Ntuane extends olive branch to unions
Tsaone Basimanebotlhe | Wednesday December 2, 2015 15:25
Over the weekend, the party’s Gaborone Region, of which Ntuane is a member, resolved to get closer to the various unions, as a way of regrouping from the lower popular vote experienced in 2014.
Addressing BOPEU delegates, Ntuane said while the relationship between the party and the unions had been fraught with difficulties, there was an opportunity for a fresh start.
“We cannot wish the past away because it informs our present and future, but those historical challenges should be a lesson to both sides that we need to do more to find one another.
“This imperative is a work in progress and cannot be achieved overnight.
For our part, the BDP has embarked on an outreach programme where we engage critical stakeholders in the body politic to exchange notes and cultivate closer working relations,” he said.
Ntuane said it would be incorrect to think the BDP could govern effectively and be responsive to the aspirations, needs and concerns of Batswana without BOPEU, and other worker formations.
He said the party had interacted with BOPEU since the party’s 36th national congress in Mmadinare, and while there had been dialogue, each parties’ desires had not been achieved.
The interactions, he said, were however an “important building block” towards a “more constructive partnership”.
“For instance, on the basis of an appeal made to the BDP Labour Sub Committee and the parliamentary caucus, respectively by public sector unions, we caused debate on the Trade Dispute Bill to be delayed pending further consultations. This gesture we consider another step towards generating goodwill and improved relations with labour,” he said.
Ntuane said the BDP believes unions that affiliate to political parties are vulnerable to suffering the “unintended consequence of splits and divisions over party politics”.
“In other instances unions that are active in the trenches of party politics end up little more than a labour desk and in the process the plight of the workers play second fiddle to the incubator political party.”