Teachers, through the PTUZ secretary-general Raymond Majongwe have said they are not on strike they are just incapacitated.
Majongwe was speaking in an interview with The Standard when he was asked if he was not afraid that the government will dismiss members of his union if they don’t show up for work same way the government has dismissed striking workers. He responded:
The most important position that we are stating is that we are not going on strike. Teachers are simply saying we are incapacitated and as far as the law says, we want to see whoever, because you don’t need a gun or a military man to tell us that you are going to fire us.
The most important point here is teachers are simply saying give us what is due to us and we will report for duty. We are not on strike, we are incapacitated.
The argument that government wants to use the reserve army, the reserve soldiers, the teachers who are unemployed out there, the most important point is that these teachers they will bring on board if ever they are going to, they will behave exactly like we are doing because it will only take them two months for them to realise that they are being taken for a ride.
We implore those teachers to refuse to be used as substitutes for a failed system. Teachers must realise they are worth something. They can’t honestly be told that they are going to replace people because they have been dismissed for crying out loud for better salaries.
Government must be made aware that they will be courting trouble if they proceed to dismiss teachers because they are asking for better salaries…
Civil servants were given a 97% salary increment which they rejected.
More: The Standard