PSP to address ex-BCL employees
Ryder Gabathuse | Wednesday January 31, 2018 15:30
Botswana Mine Workers Union (BMWU) general secretary, Mbiganyi Ramokate explained that the PSP did not give them a specific agenda for the meeting.
“He only said he wanted to address former BCL employees,” Ramokate told Mmegi.
He added that the PSP has further indicated that he is coming to respond to the concerns of the closed copper/nickel mine former employees.
The PSP and the BMWU leadership had a meeting last July over a plethora of issues concerning the 4,000 ex-BCL employees and the 800 former Tati Nickel Mining Company (TNMC) workers who lost their jobs when the BCL Group of Companies closed shop, shedding jobs due to low copper prices and the dwindling resource.
BMWU has this week been reaching out to former BCL Group employees for a meeting today at the Union House in preparation for the PSP meeting tomorrow.
“The concerns of the BMWU have been that after the October 2016 retrenchment exercise, former mine workers were not paid the mandatory notice of one month and their retrenchment packages,” Ramokate said.
The BMWU general secretary noted that prior to the closure of the mines in 2016, Section 25 of the Employment Act, which addresses the issue of retrenchment, was read out to the workers and were given hope that they get benefits.
“It’s logical that the workers expect the PSP to address these outstanding issues. One of the major issues that we expect him to address is the issue of a possibility of the BCL Mine reopening as that will be beneficial to the mine since copper prices are currently doing well,” Ramokate said.