Nothing to celebrate on workers' day

With workers' standards of living continuing to slide, the opposition-linked Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) is to "commemorate" rather than celebrate 1 May, senior labour officials told IRIN.

"We are not in a mood to celebrate," ZCTU secretary-general Wellington Chibebe said on Monday. "Our theme is 'workers under siege, organise, unite and fight on'."

Even the ZCTU's attempts to hold gatherings on 1 May have been "frustrated" by the government. Ruling party-run local councils have preferred to give venues to the pro-government Zimbabwe Federation of Trade Unions (ZFTU), whose vice president is war veterans' leader Joseph Chinotimba. The police have also delayed issuing clearance for the ZCTU's meetings, Chibebe said.

In Zimbabwe's second city of Bulawayo, the ZCTU and ZFTU are both booked into the city's main stadium, "just to scare off [our] workers", added Chibebe.

The ZFTU was formed last year during business invasions by so-called veterans. They accuse the ZCTU of not promoting the interests of the workers, but rather the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

Although a stayaway called by the ZCTU to protest attacks on workers in the wake of Zimbabwe's controversial presidential election in March generally flopped, Chibebe said that his movement was still a "force to reckon with".

He told IRIN that spiralling food prices and police restrictions on public meetings deemed political meant that Zimbabwe was "simmering". Chibebe said: "People are cowed, but it is just a matter of time. The way things are, I don't think people will let this go on indefinitely."

Meanwhile, the Daily News reported on Monday that more than 25 MDC supporters fled the constituency of Makoni north to "safe houses" in the eastern town of Mutare last week.

The newspaper said they had received death threats from ZANU-PF youths and war veterans. Among the displaced were people whose homes and tobacco barns had earlier been torched by militants because they had allegedly voted MDC in the presidential election.