SALARIES for nurses and health workers who went on strike recently will be withheld despite appeals from the Zambia Union of Nurses Organisation (ZUNO) to rescind the decision.

Chief Government spokesman, Ronnie Shikapwasha in an interview in Lusaka yesterday maintained that nurses who did not work during the time of the illegal strike would not be paid their salaries.

On Saturday, President Rupiah Banda pardoned all the nurses who had gone on strike for close to three weeks, but said that they would not be paid their salaries for the period they were on work stoppage.

Lieutenant-General Shikapwasha said unions should be realistic and tell their members that getting salaries without working would be tantamount to abrogating the labour laws.

Gen Shikapwasha said the president had been lenient with the nurses by pardoning them, and asking the Government to pay the workers that had not worked would be promoting corruption.

"The unions should be considerate in what they are asking. They have to understand that a person who has not worked cannot be paid. These people went on an illegal strike and the president could have fired them but he pardoned them. I think paying them would be encouraging corruption," Gen Shikapwasha said.

He saidt the Government had been fighting corruption for sometime now and had, therefore, expected that the unions would support such efforts by ensuring that nurses who went on an illegal strike did not get their salaries.

He said union leaders should be in the forefront of ensuring that labour laws were adhered to and not to promote situations where workers abandoned work but expected to be paid.

Gen Shikapwasha said even biblically, it was wrong for people to demand to be paid without working.

The Bible, he said, encouraged people to work so that they could in turn reap the benefits but in the case of the nurses, they did not work and it was, therefore, wrong for them to demand to be paid.

On Sunday, the ZUNO appealed to the president to rescind the Government's decision to withhold salaries for nurses.

ZUNO president Thom Yung'ana said that withholding the salaries for nurses would defeat the purpose of forgiveness exhibited by President Banda.

In a related development, Gen Shikapwasha also appealed to striking University of Zambia workers to exhaust all channels of negotiation before resorting to strike action.

He said that the strike action was illegal as the unions and Government were still negotiating the conditions of service for the 2009 financial year.