Barely six months into office, Zimbabwe's new rulers are feeling the heat from industrial action by government workers who are making demands ahead of elections scheduled for the middle of the year.
Earlier this month doctors went on a three-week strike demanding higher pay. Nurses are on strike and teachers have threatened to do so when schools open for the second term next month.
Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga has not won favours among public workers after he announced that 16,000 striking nurses had been fired. Observers said the former army general's action was "heavy-handed".
This is the second time nurses have gone on strike this year because, they said, the government had failed to meet their earlier demands. Chiwenga said the strike was political.Despite his move to fire striking workers, the Zimbabwe Teachers Association gave notice of its strike when schools open.
In solidarity with nurses who have been fired, the teachers' association said the government's action was undemocratic.
"It is quite shocking that in a democratic country like Zimbabwe, where labour rights are expected to be adhered to, such action could be taken by a high-level government official who is expected to be the steward of those laws," said Teachers Association secretary-general Tapson Sibanda.
The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions has now called for a nationwide strike.
"Government workers are justified in their call for better remuneration in the face of hyperinflation," said ZCTU president Peter Mutasa.
"The only language understood by the government maybe is for all of us to down tools."The trade union federation gave birth to the ruling Zanu-PF's biggest political rival, the Movement for Democratic Change, in 1999. So, with the country approaching general elections, workers' welfare has become a big political issue.
The MDC Alliance, a grouping of six political parties, has dug in its heels against a government that came to power with the help of the military.
"We are being ruled by trigger-happy maniacs for whom the normal rules do not apply," said the alliance's Welshman Ncube.
"We are seeing classic junta tendencies, whereby they think every problem is solved by the spraying of bullets, no matter the cost."
However, by Friday nurses were divided on what route to take.
In some parts of the country, outside Harare, nurses started trickling back to work against a backdrop of government simultaneously hiring unemployed nurses and recently qualified ones.
"I went back to work because those in Harare started this strike, but now it is affecting us in smaller towns," said a nurse from the United Bulawayo Hospitals.
Presidential spokesman George Charamba said that there was a chance of some nurses being readmitted. They would be taken back after consideration of what part they played in the strike, he said."Upon [nurses] realising the consequences of continued defiance, both to themselves and this nation, some have since revised their position. These have indicated their wish to rejoin the service," he said.
The Health Services Board moved in swiftly when Chiwenga instructed it to hire new nurses.
"From the look of things most nurses that were fired won't be rehired. They will pin their hopes on what the courts will say," said a senior nurse who did not go on strike.
The Zimbabwe Nurses Association said it would take the government's decision to fire the nurses to court next week...