Nationwide strike called off as govt, CSTU strike deal
Civil Service Trade Union (CSTU) and Teachers Union of Malawi (TUM) have agreed to postpone their planned nationwide sit-in to force the government to review their conditions of service.
In December 2022, CSTU and TUM notified the government of their intention to call for a nationwide industrial strike for all civil servants in Malawi from Monday, 9th January 2023.
The two unions vowed that the sit-in would only be called off after the government addresses all the concerns “we presented during the recent Government Negotiating Team meeting at Kumbali Lodge”.
“We, CSTU and TUM, have opted for this nationwide industrial action due to government’s failure to address most of the workers’ concerns, especially in relation to the current prevailing high cost of living in Malawi that has made lives of majority of public civil servants unbearable,” CSTU General Secretary Madalitso Njolomole and his TUM counterpart Charles Kumchenga said in their letter addressed to authorities at the Capital Hill.
However, after an engagement with the Government Negotiating Team at Kumbali Lodge on Friday afternoon, the two unions announced that they had shelved their planned industrial action.
A communique Nyasa Times has seen, as signed by the Government Negotiating Team’s Charles Kalemba, Njolomole and Kumchenge say they will continue engaging.
“Following the agreements, CSTU/TUM has therefore postponed an industrial action in form of a strike that was planned to start on Monday 9th January, 2023, whole the two sides work on the proposed improvements of the conditions of service for all civil servants,” reads the communique in part.
Meanwhile, well-meaning Malawians have commended the government for being proactive in averting the strike, which threatened delivery of social services to the majority poor.
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