Furnmart faces strike by 300-strong Namibian workforce

Furnmart, headquartered and listed in Botswana, is a leading regional furniture retailer, which also has 36 branches in South Africa and 49 in Botswana. The group’s Namibian workers, however, accuse the group of importing an intolerant approach to labour relations from Botswana to Namibia and running local operations based on “attitudes” in the Botswana headquarters.

According to documents shared with BusinessWeek, workers in Namibia have a litany of grievances including “injustice at work, low wages, unfavourable conditions of employment and lack of proper representation”.