The continuing rivalry among teacher trade unions in Botswana has rendered colleges of education voiceless. It has been quite a while since the major player in colleges of education labour issues, Trainers and Allied Workers’ Union (TAWU), has shown interest in addressing the myriad problems bedevilling colleges of education. The labour movement in the colleges of education is polarized along the lines of three teacher trade unions namely TAWU, Botswana Sectors of Educators Trade Union (BOSETU) and Botswana Teachers Union (BTU) in that order. Literally TAWU has gone AWOL from colleges of education labour matters. At the moment TAWU’s chief concern is fighting for survival in an exclusionist death dance that has since seen the union run its affairs from courtrooms.
TAWU’s gripe with other teacher trade unions stems from the storm in a tea cup that was Botswana Federation of Trade Unions (BFTU) that saw the birth of Botswana Federation of Public Sector Unions (BOFEPUSU).
Allow me dear reader to digress a little in order to put this rivalry into perspective. Since TAWU remained a lone ranger in the cutthroat terrain of Botswana labour movement, it has had to parry off and sometimes wage skirmishes against its “competitors” BTU and BOSETU. In the midst of all this posturing the members have been sole losers.
In realty this rivalry is just the work of manipulative administrators of the three trade unions that have nothing to do with fighting for the rights of teachers. Come to think of it, what would individual groupings of member teachers gain from a fragmented and weak teachers’ movement? Nothing, except continued servitude. But the individual executives of these trade unions have preached imagined hate and suspicion among their flock till their unsuspecting members have swallowed the mischievous acts as gospel truth.
BOSETU and BTU have ganged up against TAWU often times and have gone all out to obliterate TAWU from Botswana’s trade union movement by engaging in rigorous recruitment drives within TAWU’s rank and file. This was made crystal clear by the muscling out of the bargaining council of TAWU by its twin rivals in concert with their comrades from BOFEPUSU family of trade unions. In return TAWU retaliates by throwing litigation after litigation at the rival teacher unions and often times wins such litigations, resulting in a paralyzed teacher trade union movement held hostage by its own greed. The poor teachers are always the losers while the executives are seen as heroes in the eyes of their brain washed flock.
In the process all the three teacher trade unions have lost focus on colleges of education while the Ministry of Education and Skills Development (MoESD) and the employer look on with amazement as the unions gore each other. The result of this is a misrepresented labour force that is ultimately forced to turn to private law firms for recourse on their sea of work related problems. This is by no means healthy for the college staff or to the education system of this country. As a result of this neglect colleges of education have become a cesspool of all forms of rot emanating from an age long litany of unresolved labour disputes.
In addition, there are innumerable hardships suffered by colleges of education which range from: poor accommodation, collapsing infrastructure, poorly financed curriculum, near non-existent teaching and learning facilities, poor conditions of service, and waning professional integrity to non-visionary administration that threaten to bring the whole system to its knees. Yet neither the representative teacher trade unions nor MoESD and the employer seem concerned. What a mess!
When teacher trade unions, often BTU and BOSETU at the purposeful exclusion of TAWU, sit with MoESD and the employer to discuss labour issues afflicting teachers and the teaching fraternity colleges of education are sometimes included only as an after-thought.
Another sick dimension to this unwarranted rivalry is the intellectual posturing within the three unions. TAWU executives have brainwashed their members into thinking they are intellectually superior to the other teacher trade unions’ members. Therefore, the other trade unions are deemed intellectually incompetent to fathom and deal with the complexity of teachers’ labour issues with the astuteness needed. Take for instance the BOSETU/BTU war against Botswana Examinations Council (BEC). TAWU threw its weight behind BEC thereby rubbishing the whole thing in the eyes of BEC, the employer and the nation. Who is the loser in the end? The poor manipulated teacher, of course.
Likewise, BOSETU is also caught up in this superiority complex nonsense as it views BTU as a chain gang of intellectual dwarfs who cannot find any other means of uplifting teachers from a life of servitude except through steeping them in debt through helping them access soft loans from loan sharks and cutthroat banks. Where does BOSETU get the moral high ground to view BTU in this deprecating light?
On the other hand, BTU fancies itself as the oldest teacher trade union that has given birth to the two ungrateful sons and therefore, has the indefatigable right to be a key representative of teachers’ rights in this country. In protecting this right BTU has gone all out to be naively intolerant and suspicious of both BOSETU and TAWU in the process vowing never to sit at a table with the conniving and treacherous TAWU. The recent skirmishes between BTU and BOSETU that made news in the local media are testimony to this.
In all this posturing the colleges of education members of these warring unions have been marginalized by the very unions who swore to protect and unite teachers across the education spectrum. Colleges of education have been rendered refugees in their own country as all the teacher unions have shifted their focus to out smarting each other for survival. TAWU has since concentrated on recruiting from the private sector, DVET and others, in the process leaving its colleges of education members out in the cold.
Similarly, BOSETU and BTU though they have sworn to open up membership, have concentrated on their core constituents and given their “subsidiary” constituents zero attention.
The solution to this would be for teachers across all levels of operation to break the chains of self- induced servitude and engage in rigorous collective bargaining as one entity.
Remember, the power of the teachers’ voice lies in their numbers. Do not allow yourselves to be swallowed into the hate trafficking by union executives who are running their own selfish agendas at your expense. It is time for us to unite under one teachers’ federation. The dividends for this would be far reaching and entirely empowering instead of divisive as is currently the case.
*David Keagakwa (A member of the Joint BOSETU/BTU Publicity Committee).
