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The strike by National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ) workers for payment of salaries enters its 64th day today with no easy solution in sight. Efforts by management, the board and the ministers of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare as well as that of Transport and Infrastructural Development Cdes Prisca Mupfumira and Joram Gumbo respectively to persuade the workers to return to work have failed. Owed 15 months’ salaries, the 4,000 workers have in recent months been pressing their employer to pay them but the protests have not yielded the money they desperately need.

The industrial action has disrupted operations at the bulk transporter, causing delays in the transportation of cargo. In addition to being saddled by a $144 million debt, NRZ operations are encumbered by a drastic decline in freight in an underperforming economy, decrepit rolling stock and rail infrastructure and other negative factors. Of the $144 million debt, some $68 million is owed to workers.

Management estimates that the parastatal is losing $250,000 a day because of the continuing industrial action. This suggests that from March 29 to date, the NRZ has lost around $16 million in potential revenue.

Last week, as efforts by the NRZ hierarchy to get workers back to work continue, management offered each of them $330. They refused to take it, insisting that only six months’ salary would persuade them to consider calling off the strike.

We quote new board chairman, Larry Mavima elsewhere in this issue saying they had a meeting with workers’ unions on Thursday when the $330 offer was rejected. “This case is before the courts but we will not stop talking to our employees to find common ground,” he said.

“Unfortunately the money that the workers demanded isn’t there. The only way to generate money is for them to come back to work. The money that’s there has been generated by those who’re coming to work. It’s therefore not fair for us to pay those who are on strike. We give first preference to those who’re working.”

Zimbabwe Amalgamated Railway Workers Union (ZARWU) president Kamurai Moyo said:

“During our meeting Mavima said they wanted the workers to report back to work. We told him that the workers were prepared to come back to work but they want to be given money first. The workers are suffering, There’s no money to pay school fees, buy food, pay rent and bills as well as service loans.”

The state of affairs at NRZ is already bad, but when you add an extended strike that halts trains you get something nearing a crisis.

We sympathise with NRZ workers, for, going unpaid for about one-and-a-half years in a difficult economy such as ours in which even those who are getting their salaries monthly cannot make ends meet, causes indescribable suffering for workers and their dependants. Some have obviously fallen behind in paying debts, that typically mount when one is not getting a salary. Others are going hungry, being sued for defaulting, having water supplies cut at their homes and failing to pay school fees for their children and so on.

At the same time, there is no way the NRZ can generate money if trains are not running and those trains must be run by workers.

It, thus, is a conundrum indeed for which there are no easy solutions.

We don’t have the courage to urge workers to return to work despite the 15 months’ salary backlog and escape accusations that we are being insensitive to their suffering and great sacrifice.

However, it is common knowledge that the NRZ is failing to pay them, not because management is unwilling to pay. The fact is they cannot pay because the money is simply not there. And when employees are on strike like now, the financial situation worsens.

Therefore, the point we have to make is to urge workers to reconsider their stance. By refusing to work for so long and the employer exercising so much restraint is to us, enough testimony that the management and board, as we do, appreciate their plight.

A few weeks ago Mavima announced that the parastatal had raised $3 million, which we think has been split hence the $330 offer made last week. This money came from some of the NRZ’s debtors.

We implore management to strengthen their debt collection strategy so that more can be raised to pay workers and keep trains on the rails. Doing so, we acknowledge, is difficult amid the prevailing economic difficulties because every company owes another, and struggling to pay. But there is no harm in management going after their debtors.

Having said that, we urge management, the board and Minister Gumbo to intensify the search for a rescue package for the NRZ. At some stage the Development Bank of Southern Africa was being courted for a $750 million lifeline.

Like we said, there is no easy way out for the NRZ challenges, but a stable labour environment, a strong debt collection strategy, a rescue package and, of course, a sound economy that generates more freight for the parastatal will help.