Order strips BLLAHWU 'members' right to enjoy enhanced salaries'
Goitsemodimo Kaelo | Wednesday August 6, 2025 09:13
The union is seeking court intervention to have the temporary order made by the Industrial Court on July 17, 2025, which barred the government from implementing an agreement they made with the union concerning salary and working conditions for its members set aside. The rule nisi order was obtained by trade unions acting under the banner 5+1, which are National Amalgamated Local, Central, Parastatal and Government Workers Union (NALCPGWU), Botswana Public Employees' Union (BOPEU) Botswana Teachers Union (BTU), Botswana Sectors of Educators Trade Union (BOSETU), Botswana Nurses Union (BONU), and Botswana Doctors Union (BDU) after government and BLLAHWU went ahead and reached an agreement on the salaries and conditions of service for the union's members after talks between the trade unions collapsed.
In an urgent matter that will be heard this morning (August 5) at the Gaborone Industrial Court, BLLAHWU is arguing that when the July 17, 2025, temporary order was granted to interdict the implementation, the horses had already bolted, as some beneficiaries had already received their dues in terms of the same agreement.
In his founding affidavit, the union's secretary-general, Matshidiso Onyebo Mafoko, avers that to the extent that the rule nisi order acknowledges payment of the July salaries, its operation strips the union's members of the right to receive their enhanced salaries from August to the successive months pending the conclusion of an agreement between the government and the other trade unions, acting under the banner 5+1.
Mafoko argues that the order has caused administrative chaos to the extent that there has been a partial implementation of the agreement, which is the subject matter of the main proceedings.
'The current situation is that there are employees who have received their enhanced upkeep and housing allowances and back pays on the one hand. These employees were paid after publication of the Directive No. 1 of 2025, and it was therefore fully implemented as per the supplementary affidavit filed on July 19, 2025. I beg to leave to refer to this honourable court to the said affidavit as if specifically pleaded herein to avoid prolixity,' reads the affidavit in part.
Furthermore, Mafoko said that on the other hand, some disgruntled members received their July 2025 salary before the publication of the directive, but to date have not received their enhanced upkeep and housing allowances, particularly for the month of July. This, he said, they were meant to get their enhanced dues and back pay as August salaries and subsequent months' salaries.
'The operation of the rule nisi, therefore, means that they cannot be paid such benefits which their counterparts received as part of their July 2025 salaries, even though they are similarly circumstanced, this is because salaries are paid in a staggered fashion for each month across the public service,' Mafoko argues.
Additionally, Mafoko says some members stand to be prejudiced in that their August salaries, which are expected to be paid between today and August 7, unfortunately happen to fall before the return date of the rule nisi order.
He said the rule nisi order causes unfairness and division in the working class, whereby some of the employees have benefited from the agreement, whilst others are left disadvantaged.
'This will cause irreparable harm on the part of the employees,' he said.