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The economy
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Weekly Media Update 2006-18
Monday May 1^st 2006 – Sunday May 7^th 2006

AS the world commemorated Workers’ Day, the official media glossed over the causes of the workers’ suffering by projecting government and its ally, the Zimbabwe Federation of Trade Unions (ZFTU), as unconditionally committed to alleviating their distress.

They fused the recent pay rise for civil servants as evidence of the authorities’ alleged devotion to cushioning workers against hyperinflation and touted ZFTU as an unwavering defender of labour rights. Conversely, the private sector and the country’s largest labour body, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), were depicted as inconsiderate of workers’ plight due to their assumed interests in profits and politics respectively.

For example, at least 12 stories – nearly a third of the 38 stories ZBH carried on the May Day celebrations – were on ZFTU’s endorsement of the authorities’ ‘hefty’ pay awards. This contrasted with the lukewarm publicity given to the ZCTU, which was only covered in five stories. Even then, this was largely in the context of trivialising the union’s role in fighting for workers’ rights.

For example, ZTV (1/5, 8pm) reported on the "thousands" of workers that attended the ZFTU celebrations at Rufaro Stadium and how its leadership commended government for awarding its workers salaries within the Poverty Datum Line (PDL) but provided little detail on ZCTU activities. It only reported ZCTU leader Lovemore Matombo of having made a "u-turn" and "lashed out at students for not allying" with his union.

The official Press also gave cursory attention to the ZCTU.

For example, while The Herald and Chronicle (1/5) reported the country’s labour unions as having made a united call to the private sector to "emulate" government and "award workers better salaries to cushion them against inflation", only Labour Minister Nicholas Goche and ZFTU vice president Joseph Chinotimba were given more say. The ZCTU’s position was only mentioned in passing and buried deep inside the articles.

Besides, the paper also reported Chinotimba chiding the ZCTU and advising workers against heeding calls by the union "and the MDC for mass action against the Government" because "confrontation… would not help solve the country’s problems".

The Chronicle comment expanded on this attempt to denigrate the ZCTU through its unsubstantiated claims: "While the ZFTU has been confronting employers and championing workers’ rights, (the ZCTU) has transformed itself into a branch of the MDC".

Consequently, none of the 137 reports the official media carried (ZBH [72] and government papers [65]) on May Day and the economy holistically linked the workers’ problems to the country’s continued economic meltdown. Neither did they interpret the industry’s failure to pay workers salaries commensurate with inflation as illustrative of the harsh economic conditions and a direct result of government’s failed economic policies.

For example, Spot FM (2/5, 7am) would not pursue employers’ concerns that they were "not making enough profits to pay workers in line with" the PDL.

Instead, the ZTV’s Face The Nation (5/5, 930pm) simply featured Economic Development Minister Rugare Gumbo revealing that government would ‘print money’ to pay the civil servants, adding: "what did you want us to do?" It did not query the economic prudence of the move or how the poor performing private sector was then expected to pay their workers ‘decent’ wages when they had no similar access to money printing machines.

Rather, the programme simply allowed Gumbo to divert attention from these issues by blaming the country’s problems on "targeted sanctions" and government’s alleged "lack of control" of Zimbabwe’s natural resources like minerals.

But while the government media accused the private sector of disregarding their workers’ welfare, they did not take to task the authorities over their failure by the government-run Cold Storage Company to pay its employees in the last two months "owing to viability problems", The Herald and Chronicle (2/5).

Similarly, The Herald (5/5) did not show any curiosity why at least 700 David Whitehead workers had gone on strike over salaries when President Mugabe promised to urgently address the company’s problems ahead of the Chegutu mayoral election more than two months ago.

The official media’s passive endorsement of government’s pay awards was further exposed by the Consumer Council of Zimbabwe’s announcement that the monthly cost of living for a family of six had leapt from $35 million in March to $41 million in April, almost $14 million above the gross salary of the least paid member of the uniformed forces.

But instead of viewing the matter as indicative of government’s failure to manage the economy, The Herald (5/5) passively reported the consumer watchdog urging consumers to "exercise their right to choose and look for affordable substitutes". Spot FM (4/5, 1pm), actually downplayed the CCZ figures by quoting analyst Isaac Kwesu dismissing them as "mere statistical average, proxy".

In fact, the docile manner in which the official media tackled the subject and 87 other reports on indicators of economic decline was illustrated by the dominance of official comment in their stories as captured in Fig 1 and 2.

Fig 1 Voice distribution in the government Press

Notably, although the ZCTU was given almost equal space as the ZFTU, it was used to reinforce the government Press’ criticism of the private sector’s failure to match the pay hikes for public servants.

Fig 2 Voice Distribution on ZBH

Most of the alternative voices quoted by ZBH were pro-government analysts who either hailed government polices or glossed over problems bedevilling the workers and the economy.

Apart from some stories in the Mirror stable, most of the 61 stories the private media carried on the economy (private radio stations [10] and private papers [49] traced the economic decline and deterioration in workers’ lifestyles to poor policies. They also highlighted how these poor policies had led to acute shortages, accelerated militarisation of the economy and a bad international image of the country.

The Zimbabwe Independent (5/5), for example, reported economist Eric Bloch warning that "substantial salary… increases" would lead to the collapse of some industries. The paper’s Muckraker also criticized Chinotimba’s statement that "employers should learn from government and give workers money", noting that while government afforded pay hikes for its workers by "printing money", the private sector "don’t own printing machines" and could therefore not "follow suit".

The columnist thus viewed Chinotimba’s calls as only driven by the desire of his "outfit" to "counter the influence of the (ZCTU)" and provide a "state- friendly union that masks mismanagement of the economy and transfer the blame for the country’s decline to the private sector and the opposition".

It was against this background that it then interpreted the pay rise as a " pre-emptive action to diffuse potential mass action" planned by the MDC and an attempt to "retain the loyalty of the uniformed forces".

The Standard (7/5) carried a similar story.

In addition, the paper rehashed a Daily Mirror story (6/5) revealing that contrary to official pronouncements, the civil servants had actually received far much less than they had been promised and quoted some of the workers expressing their outrage over the matter.

Earlier, Studio 7 (1/5) revealed that military and security officials led by army commander Constantine Chiwenga had taken over monetary policy management of the central bank and ordered it to print $60 trillion for the new public service pay packets.

The next day SW Radio Africa (2/5) and Studio 7 (3/5) reported the results of a survey by US magazine Foreign Policy placing Zimbabwe 5^th among "failed states" after Sudan, the DRC, Ivory Coast and Iraq. The stations reported that the study, by US-based Fund for Peace, said this year Zimbabwe had moved up 10 places in the rankings due to its collapsed economy, migrating population and poor human rights record.

However, Information Minister dismissed the findings as typical of US published reports.

The critical manner in which the private media covered the country’s economic decay was demonstrated by the private papers’ attempts to balance government’s perception on the economy with independent opinion as captured in Fig 3.

Fig 3 Voice distribution in the private Press

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