Two University of Botswana’s Trade Unions, University of Botswana Staff Union (UBSU) and University of Botswana Academic and Support Staff Union (UBASSU), have reacted angrily to a statement that was issued by the University’s Vice Chancellor (VC) Professor David Norris.
The two unions said in a statement that management’s commitment to staff salary adjustment as alleged by Norris is not backed by any concrete steps.
Therefore, the unions said, this remains doubtful for the following reasons: It is now nearly six years that UB staffers have gone without inflationary salary adjustment. The statement says with commitment and serious engagement, surely six years is long enough to produce tangible results. The unions said since the last strike action in December 2022, management has failed to convene a JNC meeting where staff salary matters are discussed.
“This is in spite of the Unions’ invitation to same on the following dates: The VC (Vice Chancellor) and his team have not taken any initiative to address staff even in the face of souring industrial relations. Instead, the VC has resorted to making audio recordings on various university matters and posts them on social media, especially Facebook,” the unions said. They said this is a clear sign of disengagement. “As a follow up to the preceding, we note with grave concern the VC’s condescending attitude towards staff in some of the media statements,” the unions said.
They added that; “In particular we are reminded of his statement at the SONA that staff engaged in the strike are on a futile exercise, and somewhere else that his ten year old son thinks better than some professors, confirming to the Unions that indeed the VC is not committed to staff welfare.”
The statement says the UB management through the VC is quick to inform staff that the university has no money hence the failure to adjust salaries; this the VC reiterates even in the current statement.
“The lack of money rhetoric is however unmatched by the extravagant expenditure management is engaged in through foreign trips to Dubai, USA, Liberia and Zambia in the last three quarters of 2022 alone and the recent Kasane trip where they spent a whole week in one of the most expensive holiday resorts for a simple handover that could have happened at the UB’s state-of-the-art conference centre,” the unions said.
If management was really committed, we should not have any dispute at the JNC. “We state for the record that it is actually at the JNC where UB Management negotiates in bad faith, withholds vital information, and has not put any offer in terms of what it can afford as a response to the unions’ proposals. Neither has it provided evidence of engagement with government on the matter,” the unions said.
They said if UB Management believes in salary adjustment, “the least we would expect is an agreement in principle and only differ on the mechanics of the offer, but not to receive “the-government-and-UB-have-no money” mantra which is dwarfed by the VC’s international escapades whose relative value is yet to be communicated to the UB Community beyond social media photoshoots and posturing.”
The union said if management was committed, there would be no strike action at UB and that the “no work no pay rule” would not have been implemented as a way of easing industrial relations.
The statement says the VC’s appeal to the student community to remain calm is also not backed by any concrete measures as to what the University is doing to avert any disruption to teaching and learning. The failure to provide such measures is yet another indication of the cavalier attitude of management towards resolving issues.
“Discerning as our students are, they will discover that management has in fact acceded to a strike rule that will have serious implications on the teaching and learning. Strike rule number 10 is “no pay no work” which means staff will not do work for which their salaries were deducted,” the unions said.
“Given that the strike will be intermittent and management’s intransigence, curriculum coverage for this semester will be compromised with the possibility of no examinations taking place at the end of the semester,” unions said. They said as a result of completing students will not graduate this year and UB stands to suffer reputational damage. “Like the VC, we also appeal to students and the public to remain calm and promise them nothing short of a peaceful and lawful execution of our strike action. We assure them of our commitment to the institution and public service,” said the union. They added that; “our work environment is the students’ learning environment and that the two are inseparable. A compromise to one is a compromise to both. Our own policy, rightly titled Learning and Teaching Policy bears testimony to this.”
