He said union organizers were being assaulted as they approached occupied farms, and the Zimbabwean government's Central Intelligence Organization was tapping union phone lines. If the workers are displaced from the farms they will become squatters. Farm workers are fighting back because they are not sure of their livelihood. Not everyone agrees. Government-run newspapers say that white commercial farmers are instructing workers they employ to support the MDC and inciting workers against the veterans.
White farmers are clever.
Farm workers struck in 1997 and won a 40 percent wage increase. Bargaining with the employers resulted in increases of more than 30 percent in each of the subsequent two years. Imperialist oppression Conditions for workers and peasants in Zimbabwe are light years away from those of the wealthy landholders. Some 63 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. The cities hold only 31 percent of the populace.