UBASSU unhappy with salary increment
Larona Makhaiza | Monday May 1, 2023 06:00
UBASSU together with University of Botswana Staff Union (UBSU) had been calling for the university to award them a 15% salary increment for quite some time now.
The two unions content that six years have passed without them getting any increment. The UB and the two unions have been at loggerheads for quite some time now going back and forth as they failed to reach a common ground.
The back and forth between the university and the unions has prompted the unions to go on a peaceful demonstration to advocate for the 15% salary increment.
On the other hand, UB management led by vice chancellor Professor David Norris signed on the dotted line on Wednesday afternoon to agree to salary increment for the UB staff with the Manual Workers Union. Manual Workers Union agreed with the management on a salary increment of nine percent and seven percent respectively. “Today we are here to sign an agreement between Manual Workers Union and UB regarding the talks we have been having with university for quite some time now in relation to the alary of the staff in UB,” the chief union’s negotiator, Robert Rabasimane said.
Additionally, Rabasimane said the UB has pay bands that stand at 10 hence why there are two percentages of increment. “Pay bands of UB are 10 and now from band 1 to band 4 the employees will be getting an increment of 9% meanwhile from band 5 to 10 the employees will get an increment of seven percent,” he added. However, the move by UB and Manual Workers Union has only left the UBASSU president disgruntled. “We are not happy at all at the university’s move, this now goes back to the leadership of Norris.
He should know that if you are a leader of an institution you should know that you are a leader of everyone and it baffles us why he decided to cheer the negotiation of Manual Workers Union and not our negotiations,” explained the concerned Marobela. Professor Marobela further questioned Norris’ ways and labelled the decision as poor governance and poor leadership style. “You can’t afford to divide workers and Manual Workers Union, why didn’t Norris cheer negotiations with us instead of manual workers as this would have made all of us reach a common ground as well as common agreement and him not being transparent with us shows exactly how a poor leader he is,” said Marobela.
Though the employees have been given the much needed increment they have been crying for, for the past few months, Marobela elucidated that UBASSU will continue to strike over the 15% increment. “We will be carrying on with our demonstration because we are not really happy with what the university has done behind our backs and they should know that they never at any moment settle for an agreement with anyone from UBASSU,” he said.
Meanwhile, Rabasimane said Manual Workers Union had been working with the unions before to fight for their increment but they distanced themselves from the unions once they mentioned strike. “We have met with the two unions before, but we had differences between us and them when it came to issues of withdrawing their labour. We were different and we still had hope to arrive where we are today despite the lengthy negotiations,” Rabasimane said. The salary increment between UB and Manual Workers Union is set to be effective from April 2023.