Listen to Raymond Majongwe, Secretary General of the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) speak about teachers standing up for themselves.

Following a two week teacher sit-in and a one week strike in which an estimated 90% of teachers across Zimbabwe refused to go to work and demanded higher salaries, government has agreed to increase teachers’ wages to Z$14 million per month for the lowest paid teacher and up to Z$24 million for the highest paid.

This is a marked improvement over the paltry salaries teachers were previously earning but sees teachers still earning below the Poverty Datum Line. Taken at the widely used parallel market rate, the teacher’s wage increase translates to USD 28 a month for the lowest paid teacher – less than a dollar per day. And that is at today’s exchange rate. As inflation further erodes the Zimbabwe dollar, that wage will be worth even less in a week’s time, and next to nothing by the end of the year.

So what do the teachers do? Do they accept the offer on the table, or hold out for something better?

The wage increase currently being offered is a victory for the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe, which led the call for the strike. Even though the PTUZ claims a membership of around 13,000 of Zimbabwe’s 110,000 teachers, 90% of all teachers participated in the strike. At meetings of PTUZ structures in Harare, Mashonaland West, Manicaland, Masvingo, the Midlands and Bulawayo on Tuesday 9 October, all provinces except for Bulawayo were in favour of extending the strike until a new demand (Z$65 million per month basic salary plus transport and housing allowances) is agreed to. Again, at the parallel market rate, this would work out to less than USD 175 / month – not an exorbitant amount for a teacher to ask to be paid.

But compared to other industries in Zimbabwe, it sounds like a lot. Currently, doctors gross Z$6-10 million per month, and have also been on a go-slow of late to demand a wage increase. A deal was struck last week with the Apex Council, which negotiates on behalf of all civil servants. While details of this agreement haven’t been released, it looks like the 420% wage increase being offered to teachers is what doctors and other civil servants will also be given. If other civil servants accept this, but PTUZ members refuse to go back to work, they risk distancing themselves from their fellow civil servants at a time when they need to be working together. They might also lose public sympathy from parents and other Zimbabweans who are struggling to make ends meet and are themselves earning far less. If other teachers go back to school and PTUZ members remain on strike, these teachers might be isolated and lose their jobs.

The PTUZ leadership faces a difficult decision as national and provincial representatives meet in Harare today. But regardless of the outcome the fact that teachers are even willing to consider demanding more than they are being offered is an encouraging indicator of things to come.

If there was a bit more food in the shops and a bit more hope for times ahead, I wouldn’t have been quite so surprised to learn that almost two-thirds of Zimbabweans surveyed across the country intend to vote for Zanu PF in next year’s election, as compared with 35% for the Morgan Tsvangirai MDC, and 2% for the Arthur Mutambara MDC.

This is the surprising revelation of The Zimbabwe electoral process and attendant issues: the voter’ views, the recent summary report of the Mass Public Opinion Institutes’s survey of voters across Zimbabwe.

The survey asked people a range of questions, including whether they thought voting was important, if they had registered to vote, and who they might vote for in next year’s elections.

Granted, it’s difficult to make any conclusive analysis from this survey finding. How does one assess opinion or predict trends when 83% of the population intends to vote in the election, but only 51% of them claim to have decided what party they might vote for.

This large percent of self-professed “undecideds” isn’t a new phenomenon in Zimbabwe. We’ve seen it often over the past seven years with voters claiming they are undecided or “don’t know.” Typically, the opposition interprets an undecided as someone who doesn’t trust the survey recorder, or is sympathetic to the opposition but fearful of the consequences of that, and so declines to reveal their opinion.

But it’s dangerous to assume that all 51% of those undecideds are going to vote for one of the two MDC formations. And if even some of those who say they haven’t yet made up their minds really don’t know, or are leaning towards voting for the ruling party, the MDC needs to rethink its confident assertion that it has the support of the people, and needs only a free and fair election to prove it.

Regardless of the science and speculation of polling, we need politicians who are willing to take risks, think creatively, roll up their sleeves and take on the challenge of genuinely leading people out of the mess we’re currently in. Statistics and numbers can tell one story. But we need to be spending more time with the meandering, intricate tales of what’s on people’s minds, what’s in our hearts, what we dream of for the future, and how we hope to get there.

Zimbabwe’s Central Statistical Office has pegged the current Poverty Datum Line at ZW$12 million a month for a family of five, as compared with ZW$11 million last month and ZW$8.2 million the month before.

Like most Zimbabweans, teachers have spent the better part of this year trying to have their wages keep up with inflation. Earlier this year, Raymond Majongwe, the Secretary General of the Progressive Teacher’s Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) was detained by the police for stating the simple truth that, at the time, a teacher’s salary was only enough to afford four and half bananas a day.

Last week, the teachers rejected the government’s offer of a 91% salary increase. The increase would have added ZW$2.6 million to the present basic wage of ZW$2.9 million, making a total of Z$5.5 million dollars. But PTUZ described the offer as “pathetic,” and is standing firm on its demand for a monthly minimum wage of ZW$15 million.

To achieve its demands, the union had been on a “sit down,” in which teachers were reporting to school each day, but sitting at their desks and not teaching. This week, the PTUZ changed tack. It is now urging its membership to stay away from work altogether. “Stay put or stay poor,” it advises, and is hoping that fellow teachers’ unions, the Zimbabwe Teachers’ Association and the Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe, will join the action. As inflation spirals, the teachers’ demands have increased – they are now demanding a basic salary of ZW$18 million plus another ZW$14 million in housing and transport costs.

This would put teachers just barely above the Poverty Datum Line – for now, until it goes up again. It would certainly leave them far better off than those in the agricultural sector.

Recent increases in the agricultural sector wage mean that the highest paid agricultural worker’s wage is gazetted at ZW$2 million – up from Z$440,000. This still is not enough to buy yourself a loaf of bread (or a beer) a day – not that you could find either one, anyway.

The Week has picked up on a particularly mind-boggling take on all of this. In July, an official from Zimbabwe’s Finance Ministry was reported in the Cape Times to have dismissed Zimbabwe’s deepening food crisis, saying:

The unpatriotic hoarding of food gives the impression that we have a problem, which clearly we haven’t, except in the South African media’s mind. We do not call it starving, we call it fasting. Fasting is actually good for you. Lots of famous people have fasted for the benefit of their people. Gandhi, for instance. In our case, the people themselves will be encouraged to fast, thereby strengthening themselves against the onslaught of colonial imperialism. We have no objection in principle to people eating. Those of us in government all eat, but only because persons in our important positions have to. What we must guard against is the belief that people have the right to break the law if they are hungry.

All this, as a friend pointed out yesterday, in Independent Zimbabwe.

A tour past Harare’s main commuter transport ranks, the city centre, suburban shopping centres and residential areas yesterday made things look very much like business as usual on the first day of a two-day stay away called by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU).

A statement from the ZCTU reported that “most ZCTU members heeded the call to stayaway from work. However most companies remained open but with only skeleton staff operating. We predict that so far this stayaway has been about 55 percent successful.” Some reports suggested that staff were going to work, but were not working once they arrived there.

As one Kubatana subscriber put it, with 80% unemployment, that means only 20% of the population even has work from which they could stay away. So a 55% successful stay away looks like only 10% of the population going to work? Plus of course the informal sector which just carried on as always.

A friend of mine in the repair business offered his workers a choice – they were welcome to stay away and they would not be peanalised or docked anything from their monthly wage, or they could come to work. When he got to work on Wednesday morning he found all his staff waiting outside for him to open up as they normally do. They would not have lost their pay if they’d stayed home. But they also wouldn’t have been served lunch.

Of course, the fact that most businesses remained open didn’t stop the police from harassing the ZCTU staff and leadership. On Monday, three ZCTU officials were beaten and arrested while distributing fliers for the stay away in Harare’s Workington industrial area. Police raided the home of ZCTU President Lovemore Matombo, and arrested his brother Kenneth when they did not find Lovemore at home. The ZCTU’s Bulawayo regional chairperson was arrested on Tuesday, released late that night and then instructed to report to the police again for further interrogation. Something about the level of action and the extent of reprisal isn’t quite adding up.

Kubatana subscribers continue to share their thoughts about the job action. Here are a few of their comments:

I personally think the reason these stay aways are not working is because we are never fully informed why we are staying away, I mean like what are hoping to achieve after the so called stay away who are we staying away from because frankly if it’s a way of bringing the country’s economy to its knees to get the govt’s attention they have already beaten us to that whether we stay away for the next 3 months the economy is already in ruins and the govt wouldn’t care less. I therefore strongly think and believe that what ZCTU needs to be doing now is massive voter education I think the ballot is the only way to beat the mugabe regime to cut the story short stay aways will not work end whether we all stay away end of story.
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My personal conviction is that stay aways are an obsolete means to for expression in Zimbabwe. This method has been utilized countless times in Zimbabwe in the recent years with limited success. We need much more peaceful and proactive methods to express whatever sentiments are festering within us. Besides, we do not have to provide the excuse to trigger happy butter stick brandishing law enforcers, to get mercilessly on our people and provoke disorder. Even though the socio-economic situation continues to deteriorate, but let us save life and limb.

Meanwhile, the MDC looks set to allow constitutional amendments to sail through Parliament without any discussion or debate. Agreeing to these amendments will effectively see the MDC conceding that the upcoming elections will be free and fair. But with just six months between now and the likely election date, all the good will in the world could not miraculously transform Zimbabwe’s political environment into a level playing field with open, equal access and confident voters free of intimidation – and I sincerely doubt the ruling party has that much good will towards the process anyway.

I know my colleagues and I all see it. So what is the opposition thinking? What is in it for them? Like this Telegraph article puts it, the MDC is “contributing to its own demise.” The opposition might not mind forming some elite deal and getting swallowed by the ruling party. But what’s in it for the rest of us?

In advance of the Stay Away called by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) for Wednesday and Thursday, 19 and 20 September, we at Kubatana sent out a text message and email asking our subscribers what they thought of the stay away, whether their workplace would be participating, and what their friends and neighbours were saying about it.

We were flooded with emails and text messages expressing a range of opinions, from eager support for the stay away and a commitment to stay home even if their work place was open, to others who questioned the usefulness of the tactic or whether it would make any difference on the ground.

Here is just a small sampling of people’s responses:

Don’t think it will be a success. People are tired of stay aways.

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Supporting it, not coming to work, enough is enough.

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Yes and all my friends want to stay away in order to make a statement.

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I don’t support the stay away because it has never worked before. It is said it is foolish to try the same thing and expect different results. Can ZCTU think strategies that are constructive. Zimbabweans want solutions not “scapegoat” ideas. ZCTU/NCA are always pointing fingers and have paperwork solutions. What positive things have they done to bring reformation and transformation in this country. When they was Murambatsvina, can I ask how many of these NCA/ZCTU leaders even housed one family or looked for decent shelter for them. If they did so, I certainly did not hear about it. I know ZCTU/NCA travel a lot out of the country, can’t they forge relations outside so that we have raw materials coming in. Bring in influential/expert people (non-political) come in to help solve our economic crisis. E.g. bring in a banker who has a CV of what we are currently going through and has managed to make a turnaround in his country. I know of a few individuals (who are Zimbabweans) who have come together to help the health ministry. They have just brought in a container of medical equipment and drugs to distribute for free. This is going to make a difference and go a long way. Selfish gains is not what we want. We want reformation and transformation in this nation. Just because our president is unpopular is no excuse for better things not to happen. May God help us.

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My workplace will be open as we are 50% gov’t but I’ll be staying away together with my friends. Teachers must never attempt to go to work!

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Lets stay away and show that we are not happy with what’s going on!

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Need to be clear on the objective of the stay away.

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We, with all my friends are supporting it, i urge all people from every sector to support it, so that it will send a clear message. Lets go for it!!!!!

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I have to work, should a doctor strike? Other people are afraid of repercussions, they may have no job to come back to. A Catch-22.

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I suggest that we all wear white, black and red regalia one chosen day of the week till the next elections. It was easier and noble to wear one colour but the last time we wore red T-shirts before the elections we attracted the wrath of the green militia. So this time around it will be difficult for them to single out all people wearing three different colours say every Friday.

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The strikes never seem to take off. Some do some don’t. Some know some don’t. Each union must work in concert.

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A new form of resistance can be by people hee-hawing (like donkeys) very loudly in the street to show their utter contempt for the regime.

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There is no need for people to come into town for any kind of demonstration. People should stay in their respective residential places and demonstrate peacefully there.

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It seems this strategy of stay away has already shown its failure – I don’t know what the objective is or what its likely to achieve. Rather use the ubiquitous workers for anonymous tip offs (whistle blowing) for both violation and complicity – name and shame.

The first step would be to inform the workers of their rights in terms of international law as enshrined in the International Convention on Human Rights and its covenants -emphasizing the liability for beneficial or silent complicity. This can be equally applied to direct human rights violations like buying luxury cars instead of buying food (the car manufacturer is liable) or the local media failing to report – Mr editor, you do realise, of course, that you are complicit, you step out of Zimbabwe, you may be held liable under international law! the same applies to the Chief of Police.

They are rationing bread and the general public waits patiently whilst police and army personnel push in to the front willingly served by the staff. This is in flagrant violation of:-The Universal Declaration on Human Rights breaches of these rights entail liability under international law . Attention should be paid to how the staff and the boss might be implicated (legally or morally) in the action or inaction of others, directly or indirectly and through beneficial or silent complicity. Chapter and verse:- “Decisions on the availability of products or the allocation should be taken without discrimination or regard to arbitrary preferences.”

So if the boss stepped out of a plane onto international soil he could get nailed. Also because of the knock on effect he might find it becoming increasingly difficult to access finance, markets and supplies as those international organizations may in turn be implicated (legally or morally) in the action or inaction of others, directly or indirectly and through beneficial or silent complicity so maybe they won’t want to do business with the complicit.

This stuff is powerful and its very exciting. If it was up to me I would cancel the stay away and take this paradigm shift. Publishing a regularly update list of direct International Law violators and the complicit using a very successful tactic from elsewhere – “Name and Shame”. They were amazed at how effective this was even against organizations deemed to be powerful and uncaring. Even if the violators themselves couldn’t care less, somewhere along the line there may be a critical link in their needs or wants that does not want to be implicated (legally or morally).

I notice her black soft takkies first. White smooth soled and black laced, they’re shuffling down the aisle beside my sandals. I glance sidelong. A tired face. Simple plaits hold the hair to the side of her head. A thick blue towel covers her white blouse, binding the baby close to her back. I am staring at the pasta, imported from Turkey, on the shelves. It’s one of the few carbohydrates you can find anymore, and I think to myself I’d best learn to love potatoes. At over $600,000 a pack, I’m not going to be eating any pasta again soon.

I’ve gone to this shop in one of Harare’s most affluent suburbs knowing things will be expensive. But hoping just maybe I’ll find something edible. My heart goes out to the woman beside me. I size her up to be a domestic worker, perhaps, or the wife or sister of a gardener employed at one of the houses in the neighbourhood. What can she possibly be feeding herself, and her child, I think to myself with a sigh. I turn and move on to the next aisle, leaving the pasta behind. I notice her pick up a spaghetti packet behind me and sigh again, doubting she could afford it.

I hear the sound of crumpling plastic as I wander aimlessly past the endless shelves of tinned tomato puree, and I turn, just as the woman finishes tucking the pasta safely into the wide wrap of towel at her child’s legs. My eyes widen as my brain registers what she’s doing. Her eyes widen as she realises I’ve spotted her. In an instant I know I won’t dob her in. But I don’t know how to tell her. She looks scared and I smile wanly, shrug, and disappear, hoping she knows I won’t tell; hoping she walked straight out of the shops and home. I stand in front of the empty meat freezers and think about the risk borne by desperation. I leave the shop empty handed.

Five hours, 40 kilometres and eight shops later, the woman’s face still haunts me. Why didn’t I think quicker? Why didn’t I offer to buy her the pasta? Why didn’t I speak with her? What would she have said? What would I have said? What is this place doing to us?

Some time back, a friend flew down to Johannesburg. On the plane, he passed someone leaving the toilet as he was going into it. The lav stank of cigarette smoke, and he suspected the man he’d seen coming out. So he mentioned it to a flight attendant, and pointed the bloke out to them, believing himself a responsible, civic-minded traveller. His heart raced a bit as he got off the plane and saw the same man being taken aside by ground security. He felt a pang of self-doubt wondering what the man’s fate would be.

The story proved grist for many a dinnertime conversation. What would you have done? Why turn him in, why not turn him in, who are you helping, what point are you proving, when is it best to speak up, and when is it best to keep quiet? Which laws do you play a part in enforcing, which do you ignore, and which do you break, and why?

Last year some friends had a visitor who spoke a lot about our “moral floor.” That we, all of us, must have some personal sense of right and wrong, our own set of principles that we know it would be wrong to violate. And that, presumably, if we all did a better job of keeping our moral floor stable and polished and well swept, our lives and those of the others around us would be better off.

I know she has a point. But over the past few years here, I’ve certainly noticed my moral floor boards sagging a bit here and there. We’re all just trying to get by. But what’s a fair price for survival?

Leaving another shop with empty shelves, I called a truce with my foraging instinct. I’d left the house with a list: matches, milk (enough to last four people one week) petsfood, and something to eat. I was returning with milk (enough to last four people two days), cooking oil and potatoes. It would have to do.

As I walked across the carpark, a woman approached me. Tall, lean and hollow eyed she asked me for help. She had three children, a running stomach, no food and no money, she told me. Wouldn’t I assist. My thoughts were with my shoplifter as I reached into my bag and gave her what I had in cash – $600,000. Her face lit up in amazement and she thanked me profusely; it was far more than she’d expected. I smiled thinly and turned away, barely seeing her. I don’t know the value of our money any more. I don’t know how much is a lot and how much is a little. I don’t know what things should cost, I only know what they do. And in all the scramble and scraping and dealing and plan making, what is the cost to our humanity?