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May Day and the economy
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Extracted from Weekly Media Update 2007-17
Monday April 30th 2007 - Sunday May 6th 2007

THIS week the government media used Workers' Day commemorations to discredit the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) and promote the rival Zimbabwe Federation of Trade Unions (ZFTU).

Most of the 55 stories they carried on the subject (ZBC [41] and government papers [14]) portrayed the ZCTU as part of an alleged local and international alliance of enemies working to topple government. They especially used the attendance of some MDC and civil society leaders at the ZCTU celebrations at Gwanzura Stadium as confirmation of this. Notably, they censored the fact that government had snubbed an invitation to attend the ZCTU function as revealed by The Zimbabwe Times online agency(2/5).

Reported Spot FM and ZTV (2/5, 8pm): "The ZCTU Workers' Day celebrations at Gwanzura Stadium . . . were turned into a political rally for the opposition MDC, whose presence at the venue raised eyebrows..." To buttress this, the stations cited unnamed analysts claiming that the development "proves that the ZCTU is being used in the regime change agenda being pushed by the West".

In contrast, the ZFTU was presented as the labour federation with the workers' welfare at heart. ZTV (2/5, 8pm) editorialised its report saying that while the Gwanzura Stadium event was used to urge people "to turn against the government . . . at Rufaro the celebrations were more positive in their outlook; workers were urged not to be used by Zimbabwe's detractors . . . "

The government Press emphasised the ZFTU programmes too and subordinated those of the ZCTU without assessing the two labour organisations' positions on workers' problems and how they planned to resolve them. For example, The Herald passively reported ZFTU president Alfred Makwarimba urging workers "not to be used by the country's detractors to sabotage the economy," adding that his organisation was "committed to the advancement of the country's interests through the Tripartite Negotiating Forum (TNF)" to address "the hardships" arising from the West's "illegal sanctions".

Earlier, the paper's comment (1/5) exclusively blamed delays in the signing of a social contract to ease Zimbabwe's economic decline on the ZCTU, which "stopped representing workers . . . on September 11 1999 when the opposition MDC came onto the scene" and began pursuing "a patently political agenda".

Notably, the complicity of government and employers, other partners to the contract, were not explored.

The government Press abused the numbers game to portray the ZCTU as losing support. The Herald (4/5), for example, claimed that whereas the ZFTU event was "well attended", the ZCTU, "which is strongly aligned to the opposition, had a virtually empty stadium". No comparative statistics were given.

Instead, The Herald (5/5) allowed ZFTU deputy president Joseph Chinotimba to make similar unsubstantiated claims, saying his union was now the "biggest" compared to the ZCTU, which was "just a shell of its former self" led by "amateur politicians" and "not workers".

The government media's attempts to attribute the country's socio-economic problems to those outside the official circle resulted in them carrying 23 stories on indicators of economic decline in isolation of government's poor economic planning.

These comprised commodity shortages, price increases and discontent in the civil service over low salaries.

Although the official media's stories were widely sourced as shown in Figs. 1 and 2, they hardly provided any critical perspective. Instead, except for the ZCTU voices, all those outside government were quoted either reinforcing official propaganda on the causes of the country's problems or endorsing government's plans to revive the economy.

Fig. 1 Voice distribution in the government Press

Fig. 2 Voice distribution on ZBC

The private media's 25 stories (private papers [12] and the private electronic media [13]) categorically linked the workers' suffering to government's economic mismanagement. For example, they reported ZCTU Lovemore Matombo blaming the workers' plight on government's ineffectual approach to the country's problems, saying only a change in the political leadership would resolve the matter. The Zimbabwean (3/5), for example, reported Matombo doubting attempts by government to revive the economy through the TNF and Incomes Stabilisation Protocol because they have been reduced to "a non-legislated talk show".

It was in this context that the private media reported him promising more protests in the next three months if no consensus was reached between government and employers on how to ease the workers' suffering (SW Radio Africa 1/5, Zimbabwe Times 2/5 and the Zimbabwe Independent 4/5).

However, The Zimbabwean showed its bias by favouring ZCTU activities over those of the ZFTU. For example, it claimed that 12,000 people had attended the Gwanzura event but did not say how it had calculated the figure. Similarly, the Independent claimed the ZFTU-organised celebrations were "poorly attended despite being afforded resources to mobilise and bring people to the stadium" while the ZCTU "faced government resistance but still attracted multitudes". It did not attempt to provide attendance statistics.

SW Radio Africa (3/5) reported alleged intimidation of ZCTU unionists, saying "three out of 34 districts in the ZCTU have cancelled their May Day celebrations following threats from Zanu PF thugs and supporters".

The government media censored these issues.

The private media carried 19 stories that viewed workers' problems in light of the harsh economic conditions. These included spiralling inflation, steep price increases, commodity shortages and poor service delivery. At the weekend, The Standard (6/5) exposed the rate at which the country was losing its skilled workforce to neighbouring countries due to poor working conditions. It reported the Progressive Teachers' Union of Zimbabwe revealing that during the last four months alone 4 500 teachers had left the country to seek work in other regional countries compared to the 5 000 teachers that left the country during the whole of last year. The paper also reported discontent in the civil service, mining and farming sectors over low salaries.

The private media's open coverage of the matter was mirrored by their diverse sourcing patterns as captured in Fig 3 and 4.

Fig. 3 Voice distribution in the private Press

Fig. 4 Voice distribution in the electronic media

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