Collective Bargaining Agreement Harare Municipal Undertaking General Conditions of Service

This is the April 2023 salary agreement for the Harare Municipal Undertaking, registered under the Labour Act and gazetted on 23 February 2024 — roughly ten months after it was signed on 26 April 2023.

The parties are the Harare Municipality on one side and four unions on the other: the Municipal Workers Union of Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe Urban Councils Workers Union (Harare Branch), the Water and Allied Workers Union of Zimbabwe, and the Zimbabwe Allied Municipalities Workers Union.

Basic salary rises 40% across the board, effective 1 April 2023. At the lowest grade, grade 16, that takes the basic from ZWL100 962,12 to ZWL141 926,57 a month, and the same percentage applies up the scale.

The allowances are where much of the real value sits, and most are dollar-denominated. The COVID-19 allowance is US$50 paid into Nostro accounts plus US$108 at the prevailing bank rate, which the agreement records as constituting the agreed US$110 Nostro figure — the arithmetic as published does not obviously reconcile, so the payroll treatment should be checked against the council's own schedules. A separate ZWL1 500 COVID-19 allowance is maintained. Housing allowance stays at 25% of basic salary. Transport allowance stays at US$95 at the prevailing bank rate. Water and rates are paid at US$56,80 for the lowest grade 16 at the prevailing bank rate, cascading upward by grade. The electricity allowance is ZWL20 039,00 and the education allowance stays at ZWL15 000,00 a month.

The agreement also records that negotiations resume monthly, which is what one would expect in a period of rapid currency depreciation: the ZWL figures were being reset far more often than the US dollar ones.