Mozambique: State workers’ concerns linger

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Mozambique: State workers’ concerns linger

9:15 CAT | 30 Apr 2024

FILE - For illustration purposes only. [File photo: Mercedes Sayagues/WLSA Moçambique]

On the eve of International Labour Day (May 1st), Mozambican teachers and health officials are identifying the regularisation of the Single Salary Table (TSU) and improvements in working conditions as the main challenges in the public sector.

“There are teachers who, before the implementation of the Single Salary Table [TSU, in force since 2023], received more, but now their salaries have been cut. With the table, there are no longer promotions and career progressions,” the president of the National Association of Teachers (Anapro), Isac Marrengula, told Lusa.

“We have colleagues who finished higher education four years ago and we are not seeing their category change, but they should already be receiving double what they are receiving,” he added.

Marrengula added that the teaching profession, which is threatening to paralyse its activities, remains concerned about delays in paying the teachers overtime now overdue for two months and 18 days of 2022, the entire year of 2023 and the first quarter of 2024.

“We are sure that the government does not want to pay us (…) The measures will be non-participation in the grades council, non-delivery of assessment results and the suspension of classes in the second quarter until they pay us,” Marrengula said.

In turn, Mozambican health professionals went back on strike on Monday, demanding better working conditions in the sector.

“This time we are going to talk on strike. The promises are not being fulfilled,” the president of the Association of United and Solidarity Health Professionals of Mozambique (APSUSM), Anselmo Muchave, told Lusa.

The return to strike action, which will be carried out for 30 extendable days, had been scheduled for March 28, but was suspended a day earlier after talks with the government resulted in the fulfilment of some demands, including the career framework of health professionals, monitoring visits to hospital units and the resolution of irregularities in the payment of subsidies.

APSUSM covers around 65,000 professionals, and its membership was on strike for better working conditions in the sector from August to November, 2023.

Among other aspects, APSUSM requires the government to provide medicines to hospitals (which in some cases have to be purchased by patients), the acquisition of hospital beds, the resolution of the “lack of food” problem, as well as medical equipment, ambulances with emergency materials and non-disposable personal protective equipment, the lack of which is “forcing employees to buy [these] out of their own pockets”.

The Workers’ Organization of Mozambique-Central Sindical (OTM) claims that it does not have control over the health workers and teachers’ ‘dossier’ of demands.

“We have information about the framing problems within the scope of the TSU, but we were not invited to the discussion. We do not know the ‘dossier’ in full,” OTM spokesperson Hélder Consolo told Lusa, adding that the government does not recognize the importance of investigation into the state apparatus.

The application of the new salary table (TSU) in the public sector was the target of strong opposition from various professional classes, such as doctors and teachers, with a record of salary delays and cuts, including in the security forces.

Approved in 2022 to eliminate asymmetries and keep the state’s wage bill under control, its launch caused salaries to soar by around 36%, from an expenditure of 11.6 billion meticais/month (€169 million/month) to 15.8 billion meticais/month (€231 million/month).

The TSU cost around 28.5 billion meticais (€410 million), “more than expected”, according to a document from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on the evaluation of the assistance program for Mozambique consulted by Lusa in January this year.

Source: Lusa