SWAZILAND WORKERS ‘NEAR STARVING’

Swaziland’s textile workers are so poorly paid that some exist close to ‘starvation’.

This is one of the claims made by the Swazi Observer newspaper.

In interviews published yesterday (Wednesday 5 March 2008) the newspaper reported that workers – presently on strike for higher pay – are so poorly paid that they cannot afford to eat properly.

The Observer reported one worker saying, ‘It is not everyday that we afford a meal. We normally share one plate among two people unless it is payday.’

The Observer itself noted, ‘The workers themselves admit that they had developed strategies to confront starvation because what they earn can hardly see them through the week.’

Textile workers in Swaziland can earn as little as E400 (about 60 US Dollars) per fortnight. They began a strike for better pay on Monday (3 March 2008).

The Observer quoted another textile worker saying, ‘A bowl of rice with tomato stew does the trick. For protein we simply add boiled eggs to our meal. A boiled egg costs about E1 and we can afford only that much.’

A plate of food on sale at factory gates in the industrial town of Matsapha costs between E5 and E8, depending on the quantity. At times two girls share the smaller plate of E5 and that sustains them until the end of the eight-hour working day, the Observer reported.

A trade union leader told the Observer, ‘For lunch sometimes the workers have slices of bread with no paste.’

The Observer also reported that textile workers rely heavily on moneylenders to get by from one payday to the next.

‘They are normally stationed at the entrances of every factory and wait with their mean faces until knockoff time, which is normally a half day.

‘The workers normally handover their pay envelopes to the [moneylenders] and borrow all over again because “life must go on”.’

See also
SWAZI POLICE RAMPAGE AGAIN
SWAZI POLICE ATTACK STRIKERS