SWAZI STRIKE GOES GLOBAL

News of Swaziland’s bloody week of strike action has at last made it to the international media.

I noted yesterday (7 March 2008) that the news of police brutality had largely been ignored by Swaziland’s government-controlled radio and television and also by the international media.

Now, the Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN), a news and features agency, has alerted the world to what is going on.

(Incidentally, it quotes in its own report information it has taken from reading Swazi newspapers, so we can thank the local press for alerting the world to what is going on in Swaziland.)

Under the headline SWAZILAND: Worst Labour Strife in a Decade, IRIN reports (6 March 2008), ‘A bloody week of the worst labour strife in a decade has exposed cracks in the Swazi government's poverty-alleviation plan of creating thousands of low-paying jobs by promoting a textile industry.’

The report continues, ‘In the strike action, which began on 3 March, workers participating in peaceful marches to demand better salaries have been teargassed and beaten by police, and at least a dozen have reportedly been injured. More than 16,000 workers, most of them women, have been affected by the strike action.

‘Local media reported that the Swaziland police carried out unprovoked attacks on peaceful marchers on the first day of the strike. Several injuries were reported after riot police shot teargas into a line of marchers in the Matsapha Industrial Estate outside the central commercial town of Manzini.’

IRIN reports that Alex Fakudze, president of the Swaziland Manufacturing and Allied Workers Union (SMAWU), told the Industrial Court on 5 March that factory owners had instructed the police to assault strikers. Industrial Court President Peter Dunseith ordered the police to permit peaceful picketing outside company premises.

Unlike the Swazi media reporters in their own newspapers, IRIN then offers some background on the textile industry in Swaziland, which it says is ‘dominated by garment-making factories owned by Taiwanese immigrants who came to Swaziland in 2000/02 to take advantage of preferential trade conditions with the US under the African Growth and Opportunity Act, creating tens of thousands of employment opportunities.

IRIN says, ‘The country is one of the few that has diplomatic ties with Taiwan and does not recognise the People's Republic of China. Taiwan returned the favour by encouraging its garment-makers to invest in Swaziland.

‘In turn, the Swazi government has offered tax holidays to incoming firms, and constructed factory shells that are sometimes leased for free of charge to large employers.’

‘IRIN continues, ‘Asian-owned textile firms, mainly located at the Matsapha Industrial Estate, offered the only significant job creation in the past decade, and led to the development of a new industrial park at Shiselweni, the regional capital in the south of the country, where some firms have set up shop.

‘Low wages and "cultural conflicts" bedevilled labour relations from the outset, but came to a head when a strike vote was approved by 30 percent of the nation's 16,000 SMAWU members, with the remainder abstaining, according to the union.

‘The union seeks to raise wages by 12 percent. “Textile workers are forced to live on mediocre salaries,” said Fakudze. “How can breadwinners be expected to provide for their families on just R600 ($77) a month?”’

To see more of this report click here

See also
SWAZI POLICE ATTACK PREGNANT WOMAN
SWAZI MEDIA AND TEXTILE INDUSTRY