Because it is only suspended, there is a possibility that the strike could resume. Our belief is that peace-loving Batswana do not want retrogression. They do not want the riots that characterised the walkout just before it was suspended. And they want both sides involved in negotiating for a solution to be reasonable in their dealings with the nation and each other. At the commencement of the strike government and the unions agreed that workers would not be paid for the time that they were not working. The workers said that they would not do work that they would have done during the time they were on strike. In the case of teachers, they would not teach the part of the curriculum that they would have otherwise taught during the time. Now the teachers are back at work. And true to their word, they are not teaching the backlog on the syllabus. Their stance appears to be perfectly legal. An employer has to provide work and salary and an employee a service. Where one party fails to meet its obligation for one reason or another, the other party cannot be blamed for failing to carry out its part of the bargain. Either government is failing to realise this simple determination of natural justice or it is deliberately ignoring it. This past week the same government that came up with and insisted on the No-Work-No-Pay policy has threatened to dismiss teachers who are refusing to deal with the backlog. That is dangerously insincere of the government. And such carelessness is a recipe for disaster. Surely, Batswana do not understand the suspension of the strike as a win for either the unions or government. They understand it as an attempt to preserve peace and to keep this nation intact. And for that we applaud the unions. We will, therefore, not hesitate to condemn any act of dishonesty by either the unions or government. Yes, we want the teachers to cover the material that our children missed. But we are unaware of the agreement that they had with their employer. We believe that it is proper for government and the unions to continue engaging each other. There is nothing that should prevent government from engaging the teachers and their unions over the issue. It is in discussing that both sides can hope to find a workable solution to the impasse.
The solution does not lie in making threats. It is certainly not in antagonising the other party that Botswana can hope to find a durable solution. Finally, government must appreciate that the issue at hand is already causing chaos in schools. It is vitally important that a solution is found immediately to avert catastrophe. Unless government comes up with a workable plan, pupils who have already missed out a chunk of their coursework will miss more. Government may once again be forced to close schools to prevent damage to property and loss of lives. Any ill-conceived decision will result in greater havoc.
