Factory workers� horror stories
Mbongeni Mguni | Friday May 2, 2014 17:14
These examples are a handful of the horrors revealed
by factory workers during Labour Day commemorations
yesterday, as they lifted the veil on
their conditions of service.
Various members of the Botswana Textile Manufacturing
and Packaging Workers Union (BOTEMAPAWU)
painted a picture of sub-human
working conditions and indifferent employers, the
majority of whom are multi-national corporations.
Although it is affiliated to the Botswana Federation
of Trade Union, the 500-member strong union
formed in 2010, decided to hold its inaugural Labour
Day celebration yesterday as a way of collating
members’ grievances.
“People are working from 0700 to 1900hrs daily,
with little provided to eat and some of them are in
factories with welding and grinding activities producing
fumes that poison the whole environment,”
said one member.
“Other workers are operating boilers and that
person will be in unbearable heat without proper
protective clothing through their shift.”
Another member recounted how she was burnt
with acid twice after a machine fault meant she had
to collect the acid and pour it into the machine
herself. “I got home not knowing anything had
happened, but when I took off my jeans, I felt pain
and noticed that they had come off with my skin
as well,” she said, showing other members the acid
stains on her jeans. A pregnant factory worker told
the Labour Day meeting that her shift required her
to sit for most of 12 hours on a chair with no back
and no vehicle at hand for medical emergencies.
“We have asked for better chairs, better conditions,
but no one is listening,” she said.
“A lot workers at that company suffer from back
problems due to sitting for long periods on bad
chairs. Government should hear our plea.”
At another factory, workers claimed five toilets
had been blocked for more than a year forcing 110
male staff – young and old – to use buckets for their
requirements. The men fill the buckets with water
and pour into the toilets.
“Imagine, there’s a particularly elderly man there
and we all have to see him take the bucket, knowing
what he is going to do. He knows we know and it is
disrespectful. “Quotations have been collected for
over a year and nothing has happened,” said a senior
BOTEMAPAWU member.
The Union’s leaders said efforts to call in the Labour
Department were not always fruitful as the officers
had a tendency of delaying their inspections.
Workers said management was impervious to the
Union’s pleas to improve working conditions.
“I suffered an injury on the job and my own doctor
granted me sick-leave, but the company’s doctor
revoked it,” said one worker.
“There isn’t even a vehicle on site for medical
emergencies and we have to use our own without
being refunded for fuel.”
At the Labour Day commemoration, BOTEMAPAWU
members conducted an Operational
Health and Safety panel discussion whose feedback
will be packaged into a report to the Department
of Labour. Matters are no better on the wage front
with the Union’s vice president, Baaitse Peter telling
Mmegi that employers appear disinterested in
hammering out a wage review for this year.
“We dropped off our proposals for a 20 percent
across the wage review in January and had asked
that we finalise negotiations by March 15,” he said.
“We have met twice and they are proposing between
two and three percent.
“The employer does not take us seriously.”
Another senior unionist said: “People think the
four percent government is offering civil servants
is very little. But they don’t know that some of our
members are not even getting one percent and
those who will get three percent may actually get
P36 for some people. “We don’t have money to go to the `industrial Court or engage arbitrators. Our cry can only be to government.”