Striking workers at Swaziland’s Ubombo Sugar
Company have won
a 10 percent pay increase, despite suffering intimidation by the Swazi Army
and state security forces.
The workers had been on strike for more than
three weeks at the sugar company which is 40 percent owned by King Mswati III,
the absolute monarch of Swaziland.
The management of the company, which is also known as Illovo, had
successfully obtained a court order to restrict the workers pickets away from
the main sugar plantation estate, near Big Bend.
Earlier, state police the Operational
Support Services Unit (OSSU) had
used teargas and water canon to disperse protesting workers.
Media in Swaziland reported that soldiers, warders and police were
deployed throughout the small town to stop workers from disrupting the sugar
plant.
The Swazi
Observer, a newspaper in effect owned by King Mswati, estimated the
strike had cost Ubombo E2.4 million (US$240,000) since
it began on 13 June 2014. The management had originally offered a 7.5 percent
pay increase.
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