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Labour unrest
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Weekly Media Update 2007-5
Monday February 5th – Sunday February 11th 2007

Although the media continued to cover the health workers’ strike, none gave coherent updates on the industrial action and other related matters. While the official media carried 30 reports on the subject, 15 each from ZBC and government papers, these were fragmented. Moreover, they were preoccupied with either projecting the strike as having ended or presenting government as being in control of the situation.

For example, there was no national audit on who was on strike, the scale of the job boycott, or its implications on the economy.

The piecemeal approach was mirrored by The Herald and Chronicle (7/2), which simply reported that government had offered "unconditional reinstatement to all doctors that exceeded 30 days of absence during the just ended strike" without clarification.

For example, the papers did not explain the context in which the doctors had been reinstated when they had previously quoted Health Minister David Parirenyatwa disputing reports that they had been fired. Similarly, they did not inform their audiences about the nurses’ strike. The only times The Herald briefly referred to the matter was when it reported the court appearance of four nurses arrested on allegations of inciting their colleagues to join the strike (6 & 8/2).

Neither did the government media link the nurses and doctors’ strike to the swelling labour unrest in other sectors of the economy.

For example, Spot FM and Radio Zimbabwe (10/2,8pm) and The Sunday Mail (11/2) only announced that the Apex Council, representing all staff associations in the civil service, was "pressing for a hefty salary review" and masked the organisation’s threat to embark on industrial action if its demands were not met.

It was against this background that ZTV (5/2, 8pm) tried to downplay the teachers’ strike when it claimed – without providing evidence – that teachers had ignored calls by the Progressive Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe to go on strike demanding pay increases.

Although the private papers failed to provide comprehensive updates on the doctors and nurses strike, they carried 18 stories that exposed the haphazard manner in which the authorities were handling it and the general discontent in the rest of the government labour force. Ten of these stories were carried by the private electronic media and eight by private papers. For example, the private media informed their readers about striking university lecturers and teachers demanding realistic salaries, and alerted the public to the threatened industrial action by civil servants.

d) By-elections
All media inadequately covered the forthcoming Chiredzi South parliamentary by-election and several local government polls scheduled for February 17th in various parts of the country. Apart from piecemeal reports in the private media about ZANU-PF’s use of irregular activities such as the politicisation of food and abuse of state resources to ensure victory, none of the media holistically examined the electoral process.

As a result, there was no thorough assessment of the state of the voters’ roll; the number and location of polling stations; and logistics on staffing and deployment of polling agents and observers. Neither did the media discuss the candidates’ manifestos.

Notably, the media only focussed on the Chiredzi South parliamentary poll and completely ignored the local government elections.

The government papers only carried ZANU-PF campaigns in Chiredzi while discrediting the opposition. For instance, of the six stories the official papers carried on the elections, three were on the ruling party’s campaigns while two projected the MDC as being violent. The remaining story was a passive report on the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission’s readiness for the polls. None were on the shadowy UPP.

But while The Herald (8/2) and The Manica Post (9/2) claimed that the MDC was engaged in intra-party violence there was no evidence to substantiate this. Rather, the stories simply reported the Arthur Mutambara-led MDC faction alleging that their rival MDC camp was "removing and defacing" its campaign posters.

ZBC performed the same.

All of its seven stories on the poll exclusively promoted ZANU PF in open disregard of the Broadcasting Services Act that compels ZBC to provide "reasonable and equal opportunities" to all parties contesting an election.

The private media were no better.

Only the online news agency Zimdaily (one story), The Daily Mirror (2) and The Standard (2) carried reports on the Chiredzi South poll. Even then, the Mirror stories comprised an unquestioning report on the ZEC’s preparations and a ZANU-PF campaign rally, while the opposition’s concerns on the electoral process were suffocated. Its complaints about alleged food politicisation by ZANU-PF only found more space on Zimdaily (5/2).

One of The Standard’s stories referred to the poll in the context of a car accident involving Mutambara. The other highlighted discontent in ZANU PF over the imposition of its candidate and unverified claims by the opposition that the ruling party was engaging in undemocratic campaign activities.

The different manner in which the electronic media covered the issues is reflected in Figs 1 and 2. ZBC heavily depended on government and ZANU PF voices for comment, while the private media principally used alternative sources.

Fig. 1 Voice distribution on ZBC

Fig. 2 Voice distribution in the private media 

Although the print media’s sourcing patterns appeared diverse, it was only the private Press that accommodated critical opinion in tackling the subject. See Figs 3 and 4.

Fig. 3 Voice distribution in the government Press 

Fig. 4 Voice distribution in the private Press

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