‘Press till we die ÔÇô 16% on table or no work’. The message from a placard, one among many that public service workers held above their heads as the ‘Mother of all strikes’ began, held an eerie symbolism. In the middle of the placard was the sketch of a human head, its face a mask of torment, being forcefully pressed into the ground ÔÇô supposedly to its death.
In the high-stakes game building up, the government resorted to threats to invoke the ‘no pay no work’ rule. That would work to an interesting degree for government, according to economists.
First, the overall impact of the strike on the economy, despite earlier fears, would be minimal. Also, government would save some money, because the rules of the strike hold that striking public sector workers will not be paid for the days they are not at work.
A defiant Andrew Motsamai, the Secretary General of the Botswana Federation of Public Service Unions (BOFEPUSU) derides the ‘no work no pay’ rule. “We will not go back to work if we are not paid for those days,” he insists. “That is why we said the strike action could be indefinite.”
The Easter holiday ended a week after the strike began, and the Gaborone Secondary School Grounds, which for the past week had swarmed with angry civil servants, were hauntingly quiet, more like a burial ground than the scene of a sea of defiant workers. However, come Tuesday, April 26, and the tumult would start all over again at the grounds now called Botswana’s Tahrir Square, after Egypt’s scene of intense revolution.
It is the second week of the much hyped public sector strike. In many respects, public service delivery has been brought to its knees, with a series of news reports that clinics, hospitals and schools have been hobbled by the lack of staff.
At Princess Marina hospital in Gaborone, unconfirmed reports made to this newspaper last week were that some nurses were seen doing duty in the kitchen to cover for the 34 of the 44 kitchen staff that had gone on strike. The hospital’s kitchen staff caters for 700 inpatients daily.
More worrying still were reports that with doctors joining their civil service colleagues who had thronged the GSS grounds, junior doctors and nurses had taken over the care and treatment of patients, without the supervision of senior staff. By the end of the week, two babies were reported to have died, a result of the critical shortage of staff.
With the blame game between government and the public sector unions raging, and a dispute over the strike rules headed for the industrial court, and analysts had a field day considering the cost of the civil servants’ stay-away to government. To parry the ‘Strike paralyses government’ newspaper headlines, government insisted that it was business as usual, at least in the first couple of days.
As the week unfolded, opposition party leaders took the opportunity to cozy up to the striking workers. Botswana Movement for Democracy (BMD) interim chairman, Gomolemo Motswaledi, the party’s Member of Parliament for Francistown East, Wynter Mmolotsi in tow, urged the striking to press ahead with their fight as it was “a just cause”.
Indeed, as political analysts pointed out, the public service strike has taken a life of its own beyond just labour issues. It has become intensely political. In the same week, Botswana Congress Party (BCP) leader Dumelang Saleshando and leader of the Botswana National Front (BNF) Duma Boko, likewise made their presence felt at GSS grounds, adding their voices to those supporting the strike.
But political analysts were looking at the issue with puckered brows, with a debate coming into sharp relief on whether politicians should be actively engaged in strike action. The public sector unions have taken some heat, too. Should they be merely held to addressing the conditions of workers and desist from becoming political actors? Another question asked: is it a fact that unions are part of the political process in a liberal democracy, that workers and politicians are “comrades in arms”?
In Francistown, BOFEPUSU regional secretary, Tshekatsheko Lekang, declared that if government continued to breach the strike rules, the unions would have no choice “but to ask for assistance from opposition parties”. Further, BCP Secretary General Kesitegile Gobotswang said opposition parties would on May 7 stage a demonstration in solidarity of the workers.
In the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) there were worries expressed about the political intensity of the strike, and its implications on possible regime change. “Between the utterances of one Duma Boko and the apparent interest that some South African organizations seem to have…could this indeed be the planned government change? Why don’t they wait for elections as these shall surely come?” read a post on the BDP’s official Facebook page. The sentiments followed earlier concerns from acting Vice President Ponatshego Kedikilwe that the workers demands for better pay were not being used as a ploy by the opposition to force regime change.
“They do not care about the outcome of the strike,” says BDP Youth League National Political Officer Frank Nfila, referring to the opposition leaders’ support of the strike. “They just want to get government employees on their side.”
Indeed, as political observers say, whereas the current public sector unions strike is testament to the discontent of workers, opposition parties are playing to the gallery, and not for the first time, too. When teachers staged their strike in the first term, the opposition declared their support for the unions.
Of particular concern to the opposition parties has been President Ian Khama’s inability to meet the leaders of the public sector unions, a failure which Saleshando insists points to “Khama’s lack of leadership attributes”. Said Saleshando: “What is more painful is that the president chose to air his position about the strike in Natale village, where there is an insignificant number of civil servants instead of addressing the majority of the affected people.”
As the strike continues to play out this week, Themba Joina, president of MELS says while the opposition welcomes it as an expression of the concerns of the workers, a strike is, when all is said and done, a way of sending a message. “At the end of the stipulated strike period, the workers must be inclined to go back to work and continue to build this country.”
Meanwhile, the strike has emphasized the polarization of the state and private media, a polarization that typifies African countries, where the one is essentially seen as a government mouthpiece while the other is often seen as the voice of the opposition. Btv, for example, blacked out the union leaders’ sentiments, as well as the comments of the opposition party leaders. In contrast, SABC reported extensively on the strike, interviewing both Andrew Motsamai and assistant minister for Presidential Affairs and Public Administration, Patrick Masimolole.
With government running a deficit of P6 billion, and hard pressed not to about-turn on President Ian Khama’s position that it cannot afford to give the striking workers the 16 percent increase they demand, this saga looks like it might be a drawn-out one. After all, as the unions insist, if government does not cave in to their demands after April 29, the workers will resort to a go slow. That, in essence, caps Motsamai’s warning that the action could be indefinite.
