Collective Bargaining Agreement: Tourism and Hospitality Industry (General Conditions), 2026

This is the principal conditions-of-service agreement for Zimbabwe's tourism and hospitality industry, negotiated between three employers' associations and six unions. It binds the leisure sector, sport hunting and photographic safaris, conservancies and natural resource preservation, and — unusually — the Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, National Museums and Monuments, the Forestry Commission, EMA, the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority and show societies. It runs from registration until the parties amend it.

Hours are eight a day or 208 a month for the leisure, safari, Parks, Museums and Forestry sectors, and 8.5 a day or 221 a month for Sector 2. Overtime accrues only once monthly hours exceed those thresholds, must be calculated and signed for daily, and — by agreement — is paid at double the hourly rate on a day off or public holiday, or taken as proportionate time off. Nobody may work more than 14 hours a day. Employees in hunting and safari camps, on safari operations, game capture or anti-poaching duties do not accrue daily overtime at all.

On pay, each employee must be placed in the grade appropriate to their occupation and paid at least the Council minimum for that grade, with the actual rates in Annexures B and C by sector. Nobody already paid above the rate may be cut. Promotion cannot reduce pay; work in a lower grade is paid at the employee's normal grade; work in a higher grade is paid at the higher rate after one month. Casual workers are paid at least twice the hourly equivalent of their grade. Pay may not be docked for time the employee was willing to work but the employer had no work.

Long service is rewarded on a fixed ladder: after three years, basic wage plus 3% of the agreed CBA wage, rising by three percentage points every three years to plus 27% after twenty-seven years — and service before this instrument was gazetted counts.

Allowances follow provision in kind. An employer who does not provide free transport pays a transport allowance; one who does not provide accommodation pays an accommodation allowance; where accommodation is provided without lighting or cooking fuel, monthly light and fuel allowances apply. An employee offered on-site accommodation who chooses not to take it loses the allowance. Sector 1 gets accommodation and transport allowances only.

Pension is the change with the longest reach: the Tourism Industry Pension Fund is mandatory for all eligible employees unless a more favourable scheme is approved by the Council, contributions are 5% from the employee and 5% from the employer, and an employee contributing to a pension scheme is not entitled to gratuity.

Employers must keep detailed wage records — pension number, grade, engagement date, hours, overtime, allowances, deductions, gross and net pay, date and signature — at the establishment, available to a designated agent on demand, for at least three years. Wages are paid at least monthly and by the fifth of the following month, weekly-paid by Saturday, with a written pay statement. Terminal pay is due by the next normal pay date at the latest. Deductions other than NEC dues and pension are limited, and loan and goods recoveries are capped at 25% of gross remuneration.

Council dues are 2.5% of basic wages deducted from each employee and matched by the employer, remitted by the fifth of the month. Late payment after the 25th attracts interest three points above base lending rate, and penalties escalate 25% at 30 days, 50% at 60, 75% at 90 and 100% beyond 120 days, with court action for non-payment. Employers must register with the Council within a month, paying US$50 for up to 10 employees, US$80 for 11 to 20 and US$150 for 21 or more, and must report material changes within ten days.

Sick leave, maternity leave, special leave, terminal benefits and retrenchment are left to the Labour Act. Trainees must be supervised at one qualified employee per three trainees, and the agreement carries a full employment code of conduct with disciplinary and grievance forms as annexures.

The wage tables themselves sit in Annexures B and C and are not reproduced in this summary; anyone checking a grade rate must read those annexures for their sector.