When the International Labour Organisation (ILO) meets in two months, the main agenda item will be on whether workers should retain the right to strike. Naturally, trade unions want to retain that right which is why BOFEPUSU is in the throes of drawing up an information and education programme to sensitise its members nationwide about this issue.
In exactly a month from today (February 18), the union collective will participate in a Global Day of Action against a campaign by employers to have ILO strike off the right to strike. BOFEPUSU’s spokesperson, Ketlhalefile Motshegwa, says that seminars will follow thereafter.
This issue came to the fore two years ago at the International Labour Conference (ILC), ILO’s annual meeting that is attended by a tripartite delegation of governments, employers, and employees from each member state. The one in question was held in Geneva and the right-to-strike issue has been pending since. Without warning, the International Organisation of Employers (IOE) suddenly disrupted the usual proceedings by challenging the right to strike which is guaranteed under numerous laws and domestic constitutions. With 150 national employers’ organisation members in 143 countries, IOE is the largest representative organisation of the private sector in the world.
The Botswana Confederation of Commerce, Industry and Manpower is a member of IOE. In terms of ILO processes, member states are expected to report regularly on the implementation of ratified ILO conventions in their national regulations and on their adherence to the conventions’ practice. These reports are examined and commented on by the Committee of Experts (CoE), which is made up of independent expertsÔÇöusually professors or judgesÔÇöfrom member states. CoE findings are submitted to the ILC.
The ILC Committee on Application of Standards (CAS) examines these reports and draws its conclusions from the findings. A monitoring exercise is carried out to ensure that the ILO’s recommendations are actually implemented. At the 2012 ILC, the IOE raised the argument that the CoE did not have a mandate to interpret conventions and could not therefore interpret the existence of a right to strike in a convention that does not explicitly mention this right. The employers’ association is unhappy about Convention No. 87, adopted in 1948, which deals with various aspects of freedom of association and protection of the right to organise.
IOE’s argument is that although it is not regulated or even mentioned in the Convention, the CoE has deduced from the Convention detailed rules providing for a very extensive right to strike. It argues that these interpretations have no textual basis in the Convention and interfere unduly with national industrial relations systems. Member states have also thrown in their lot with the IOE. Motshegwa’s view, which he shares with other trade unionists, is that the real reason employers are opposed to Convention 87 is that it threatens their commercial interests: when workers go on strike, production is disrupted and profits plummet.
His impression of states’ acquiescence (as he would see it) is that the convention in question lessens the labour market attractiveness of a country as well as its ability to attract foreign direct investment. He adds that in search of the latter, governments typically have no compunction about keeping wages low and conditions of service poor. The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) has released a statement that this conflict cannot stay within the walls of ILO and should be of concerns to all workers around the world.
“Without the right to strike, trade unions and workers have no means to fight for their rights. One hundred years after the beginning of the First World War, our world is again up in flames with regional and national conflicts that threaten world peace. In the aftermath of the First World War, the ILO was created to ensure social justice would prevail and its mission is as relevant as ever. There is also a direct link between the conflict at the ILO and the ongoing free trade negotiations that give preference to the interests of multinational companies. Labour clauses that refer to ILO standards are no guarantee for the respect of workers’ rights if the ILO’s authority continues to be undermined. Austerity policies and structural adjustment programmes also aim to destroy collective bargaining mechanisms and agreements. The crisis of the ILO must be seen in this context,” ITUC says in its statement.
Motshegwa, who attended the 2012 ILC, further asserts that as ample demonstration of the fact that employers are hell-bent on giving employees the short end of the stick, they (employers) insist on retaining their own right to dismiss employees and lock them out business premises in the event there is an industrial dispute. “They can’t take away employees’ power and insist on retaining theirs. One of the reasons collective bargaining works for us is that employers fear that we can go on strike,” he says. Crunch time is in March this year when the ILO Governing Body has to take a decision on the resolution of this conflict.
Public Service International (PSI) says that if no agreement can be reached, then the matter should be referred to the International Court of Justice for an advisory opinion as provided for in the ILO constitution. Interestingly, if trade unions win, BOFEPUSU may, for now, not be able to do much with its right to strike. In 2011, it called the first public sector strike, bestowing upon it an epithet that suggests that it (the strike) may not have a superior genetic code to pass on. Dubbed “the mother of all strikes”, the industrial action didn’t achieve its objective. Workers wanted a 16 percent salary increase which the government said it didn’t have.
President Ian Khama would later state that even if the strike could last five years, the unions’ demands would still not be met. Essentially this means that under the current administration, the right to strike amounts to naught because it cannot be used as a leverage to get concessions from the government. Motshegwa says that while Khama has clearly shown that “under his administration there is no social dialogue”, there will always be need to pursue a worker rights agenda with or without him holding executive power.
Conceding the point about the strike having been ineffective, Motshegwa hastens to point out that conditions, then as now, were not favourable. One he cites is that, unlike South Africa, Botswana doesn’t permit solidarity strikes – when workers come out in support of another strike. In terms of Botswana’s law, workers can go on strike at a point where talks have collapsed. This means that workers who were not part of such talks can’t claim any conflict with their employer to justify downing tools.
Motshegwa’s belief is that had it been legally permissible for other trade unions to express solidarity in the stated manner, the 2011 strike would have been much more effective. Following the strike, Motshegwa says that BOFEPUSU engaged PSI to conduct a post-mortem. The Union also held a stakeholders meeting that brought together political parties, Botswana Police Service, village development committees and parent teacher associations. The purpose of this meeting was “to introspect on what we did right, what challenges we faced as well as to hear what stakeholders had to say.”
Motshegwa points out that not communicating the reasons of the strike to the nation against overwhelming propaganda from the government media was a major misstep. “Parents didn’t know why teachers were on strike and why their children were not being taught,” he says. The right-to-strike campaign also comes at a time that the government has allegedly infiltrated trade unions. When Khama officiated at a national congress of one of the BOFEPUSU member unions, the Botswana Public Employees Union, which he called “the most responsible union”, tongues started wagging. Without quoting any specific example himself, Motshegwa says that while there are signs that infiltration claims could be true, trade unions can never be derailed from their agenda.
“Workers ideology will never change even if their leaders betray the cause because such leaders will be replaced with those who will pursue the workers’ agenda. We have allegations of unions being infiltrated. We remain vigilant and have put in place measures to ensure that our unions are not rendered ineffective,” he says.
