When Power Becomes a Weapon: How Zimbabwean Workers Are Losing the Battle Against Managerial Abuse

For many Zimbabwean workers, the greatest threat to job security does not come from company closures or economic decline, but from within the workplace itself. In both parastatals and private corporations, mechanisms intended to enforce accountability are increasingly being experienced as tools of intimidation, retaliation, and unchecked managerial power. In such environments, disciplinary processes are no longer primarily about justice or performance management; they have become instruments of leverage—used to silence dissent, punish perceived insubordination, or settle personal grudges.

Zimbabwe’s recent labour history offers a sobering reminder of how quickly this imbalance can harden when law and practice tilt in favour of employers. The 2015Nyamande & Another v Zuva Petroleumruling—widely interpreted as confirming termination on notice—sent shockwaves through the labour market and was followed by reports of mass dismissals, with some estimates suggesting that tens of thousands of workers lost their jobs within a short period. The policy backlash eventually produced legal amendments and compensation provisions, but the episode left a lasting lesson: when the system grants wide discretion and weak accountability, workers absorb the shock first.

Yet the “Zuva moment” was not only about termination on notice. It exposed a deeper vulnerability: the worker’s dependence on institutional goodwill in a context where rules can be stretched, selectively enforced, or weaponised. That vulnerability is what many employees say they now encounter in disciplinary processes—where suspension becomes the punishment, the hearing becomes theatre, and the employer’s resources become the employee’s disadvantage.

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Consider how suspension alone can be deployed as a form of punishment even before guilt is established. Zimbabwean jurisprudence has grappled with this tension. InCIMAS Medical Aid Society v Tapiwa Nyandoro(SC 6/2016), the Supreme Court dealt with questions about an employee’s rights during suspension and the consequences when misconduct allegations fail.

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