BFTU advocates for new independent unions

CHANDAPIWA BAPUTAKI
Staff Writer | Thursday December 16, 2010 00:00

 

Speaking to Mmegi yesterday, the BFTU secretary for publicity and international relations Edward Tswaipe, explained that enterprise unions have been growing at a faster rate than industrial unions, which has weakened the labour movement. He said this week out of the 57 registered unions released by the registrar of unions, five have been cancelled for being inactive with a few more in line for cancellation by beginning of next year.  The cancelled unions are the Water Utilities Employees Union, Ken Botswana Workers Union, Insurance Employees Union, Botswana Community Junior Secondary Schools Union and Botswana Brigade Teachers Union.  Those that are also facing the chop include the Botswana Media Workers Union, Botswana Security Unions and IDM Botswana Union. 'We want to mop this into roughly about 10 to 15 industries so that in the long run BFTU becomes a federation of industrial unions. This will be a new phenomenon of independent unions under the same industry,' he said adding that the enterprise unions would now be formed based on ideology rather than the fact that there is no union within the organisation.  'That is disappointing to the workers in the long run and weakens the labour movement,' Tswaipe said. He further revealed that out of a labour force of about 600 000 in Botswana only 120 000 from the formal sector are organised while the rest are not. He stated that BFTU would in the coming year look into further organising the remaining labour force that is unemployed and in the informal sector, which would take time.

According to Tswaipe, since 2009 through a donor-funded project, BFTU has organised the informal sector (street vendors) and recently hosted an international workshop for the sector at President Hotel, Gaborone.

He revealed that BFTU will continue to rally un-organised sectors in 2011 with the hope of launching new unions or starting projects in the security sector, nurses (BFTU has supported formation of a separate Nursing union), pre-school teachers (as part of a new affiliate of BFTU), journalists, media and communication workers, community and non-profit organisations workers, farm, food, forestry and allied workers. It will also look into transport and allied sectors (including taxis and long distance trucks and buses) and domestic workers (including gardeners and maids).  'BFTU carries out many of these organising activities with very limited funding. Most of these will be donor-funded projects,' Tswaipe said. This year BFTU was hard hit by the termination of affiliation by its three biggest unions namely; Botswana Teachers Union, Botswana Secondary Teachers Union and the Botswana Local Authority and Land Board Workers Union who later on formed a new federation named the Botswana Federation of Public Sector Unions.