Textile factory owners in Swaziland have been able to mislead the public over the effects of the national strike in their industry because journalists are no good at arithmetic.
The Swaziland Textile Exporters Association (STEA) put out a press release saying that the 16,000 striking workers would have lost over E2 million (about 290,000 US Dollars) in wages over the first three days of the strike that hit Swaziland last week.
The Times of Swaziland diligently copied the press release into its newspaper last Thursday (6 March 2008) and in typical fashion, journalists asked no questions and sought no other comment on the claim, so the STEA statement became accepted.
The point of the statement was to make the striking workers believe they were going to face hardship unless they returned to work immediately.
This sentence from the Times’ report gives the game away.
‘In their press statement, the STEA warns that the strike would have a great impact on the livelihood of workers if the strike continued as they were not going to be able to cater for their basic necessities.’
Let’s leave aside the fact that the textile workers cannot afford ‘basic necessities’ on the pay they are getting, which is why they are on strike.
My main concern is that no journalist did the arithmetic. If someone picked up a pocket calculator they could do the sums.
Here we go.
There are 16,000 workers who have ‘lost’ E2 million in pay over three days. This means that one worker has lost E125 (about 20 US Dollars) over three days or put another way E41.66 per day. (It works out at E416 per fortnight).
The E41.66 per day exposes the STEA and demonstrates that the strikers were right all along and they are paid appalling wages.
Had the journalists been alert, they could have exposed the STEA for the exploiters that they are.
See also
SWAZILAND WORKERS ‘NEAR STARVING’
SWAZI POLICE ATTACK PREGNANT WOMAN
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