Two-year wage freeze causing nervousness

The initial intended strike was only halted after a meeting that was hastily convened by the secretary to the cabinet Roland Msiska with the public service trade unions.

He met the union in Lusaka on October 28 amidst fears of a countrywide work stoppage by unionised government employees to protest the wage freeze proposed by Finance Minister Alexander Chikwanda in the 2014 budget. Trade unions have maintained that it is a violation of the principle of collective free bargaining and is therefore illegal.But when he presented the budget on October 11, Chikwanda, who also proposed deferment for a year of civil service recruitment, said his purpose was to “reconfigure expenditure towards growth” and reign-in the runaway public service wage bill.