27 Jan 2025

 Plans to register the Public Service Bargaining Council (PSBC) are said to be at an advanced stage.

This emerged in a Friday meeting between the Minister for State President, Mr Moeti Mohwasa and representatives of unions in Gaborone. During the discussions, the parties agreed that the council should be registered by the end of next month.

In an interview after the meeting, Mr Mohwasa stated that government treated the matter as urgent because it believed in the right of workers to bargain and protect their interests. He said there was also a need to dispel misconceptions that unionism was about strikes.

“Unions are meant for employees to present their issues and concerns to the employers in an orderly manner, which helps prevent anarchy. That is why, as a government, we do not have any problem with even the disciplined forces or the private sector unionising,” he said.

Mr Mohwasa also said that for negotiations between unions and government to be always cordial, there was a need to balance between the government having a strong and organised business and employees having intense and organised labour.

“Government has to strike a balancing act between ensuring service delivery and resources availability to the people as well as ensuring the welfare of employees, all of which draw from the same budget pot,” he said.

To achieve this balance, he said, the government must always be transparent and not negotiate in bad faith with unions so that they would better appreciate if their demands could not be met. He also indicated that government had no interest in controlling unions or meddling in their internal issues.

For his part, the unions’ representative, Mr Agang Gabana applauded government for urgently laying the groundwork for establishing the council. 

“In the past session of Parliament, the government amended the Public Service Act to delete some clauses that have been hampering the establishment of the council, and now we are mapping the way forward on ultimately establishing and registering it,” he said.

He said that without the council, negotiating was a cumbersome exercise because the government had to sit with different unions individually.  He expressed hope that coming together into one bargaining unit would make any necessary discussions much smoother. Mr Gabana added that the commitment by the new government to return the council was welcome.

For her part, the Directorate of Public Service Management (DPSM) director, Ms Gaone Macholo concurred that having the unions as one entity through the bargaining council would make negotiations more manageable and practical.

“We could not negotiate well with them because they were fragmented, now, it will be easier to negotiate with them as a unit,” she said. 

Ms Macholo noted that the main hindrance in establishing the bargaining council had been that the constitution required all the unions to consent.

“With the new amendment, however, a simple majority would allow decisions to pass. This will also help determine who sits at the negotiations table, and unions with a small membership will have to act jointly with those with large membership,” she said.

The DPSM and the unions are expected meet and look into the council’s constitution before moving to register it. ENDS