BOFEPUSU presses for long-term wage deals
Chakalisa Dube | Thursday December 8, 2016 16:33
BOFEPUSU’s view comes just days after Botswana Public Employees Union (BOPEU) made similar calls.
Addressing the union’s Central Executive Committee (CEC) meeting last week in Francistown, BOPEU president Andrew Motsamai urged government to seriously consider adopting a three-year tier negotiation system, whereby the outcome of what has been negotiated and concluded is implemented over a three-year period.
Vice President Mokgweetsi Masisi, who was present at the meeting, promised that government would take the matter into consideration.
The rationale behind the union’s idea is that many progressive employers, both locally and across the world, have adopted the strategy to reduce animosity generated by the nature of salary negotiations and also to improve industrial relations.
“We agree with the principle of long term negotiations as opposed to short-term ones,” BOFEPUSU secretary general Tobokani Rari told Mmegi yesterday.
Rari further explained the other reason for adopting the long-tier system. “This view is also anchored on the reason that yearly negotiations consume time for the Public Service Bargaining Council as an institution, to the extent that the council would always be preoccupied with salary negotiations at the expense of its other equally important functions,” he said.
Rari went on to say that BOFEPUSU’s salary and conditions of service adjustment proposal for the financial year 2017/18 touches on the issue of the long-term cycle of negotiations.
The Botswana Mine Workers Union has often adopted the long-term negotiation strategy in order to mitigate against the tension that is often brought by salary negotiations. The Botswana Bank Employees Union has also been able to secure multi-year wage reviews with certain banks, in recent years.