US embassy cable - 05GABORONE1605

UNCLAS  GABORONE 001605 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
AF/S FOR MUNCY 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ELAB, PGOV, PHUM, BC, Labor, Human Rights 
SUBJECT: BOTSWANA LABOR FEDERATION FACING UPHILL STRUGGLE 
 
REF:  (A) 04 GABORONE 1607 (B) GABORONE 235 (C) GABORONE 685 
 
1. (U)  SUMMARY:  The Botswana Federation of Trade Unions 
has appealed to the ILO over a dispute between the Botswana 
Mine Workers Union and Debswana following a contentious 
strike last year.  BMWU, plagued by internal divisions some 
attribute to management meddling, is fast running out of 
funds to challenge in court the dismissal of over 461 mine 
workers.  In a separate, but similar development, a manual 
workers union is emerging from a factional battle that some 
trace to Government interference.  Although Government 
officials privately and publicly support unions and their 
active participation in a tripartite relationship, some 
cabinet members dislike them.  In order to take advantage of 
recent reforms to Botswana's labor law, trade unions need 
assistance to build their capacity to better manage their 
resources, mobilize their members, and engage as equal 
partners with management and government.  END SUMMARY. 
 
LABOR FEDERATION TAKES POST-STRIKE DISMISSALS TO ILO 
 
2. (U)  The Botswana Federation of Trade Unions (BFTU) has 
registered a formal complaint with the ILO over the 
dismissal by Debswana, the fifty-fifty joint venture between 
the GOB and DeBeers that runs Botswana's diamond mines, of 
over 461 workers after last year's contentious mine workers 
strike (Ref A).  The complaint alleges that the dismissals 
unfairly targeted union activists.  Debswana fired 461 
workers who had participated in the strike in September 2004 
and, over the following months, dismissed several union 
leaders who had not participated in the strike. 
 
3. (SBU)  According to Debswana's Corporate Communications 
Manager Kabelo Binns, strikers with otherwise clean records 
received a final written warning for participating in the 
illegal strike but kept their jobs.  Those who already had a 
final written warning on file were dismissed.  Binns 
conceded that in the past the company had bent the rules to 
retain "management-friendly" employees despite incidents of 
misconduct because they were considered useful to have in 
the union.  He acknowledged that, from a management 
perspective, this approach was "the wrong thing to do," and 
counter-productive in the long term.  In fact, Debswana 
retained some strikers with final warnings on file, which 
Debswana explained as leniency to those whose warnings were 
about to expire at the time of the strike, and which the 
union has called selective punishment. 
 
4. (SBU)  Several union leaders who had not gone on strike 
were subsequently investigated and dismissed for various 
reasons.  BMWU Jwaneng Branch Committee member Onkabetse 
Mathaithai described how the shop steward at the Jwaneng 
mine was dismissed for inciting workers to strike though he 
denied doing so and had worked with management to ensure 
that the strikers did not become violent or prevent non- 
strikers from entering the mine.  He also alleged that the 
Jwaneng Branch Committee Vice Chair was fired for 
absenteeism even though he reportedly had sought and 
obtained leave for the days cited as unauthorized absences. 
Mr. Binns conceded that management identified union leaders 
they believed to be responsible for the strike and 
investigated them for possible wrongdoing, but said that in 
each case legitimate grounds for dismissal were found, such 
as attempting to wrongfully procure confidential information 
or sabotaging equipment. 
 
5. (U)  BMWU has challenged the dismissal of the 461 
strikers through legal and political channels.  When 
presented with petitions to intervene in the dispute on 
their behalf, the Office of the President responded that the 
established labor dispute mechanisms are appropriate and 
sufficient to handle the matter.  Efforts by the Department 
of Labor to mediate fizzled when the BMWU responded to 
management's delaying tactics by appealing to the Industrial 
Court.  The union engaged attorneys but has made little 
progress, in part because it is running out of money to pay 
its legal fees. 
 
BMWU: DIVIDED BY DESIGN? 
 
6. (U)  After the August-September 2004 strike, members of 
the BMWU elected a new and more confrontational National 
Executive Committee (NEC).  The outgoing executive refused 
to hand over their offices to the newly elected committee or 
to introduce them to management as called for in the union's 
constitution.  When the Department of Labor certified the 
new NEC as the legitimate leadership of the union, Debswana 
objected that the required handover had not taken place. 
 
The company has continued to refuse to recognize the newly 
elected NEC despite the government's ruling. 
 
7. (U)  During November 1 meetings with PolOff and Pol 
Assistant, members of the BMWU Branch Committee in Jwaneng 
and members of the town council claimed that Debswana 
management had orchestrated this divide.  They asserted that 
management had made available company vehicles and time off 
from work to members of the management-aligned faction to 
travel from Orapa to mine locations around the country to 
lobby against the new NEC.  As a result, many of the branch 
committees are now withholding their monthly subscriptions 
from the NEC.  Members of the union executive, who are 
unemployed, rely on their personal resources to carry out 
union business. 
 
8. (U)  BMWU members predicted to Embassy officers that by 
year's end, the pro-management faction would call for a new 
election in an effort to oust the current NEC.  Unless a 
break-through occurs, they also predicted that BMWU would 
have to abandon its legal challenge of the post-strike 
dismissals due to lack of funds. 
 
9. (U)  Union activists and opposition politicians have 
condemned the Government's refusal to intervene on behalf of 
the fired workers.  On the rare occasion that ruling party 
politicians have spoken out on the subject, they have 
denounced the strikers as troublemakers. 
 
MANUAL WORKERS UNION EMERGING FROM SPLIT 
 
10. (U)  Leaders of the National Amalgamated Local and 
Central Government and Parastatal Manual Workers Union 
(Manual Workers Union) painted for PolOff and Pol Assistant 
a similar picture of internal divisions, which they blamed 
on political interference.  In June 2004, they said, some 
members of the union's national executive who have close 
ties to the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) decided 
to make a bid to take control of the union.  They accused 
union leaders of abusing union funds to enrich themselves. 
In response, the union appointed a four-person panel of non- 
union members, half from the ruling party and half from the 
opposition, to investigate the accusations.  After the panel 
exonerated the leaders, the disgruntled pro-BDP members were 
voted out of office during a national election in December 
2004. 
 
11. (U)  The would-be union leaders then filed four cases 
before the High Court against the members of the national 
executive.  Eventually, the High Court ruled in favor of the 
incumbents in each case but while the cases were pending, 
from December 2004 to May 2005, the union's bank accounts 
were frozen. 
 
12. (U)  Having lost their positions of influence in the 
Manual Workers Union, the accusers moved to establish a 
breakaway union.  In July of 2005, leaders of this faction 
reportedly met with their supporters, Minister of Education 
Jacob Nkate and Minister of Local Government Margaret Nasha, 
whose ministries account for the majority of manual workers 
employed by the Government.  Subsequently, members of this 
faction engaged in a campaign to disrupt Manual Workers 
Union meetings and began organizing to establish a breakaway 
union.  In an August meeting, participants allegedly 
indicated that members of the police intelligence unit had 
encouraged them to form their own union.  Assistant 
Commissioner of Labor Sissy Seemule confirmed to PolOff that 
this breakaway group has sought to register as the Botswana 
Government Workers Union. 
 
LABOR FEDERATION MISSING IN ACTION 
 
13. (U)  Members of both the BMWU and the Manual Workers 
Union lamented to EmbOffs the failure of the Botswana 
Federation of Trade Unions (BFTU), the national umbrella 
organization, to support them in the midst of these 
challenges.  BMWU members stated that BFTU agreed to file a 
complaint with the ILO only after repeated prodding.  The 
manual workers resented the fact that BFTU appeared to side 
with what became the splinter group.  Conversations with the 
President of the BFTU Ronald Baipidi made it clear that the 
BFTU has difficulty dealing with the fact that the Manual 
Workers Union accounts for the vast majority of Botswana's 
union members.  Fearing domination by one union, the BFTU 
pushed through a change to its constitution that equalized 
the votes of each union regardless of its size.  This has 
greatly diminished the influence within BFTU of the best- 
resourced union in the country. 
 
MIXED SIGNALS FROM GOVERNMENT 
 
14. (U)  Publicly and privately, officials in the Department 
of Labor have expressed their support for labor unions.  In 
remarks to the press on October 12, Deputy Commissioner of 
Labor Richard Mukuwa encouraged workers to join unions, 
observing that employers are more likely to deal fairly with 
employees when they are organized.  Assistant Commissioner 
of Labor Sissy Seemule, upon returning from an labor-related 
IVLP trip in September, expressed to EmbOffs her interest in 
working with unions to ensure protection of workers rights. 
 
COMMENT 
 
15. (SBU)  Support for unions at the official level is not 
matched at the political level.  When representatives of the 
461 BMWU members who were fired after last year's strike met 
with Vice President Khama, for example, he reportedly told 
them that he did not even support the existence of their 
union.  Minister of Labor and Home Affairs Maj. Gen. Moeng 
Pheto publicly urged unions to focus on labor issues 
"without any political influence" and reprimanded unnamed 
unionists for occasionally "acting out of order due to 
influence from politicians."  Although Botswana law, as 
confirmed by labor officials, does not prevent unions from 
engaging in political activity, these remarks suggest an 
antipathy toward unions within cabinet.  Even more telling 
is the fact that the Department of Labor has so far been 
unable to have its ruling concerning the executive committee 
of the BMWU enforced on Debswana. 
 
16. (SBU)  Given the history of mutual support between labor 
unions and opposition parties, it is not surprising to find 
that some ruling party politicians regard unions with 
distrust or hostility.  While the National Assembly has made 
recent progress in protecting workers' rights and the 
Department of Labor has taken steps to improve its 
administration of labor law (Refs B and C), it is apparent 
that individual politicians have not been particularly 
responsive to union concerns or have made allies within the 
labor movement mostly for the damage they might be able to 
inflict on their political opponents.  As the popularity of 
the Botswana Democratic Party has ebbed, some BDP activists 
have also come to see stronger unions as one more threat to 
their continued rule.  Other BDP members have argued that 
the Party should cultivated better ties with organized labor 
as a tactic for reversing its downward trajectory. 
 
17. (U)  Botswana's trade unions, long hamstrung by an 
unfavorable legislative environment, may need assistance to 
weather the current political turbulence and to take 
advantage of recent amendments to labor laws allowing them 
to organize public servants and to employ full-time elected 
officials.  During an October 13-14 visit to Botswana, 
officials of the Solidarity Center indicated their interest 
in stepping up their activities in Botswana.  Our Mission 
looks forward to working with them. 
 
CANAVAN 
 
 
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