DPSM interdicted from unions de-recognition
Mpho Mokwape | Friday February 1, 2019 13:49
The ruling comes in the wake of the five trade unions, Botswana Land Boards and Local Authorities and Health Workers’ Union, Botswana Sectors of Educators’ Trade Union, Botswana Teachers Union and The National Amalgamated Local Central and Parastatal Workers’ Union and Botswana Public Employees Union, taking the DPSM to court over the de-recognition.
The proposed de-recognisation meant that as a result the unions were no longer going to be able to participate in negotiations about the reestablishment of the PSBC.
The industrial court judge Galesite Baruti, when passing the ruling, said the government shall continue recognising the unions and will extend to them all the rights of a trade union and in particular the right to lawfully bargain with the government over conclusion of an agreement on a constitution of the PSBC.
“The interdict shall operate with immediate effect and remain fully operative pending the final outcome of an application to be filed by the applicants for the review and setting aside of the decision of DPSM,” he said.
The judge ruled that the matter was urgent in the sense that the applicants have been placed in an urgent situation because their right to collective bargaining has been taken away or at least placed on very thin ice.
He explained that it would be absurd to make them sit back and let the 30-day period pass by before they are granted relief. “Given that the applicants have been exercising this right to collective bargaining, the balance of convenience favours the granting of the interim interdict,” he said.
Meanwhile, during their filing the trade unions had accused DPSM of thwarting their efforts to reestablish the PSBC. Through their attorney Mboki Chilisa, the trade unions had explained that the legislature requires that only trade unions that are recognised may participate in the process.
“The attitude that you have displayed does not augur well for the relationship of the parties going forward. It also puts into doubt the question whether we are entitled to continue to enjoy other rights that flow from the recognition,” read the letter written to DPSM.
The unions had also accused the DPSM of lacking honesty by suggesting that they are not recognised because they do not have any record of their recognition of which they pointed was a display of lack of seriousness as employers.
Further, the unions said the suggestion that their recognition was somehow deficient because DPSM did not receive a letter from them was quite frivolous.
“All the unions are duly recognised by the government as exclusive bargaining agents for their members. They have been so recognised for at least the last 12 years and in some instance for over 40 years,” the unions stated.
Currently the unions are locked in negotiations with the government for salary increments.