HARARE – Nurses called off a strike planned for Monday, June 24, after the government promised an upward review of civil servants’ salaries within 10 days.

Union leaders for the nurses met President Emmerson Mnangagwa and Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube last Friday, where they were asked to put off their strike action.

The nurses began working a two-day week on June 17, saying they were “incapacitated” by low salaries after the RTGS currency plunged in value while prices of goods and services galloped. The strike was set to develop into a full withdrawal of labour on Monday.

In a statement released following their meeting with Mnangagwa, the Zimbabwe Nurses Association said Mnangagwa and his ministers “understood the position of the nurses and gave an undertaking that salaries were going to be reviewed.”

“More specifically, the undertaking was that salaries were going to be reviewed upwards from July 1, 2019,” the nurses said.

Mnangagwa requested the nurses to call off the strike.

“The above request having been made, it was decided that we exercise patience and reciprocate the gesture of good faith made in the meeting so as to give our principals the opportunity to implement the undertaking they have made. To that end, we hereby advise that from June 24, nurses must continue to attend work at the current arrangement, that is attending work for two days per week,” the association added.

Mnangagwa’s cash-strapped government also faces pressure from teachers and other unions to raise salaries, which will upset expenditure caps set by Ncube who is now preparing a supplementary budget.