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Text:	ECONOMY-ZIMBABWE: Workers Count their Losses, as Strike Enters Final Stage Eunice Mafundikwa HARARE, Jun 5 (IPS) - "We want change, but our dilemma, as workers, is that we have bills to pay. We have to survive," says Brian Mafudza, as he starts counting his losses on day four (Thursday) of the week-long boycott called for by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. Workers in Zimbabwe are bedevilled by unprecedented economic crisis unseen in their nation's 23-year life. "We will not be paid for the five days we will not go to work. This has happened before with the other stayaways. And what all this means is that it will be a real struggle to survive this month," says 28-year-old Mafudza, a wage earner at a paprika processing company in Ruwa, 30 km east of the capital Harare. Concurring, flea market vendor Rejoice Zonde, a single mother of two, says: "We are caught up between a rock and a hard place." Zonde sells trinkets she buys from cross-border traders; her only source of income. Mafudza's monthly wage of about 24,000 Zimbabwe dollars (30 U.S. dollars) is hardly enough to make ends meet. By the time, he pays his rent, including water and electricity, which is 5,000 Zimbabwe dollars (6.25 U.S. dollars) and transport 12,000 Zimbabwe dollars (15 U.S. dollars), he is left with only 7,000 Zimbabwe dollars (8.75 U.S. dollars) to push him, along with his wife and three-year-old son, to the end of the month. His wife Rindai supplements his income by selling eggs to the neighbours. On a good day she makes 800 Zimbabwe dollars (1 U.S. dollars), which is the cost of a standard loaf of bread on the parallel market. "Even my wife has not been able to go about her usual business because of the mass action," Mafudza says. Disagreeing with critics, Moses Tekere of the University of Zimbabwe says the strike was for a good cause. "In the short term, yes, there will be a real loss, but these losses can be compensated in the long term if there is recognition that macroeconomic policy management needs to be readjusted," he says. Since 2001 more than 100 factories have closed, throwing more than 3,000 workers onto the streets. More jobs are expected to be lost as companies and industries continue to be weighed down by shortages of foreign currency, fuel and raw material. In the agricultural sector, some 300,000 farmhands have found themselves without jobs following the controversial land reform programme - which witnessed President Robert Mugabe's government seizing land from 4,500 white farmers for distribution among landless blacks - between 2000 and 2003. Eight million people, more than half Zimbabwe's population, need food aid. Zimbabwe, with a population of 13 million, is facing shortages of petrol, bread, sugar, and bank notes. Inflation, which is running over 200 percent, is expected to hit 300 percent in two months. With unemployment currently registering over 70 percent, HIV/AIDS devastating the country and brain drain, mostly skilled workers leaving for Britain and South Africa, there seems to be little hope for Zimbabwe's workers. The strike has mainly affected the banking and retail sectors. "The only businesses which can count real losses are the banking and retail sectors. Otherwise there is no industry to talk about in Zimbabwe any more," said Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Union's Collin Gwiyo in an interview with IPS on Wednesday. "The generality of the worker is not any better with or without the work disruptions." Gwiyo said workers had responded to the mass action because they realise the long-term benefits of doing so. Most businesses across the country, including the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange, remained closed Thursday, despite threats by government and war veterans to cancel their operating licences. The Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) could lose revenue worth about 250 million Zimbabwe dollars (312,500 U.S. dollars) if the market, which has been paralysed by the strike, remained closed until Friday. "It seems most investors took a position last week not to trade this week and really one cannot force brokers to trade," said ZSE chief executive Emmanuel Munyukwi. The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe also failed to float any Treasury bills this week because of the strike. So far, the government has not hidden its displeasure over the strike. "I want to warn all businesses that we are noting down those companies that remain close and we will, with immediate effect, withdraw their operating permits," warned the Minister of Industry and International Trade Samuel Mumbengegwi. In the central city of Gweru and the sugar-growing southern town of Chiredzi police were reportedly visiting supermarket managers at their homes and forcing them to return to work. Most workers prefer to stay indoors to avoid the brutality of the police and soldiers deployed in the residential areas by government to quell the mass action, which kicked off Monday. IPS on Wednesday witnessed soldiers beating up people in a queue at an automated teller machine in Harare. "You want money but you refuse to go to work," shouted a soldier to the visibly shaken civilians. More than 150 people, mostly in Harare, were on Wednesday treated for injuries sustained at the hands of the army and the police. By Wednesday afternoon police had more than 300 people tucked away in their cells. Unconfirmed reports Thursday said three students from the University of Zimbabwe had been killed by soldiers. Police, which denied the reports, fought running battles with the students on Monday and foiled their march to town. The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai called the mass action, whose highlight was meant to be street demonstrations, to pressure 79-year-old Mugabe, in power since 1980, to vacate his office or at least start negotiating with the opposition to find solutions to Zimbabwe's crises. Preferring a showdown, ZANU-PF's spokesperson Nathan Shamuyarira has said the time has come for a showdown with the MDC and that they must be "confronted and taught a lesson". The crackdown has been condemned in foreign capitals. In London, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw appealed to the government of Mugabe to allow people to express themselves. "Many Zimbabweans have chosen this week to express their legitimate concerns about the crisis facing their country," he said in a statement issued on Monday. The Group of Eight (G8) leaders, meeting in Evian, France, also issued a statement - at the end of their summit Tuesday - berating the government of President Mugabe for the crackdown on the opposition. The G8 comprises Japan, Britain, France, Italy, the United States, Canada, Germany and Russia. The European Union (EU), the United States and the Commonwealth have imposed sanctions on Zimbabwe over alleged vote-rigging by the ruling ZANU-PF in last year's presidential polls. (FIN/2003)

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