Hospitality workers decry ‘slave labour’ conditions
Laone Choeunyane | Monday January 12, 2026 06:00
Presenting the laundry list of issues at a press briefing held amidst the Botswana Federation of Public, Private and Parastatal Sector Unions (BOFEPUSU), Nicholas Motiki, the BHCTTWU executive secretary, said the COVID-19 pandemic was one of the catalysts of the growing employee exploitation.
“Most of the big hotel chains in Botswana implemented ‘staff rationalisation’ during that period and have not looked back, regardless of the end of the pandemic,” he said.
Staff rationalisation is the reorganisation of a company's workforce and operations, often done to improve efficiency and productivity. It involves job consolidation and employees assuming multiple responsibilities, with loss of employment for others.
Motiki asserted that the major industry players have used this trend as a predatory advantage against proper remuneration and evasion of contract review of employees.
“If you are moved from reception to the accounts department, the contract has to be reviewed and aligned with your job description and responsibilities,” he said.
Speaking further to the matter, Kefilwe Selema of BOFEPUSU said that employees “get paid for one person whilst performing three to four jobs”.
Although it employs well over 100,000 people, the BHCTTWU explained that the local tourism and hospitality industry has long been plagued by short-term contracts that are characterised by stagnated and inadaptable wages. Motiki accused major industry players of “encouraging unemployment” through this practice.
Another major bone of contention presented was the rate at which low-level employees are compensated for their efforts. Motiki noted that the national call to increase the minimum wage was a fair rate improvement for other sectors, but not in the hospitality industry.
“If a worker is low-waged in these hotels, they should get money exceeding P4,000 because the work they do is too much,” he added.
Motiki also stressed that working hours for low-level employees in the industry are not standardised and are often coercive. He claimed that employees are often thrust into working overtime without any formal consultation and that they can arrive in the early hours of the day and only receive consent to leave from work in the late evening, beyond the hours stipulated on employee contracts.
Underscoring the breadth of these issues, Motiki further cited an allegedly common practice in the industry wherein the already underpaid and overworked employees often find themselves liable for property damages incurred under their watch.
“If a client smashes or breaks a glass, the waiter serving him is left to deal with the damage,” he said.
In his solidarity statement, Selema explained that investors look at the Global Happiness Index and issues such as those raised by hospitality workers could affect the country.
Botswana was last ranked 137 out of 143 countries on the World Happiness Index.