by Patricia Made and Birgitta Lagerstrom

The following text and photographs are reproduced from a 60-page book of the same title published by Zimbabwe Publishing House in 1985. The book is one of the "Women in Africa" series, which also includes analyses, fiction, poetry, and drama on African women.

Zimbabwean women workers are employed mainly in the food and clothing and textile industries, although some are found in furniture, electrical and other industries. These women are classified as "unskilled or semi-skilled" and some endure the insecurity of the classification of "seasonal employees."

The majority of women are locked into tedious jobs which are labor intensive and there is virtually no job rotation within the industries for women. It is not an uncommon sight to find women seated in the same position, performing the same task, eight hours a day, five or six days a week.

In most of the factories visited, women were always found at the bottom of the industrial scale. Although the minimum wage in Zimbabwe is $115 a month, many women make far less.

Equal pay for equal work is not completely assured for women in Zimbabwe through industrial legislation. The Industrial Conciliation Act does not mention equal pay for equal work. And the Employment Act of 1980 only implies equal pay for equal work.

Women point to the rising cost of living and their inability to make ends meet, when they ask for better wages. Most women make ends meet through participation in the informal sector. They knit and crochet items to sell, some grow and sell vegetables, while others who are in the clothing industry order clothes from the factory to sell to friends and relatives. But informal sector work is also not an assured source of income and women workers believe that the only way to solve the problem is for management to increase their salaries.

However, given their vulnerability in industry, the demand for higher wages can also backfire. "If we ask for more money, management will retrench, close down or cut the number of workdays," said a woman who works in the food industry.

Lack of promotion opportunities is also a constant grievance aired by women in Zimbabwean industries. Because women are slotted into unskilled positions they have no chance of promotion. When one manager was asked where the women in his industry could go in terms of promotion. he replied frankly. "Nowhere."

Other benefits such as sick leave, pension, leave time and bonus vary from factory to factory. Pension schemes have only recently been introduced in some factories for black workers and the terms for sick leave are not uniform.

Unpaid maternity leave is another thorn in the side for Zimbabwean women workers. Although most industrial agreements state that a women has the right to three months maternity leave, no move has been made by the government to grant women employed throughout the modern sector the right to paid maternity leave.

Employers are hesitant to invest any form of training in women because they say once they have invested in a woman, she often leaves to have a baby or she can frequently be away from work taking care of a sick child.

Cultural norms and lack of education have kept the Zimbabwean woman in a shy, self-effacing position which often works to her detriment in industries.

Several women interviewed expressed interest in learning how to operate machinery in the factory, but they had never made their wishes known to management. A .production planner in one Zimbabwean food processing industry said, "Women are hesitant to take responsibility or make decisions. I am not approached by any women with demands.

Other Problems: Paternalism, Sexual Harassment and Double Workload

Managers in Zimbabwean industry tend to take a paternalistic view toward not only women but all workers in their factories. In spite of exploitative working conditions which go against the grain of the government's move toward socialism, several managers repeatedly described their workforce as "one big happy family."

Sexual harassment of women workers by male supervisors is increasingly becoming a problem for women in industry. Because women are in insecure and often casual positions, they are vulnerable to male supervisors who threaten women with dismissal if sexual favors are not granted.

"When a woman refuses the supervisor's advances, she stands little chance in the factory. The supervisor will either give a bad report to management about you or will ill-treat you in the workplace," said a woman who works in an electrical factory in Bulawayo.

Women said that sexual harassment is a difficult problem to combat. Because some women are afraid that they will be accused of "leading a supervisor on," many keep quiet and do not report the problem to union officials, and they do not talk about it with women co-workers.

One way to deal with the problem is to have more women supervisors in industry and also to begin to talk about the problem among the women themselves.

"We begin to talk about the problem in workers' education seminars where we learn of the nature of harassment and we learn our rights," said Lydia Mayo, chairwomen of the United Food and Allied Worker's Women's League.

Zimbabwean women workers have two jobs - the factory and the home. The workday for the majority of the women in industry often begins before 6:00 a.m. and ends after midnight.

Zimbabwean women workers expressed a great need for childcare facilities in the workplace. Also they said that managers are often not sympathetic when they have to miss work to care for a sick child. Women now try to provide childcare for their children from their own wages; they employ domestic help, send their children to nurseries or leave younger children at home in the rural area with their mothers.

Zimbabwean traditions and customs place a strong responsibility on women to perform all domestic duties. Household chores for the Zimbabwean women in industry who cannot afford domestic help are heavily labor intensive.

Women in Trade Unions

One obvious possibility for women to change their conditions is to organize their struggle as workers around such issues as wages, promotion, paid maternity leave and other grievances through trade unions.

But trade unions, as effective organizations for the struggle of women workers, have yet to be fully utilized by Zimbabwean women. Zimbabwean women workers do belong to trade unions but their formal participation in trade unions is low.

Women gave various reasons for their lack of attendance at union meetings. The major reason was that duties at home consume most of their time after work.

"Our union meetings are held once a month on Saturday mornings in town. It is hard for women to attend these meetings because Saturdays are for washing clothes, cleaning and shopping. Also, transport is not always easy from where we live to town," said Molly Mupaso, a worker at the Grain Marketing Board bag depot.

Other reasons given by the women were lack of education about unions. "We don't understand what's going on at the meetings," said one woman; single women prefer to spend their time in various other forms of entertainment; many women said they are well represented by their union representatives, so they see no need to attend meetings themselves. If women do attend meetings, they are shy and hesitant to speak out.

Many women prefer to air their grievances through other channels. Some women approach managers directly with their problems, while many women use workers' committees.

In 1981 soon after independence, the then Ministry of Labor and Social Services introduced the idea of workers' committees and workers' councils in the workplace. The purpose of these committees and councils was to strengthen communication between management and workers. The workers' committees would also aid trade unions in organizing workers.

"Women air their problems through the workers' committees and they try to solve problems on a lower level before bringing any problem to management," said Kizito Mugara, a depot manager.

Most workers' committees meet once a month and the meetings are held at the workplace, usually during lunch. This arrangement makes it easier for women to become formally involved and to organize around issues. Industrial workers" committees in the food, textile and clothing industries have at least one woman on the committee, and these women are usually vocal and active.

It has been difficult for individual women to struggle by themselves in male-dominated unions. The formation of women's leagues is a way of strengthening the women members of the unions to enable them to fight more effectively for changes in their work conditions. Women's leagues also bring more women into trade union work and allow women to discuss their problems as workers.

Women workers formed leagues as a means of organizing themselves to discuss their problems as women and to gain confidence and support before attending meetings. This tactic has also been a way of avoiding women on their own - "token women" - in the unions becoming "one of the boys," and losing contact with grassroots women.

The secretary of the Bulawayo women's league, Zandile Ngwenya, tells how they work: "We discussed extensively the role of women in the development of trade unions. We examined different problems that face women in commerce and industry as trade unionists. Our main problem was that of maternity leave, why we are not being paid; taxation in favor of men, discrimination against women and promotions at our workplace in favor of men."

"We then looked at women's participation in the trade unions. We encouraged men to elect women to leadership positions and to organize meetings at a time and place convenient to women members. Seminars needed to be organized for women to discuss women's affairs with women sharing ideas. We must elect women to travel around the country organizing other women.

We have managed to get a considerable number of women into various local trade union committees. At workplaces, we have also seen more of our colleagues elected to plant committees. But there has been a strong resistance from men who will not readily accept equal participation from their women counterparts.

"We are also looking forward to a stage where we will coordinate our activities with other women's leagues in the country so that we can get an opportunity to argue our case nationally as well as getting more women into decision-making bodies.

Profiles of Some Fighters

Lois Maposa

Lois Maposa is a tall, slim woman with delicate features. In her white overalls and black boots, she strides confidently about her workplace which reeks of beer and thunders from the noise of bottles and machinery. Lois has scored a first the Zimbabwean beer industry - she is the first woman ever to be employed as a bottle-line overseer.

At the National Brewery, Lois walks in a male-dominated world. In her department, her colleagues and the workers whom she supervises are all men. She supervises 23 to 30 men everyday. "I'm not afraid of anyone," she said. "I feel I can do anything."

The sixth child in a family of 10, Lois said her family has always encouraged her to be independent and confident. "My mother always wanted me to work and not just marry."

Born in Harare in 1957, Lois only completed her education up to Form 3. "I couldn't go any further because my father couldn't afford to send me to school." She spent a year at home, but was politically active with the Zimbabwe African People Union (ZAPU). Through the party, Lois learned of scholarships available for youth in East Germany. She applied and received a scholarship in 1978, which took her to East Germany for over two and a half years.

In the beginning, Lois remembers that her experience in East Germany was lonely. "It was cold and I had to spend the time in language study," she said. She was the only African in the town in which she lived until she was joined later in her studies by several women from Namibia.

Lois fell into brewery technology by chance. "I had always wanted to do food technology but the course was filled, so I chose brewery technology." In East Germany, Lois was not an oddity as a woman in brewery technology. "There were mostly women in the course and the women make up the majority of workers in East Germany brewery factories." The women also received on-the-job training while on the course.

Lois returned to Zimbabwe in 1981. When she applied to the National Brewery, she was hired right away as a trainee bottle-line overseer.

"It was difficult at first because the men on the line had no respect for me and they didn't believe that I knew my job," she said. "It took the men about two or three months to accept me, but I've always had the support of management and the other men overseers. You must know all the tactics to work with men."

After eight months as a trainee, Lois received her promotion, and she said her salary is equal to that of her male colleagues.

As a single, independent woman Lois is in no hurry to get married. "I enjoy my independence and I want to take my time before settling down." She said her major priority now is to help her family as much as she can.

Eunice Kapawu

Eunice heard about work in a factory from girlfriends in Highfield. She was 18 years old at the time and her first job in a clothing factory was as a sweeper. She earned only $4.50 a week. She began to move around in the factory, and finally she learned how to sew. But she became pregnant and lost the job.

After having her baby, Eunice found another job as a machinist. She later left this factory to look for better work, and became employed at Playtime, where she still works today.

Her introduction to the union came through her husband. "I was married to a man who was in the builders" union and he made me join the clothing union. But then I wasn't very interested and not very active. Unions seemed so useless. The union representatives would come to the factory and hear the grievances, but nothing would be done. So what was the use?"

After 1980 - independence - when unions began to go through a change and then later when the workers' committees were introduced, Eunice became active in union work. When the workers' committee was formed in her factory, she was elected chairperson.

But the men in her factory gave her a rough time. As Eunice recalls, it almost came to blows. "The men regarded every woman in the factory as a prostitute. They said that decent women did not work. They said this about all of us sometimes jokingly and sometimes not. I got so annoyed and started quarreling with them about it and made them very mad at me."

I talked to the women about how the men were calling us prostitutes and that they would have to stop it and apologize, otherwise we would not go back to work. We talked to the manager about it and he told the men they had to apologize."

The men in the factory did apologize, but some held a grudge against Eunice. "The men began to threaten me in different ways. One evening when I was going to a trade union meeting a man was waiting for me outside the factory with a knife in his hand."

"The manager defended me and said if anything happened to me inside or outside the factory, the men would be held responsible. The men apologized and that ended the matter. But they still said bad things about me and accused me of flirting with the manager. I decided to resign from the workers' committee as chairperson."

Eunice was quite surprised when the workers, including the men, refused to accept her resignation. "They did not want me to resign as chairperson. But I asked them why should I continue when they had no confidence in me." She gave up the chair, but continued to attend meetings.

Eunice's experience as chair of the workers' committee made her understand better the problems of women workers when they become vocal and active. This experience also helped her to understand the need for women to unite if problems are to be overcome.

We women are divided. We fight among ourselves. We are not united. If we should start something together as women, the men start coming in to stop us and then, instead of gaining strength from each other, many women side up with the men. Some women have husbands in the factory, so they draw back. Many women don't want to struggle. They wait and say 'the government will do it for us.'

Eunice lives alone with her daughter and helps her brothers and sisters and remains active in the clothing union. She has also become involved in the women workers' theater group. Eunice said she got her strength to struggle the hard way "I had bad experiences. I was often treated badly by men and I had to learn to fight.

But the struggle of women for their rights as workers will be a long battle, she said. "It is going to take African women a long time to start struggling for their own rights."

The Future

But what is the future for these women? Where do they begin to bring about change?

The mobilization of women as workers is the first step towards change. Women must unite around their problems to wage a united struggle.

In a discussion with Sheila Chikoore and Dorothy Gona, who are both trade union activists, several strategies to change women workers' conditions in the future were suggested:

• A full-time paid organizer is needed in every union to organize women.

• Women must elect women to go to the negotiating table for industrial agreements because men often do not or cannot address themselves to women's problems in the workplace.

• Women union activists must begin to visit the primary and secondary schools and talk to younger women to encourage them to stay in school.

• Women representatives from the unions must come to the workplace to talk specifically to women.

• Union meetings must be publicized- in advance for women so that they can prepare to go to meetings.

• Unions should organize family meetings.

• Government can pass legislation that will aid women in the workplace - for example, paid maternity leave, and time off to care for sick children without loss of job.

• Vocational training for both men and women should be written into industrial agreements.

The fight for change will not be easy, and will not come on a platter to women. The struggle will be long and wearisome. But women must struggle, if our tomorrow is to be better.

For a copy of the complete book, or for further information contact Zimbabwe Publishing House. Box BW-350 Harare. Zimbabwe.