovery. Unreasonable wage increments will kill the goose that lays
the golden eggs, they argue.

This conflict spilled into the courts where differing positions emerged.
One line of cases, starting from the premises of the interests of the
business, took the approach that increments above the prevailing
inflation rate, were grossly unreasonable and against public policy as
in the Tel-One (Pvt) Ltd v Communications & Allied Services Workers
Union of Zimbabwe decision.7 The other line, started off from the
premises of the workers’ right to a living wage, and rejected the
approach that saw such increments as unreasonable per se, as in City
of Harare v Harare Municipal Workers Union.

The new Constitution radically changed the situation by, for the first
time in Zimbabwean constitutional history, explicitly providing for
the right to “a fair and reasonable wage.” In this essay we dissect the
implications of this new constitutional right on the law of
remuneration, in the context of international human rights and labour
law and contrasting philosophical and jurisprudential worldviews.