Workers at Zimbabwe’s state-run papers go on strike

Employees at Zimbabwe’s state-run newspapers in Harare went on strike on Thursday over non-payment of their annual bonuses, the Associated Press (AP) reported. Workers and management were still talking, but workers said they would not return to their jobs until they received a written promise that their full bonuses would be paid. “The workers have since January been foregoing their overtime and allowances in order to save the company from collapsing, yet management has done nothing at all,” the workers said in a letter, according to the official ZIANA news agency. The strike affects ‘The Herald’ and ‘The Sunday Mail’, both based in Harare. Workers at ‘The Chronicle’, based in Zimbabwe’s second city of Bulawayo, went on strike last Friday. ‘The Herald’ has faced stiff competition for circulation and public opinion since an independent daily newspaper, the ‘Daily News’, began printing last year.