I am not an employer ÔÇô I am an employee. I speak and write from that perspective. I write from the perspective of thousands who have loans to pay, who have school fees to pay; who have to put food on the table and to pay for fuel every week. I know the government and the employer’s tale. It is a common story of economic downturn. I hear you Mr. Government and Mr Employer, but tell me this: Why should I believe that this economic downturn only affected you as the employer and not me as the employee? Why is that when you Mr Government faced economic downturn and hardship you turned on me and feasted on my lungs and guts? The image is disgusting I know, but poverty and hardship can be traumatising and equally disgusting. Joan Armatrading lied, there is nothing romantic about poverty.
I understand that in the midst of an economic downturn many of the government’s programs are difficult to implement because of shortage of funds. In effect the government is facing deep financial problems. The government understands this point probably more than anybody else since he is the largest employer. However, one would expect that in the midst of an economic downturn the same government would be sympathetic to the employee. He would not only think that he, the government, is the only one that is facing a downturn. He would consider families, some living on less than a dollar a day, that even they are facing an economic downturn. If he did consider families seriously, he would not take money from them at the time of their greatest need. He would not kick their ribs when they are lying down on the ground. The government would not have raised VAT in the middle of an economic downturn. Is that not giving with the left hand and taking with the right? Why did he raise VAT and not raise salaries? Is that not weakening the buying power of families? Is that not de facto salary decrement when you don’t raise salaries but you raise VAT? Food prices have gone up but salaries have gone down. Isn’t it therefore ridiculous not to raise salaries when for the past three years there hasn’t been any salary increment but the cost of living has been escalating? There are those who argue that the employee must take the perspective of the employer and understand that there are insufficient funds in the coffers of the employer.
That would be presumptuous and unwise. Actually the question that must be asked is: why is that the employer doesn’t take the perspective of the employee and recognise that the cost of living has escalated and the time to increase the salaries is now? The current state where there is no salary increment is disturbing. It bites into family life in a terribly way. The family’s buying power gets eroded especially that there is so much unemployment in the country. Many graduates who should now be employed are without a job and have now become the burden of their families, uncles or cousins. Their college and university education has become a joke as they sit under village trees, chewing on a stick of matches with their eyes fixed on nothingness in the horizon. Many who have found employment are earning slave salaries because there is a large pool of graduates who are unemployed or now providing cheap labour to the job market. This is not right and it can never be right. Workers need a salary increase. The employer must respond positively to these demands or else the employer will continue to be confronted by anger and more strikes. The employee doesn’t like to go on strikes. There is little fun with strikes. To argue that at least the employee gets something at the end of the month, as some have begun to argue, is not compelling and misses the point. The employee is not receiving charity from the employer at the end of the month like the welfare lines of the 80s; mothers with children on their backs at clinics waiting for malutu and a tin of oil (fishiwele) with compliments of the USA government.
The employee in effect sells his skills and labour to the employer who should compensate him appropriately for his services. At the time when VAT, food prices and fuel prices go up, the employee is justified in demanding a pay rise. Such a demand may be uncomfortable for the employer. That’s fine. The employee must not consider the woes of the employer. He must consider his family and his own livelihood first. He must be concerned about his own sorry state of affairs. He must consider that he has been patient for a long time and that perhaps now is time to act to make his demands known. Why would he think about the state of the employer when the employer rarely thinks about the state of the employee?
Times are tough. The employer feels surrounded and squeezed from all angles. School feels are hiked with no consideration for the economic downturn. So are food prices. Actually they get hiked because of the downturn. When things get tough, things are not eased for the employee. The reverse happens, they are made even tougher. Taxes are raised; water and electricity bills go up, food prices go up, bank charges go up and school fees go. Why should the cost of the employee’s labour go down when everything else go up? The employee must notice the employer that the cost of his labour has just gone up and that a raise is long overdue. The employee owns the commodity called labour which he sells to the employer. The employer must pay a fair price or else the employee may be tempted to withhold his commodity if the employer fails to deliver a fair pay. Go borolala is not an option. Actually if the employee a borolala he does so at his own peril and demise. He will in actual fact cheapen his labour and make himself dispensable and irrelevant. The employee must demand a raise because it is just ridiculous not to get a pay raise.
