06 Aug 2019

Minister of Labour Productivity and Skills Development, Mr Tshenolo Mabeo says the Trade Disputes (Amendment) Bill 2019 seeks to review the list of essential services.

Presenting the Amendment Bill in Parliament on August 5, Mr Mabeo said it was considered incumbent to re-examine the list of essential services as it was important to workers. 

The object of the bill, Mr Mabeo said, was to bring Section 46(1) of the Trade Dispute Act into conformity with International Labour Organisation’s definition of ‘essential services.’

The bill, he said, also sought to ensure that professions that currently make the list of essential services, did not continue to suffer prejudice of their right to freedom of association in particular the right to strike. 

He said the right to strike was an inherent part of freedom of association and right to organisee, and that the declaration of certain services as essential was a limitation or prohibition of that right to strike.

He said Section 46 of the Botswana Trade Disputes Act made a broad list of essential services. He explained that the Trade Dispute (Amendment) Bill 2019 reduced the list of essential services in the act to air traffic control, health, fire, water and sanitation and electrical services (electrical teams for generation, transmission and distribution). 

Also in the list, Mr Mabeo said, was the provision of food for pupils of school age and cleaning of schools and any transport and telecommunication services required for the provision of the foregoing services.

Mr Mabeo said the mentioned services in the bill complied with the definition of ‘essential services’ as defined by the committee of freedom of association, which states as ‘services, the interruption of which, would be a clear and imminent threat to life, personal safety or health of the whole or part of the population.’

In the proposed amendment bill, Minister Mabeo said a list of services that were in the act should be removed, such services include Botswana Vaccine Laboratory Services, Bank of Botswana, diamond sorting, cutting and selling services, operational and maintenance services of the railways, sewerage services and veterinary services in the public service. 

Mr Mabeo also stated that teaching services, Botswana government broadcasting services, immigration and customs services would also be removed from the list of essential services.

The addition of the provision of food for pupils of school age and cleaning of schools in the bill that did not exist in the act, Minister Mabeo stated, was advised by the decisions of the committee on the freedom of association and international labour standards.

 Mr Mabeo said circumstances prevailing in Botswana were that school age pupils should be fed, especially in public schools, where children were institutionally fed, and that schools be cleaned to avoid imminent threat to such children’s health if their surroundings were not hygienic.

Furthermore, Mr Mabeo said any other related provision in the act that had a bearing on essential services and which needed amendment should be addressed by the Labour Law Review Committee as per recommendations by the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) various forums on the matter. 

Mr Mabeo highlighted that Botswana has been a member of the ILO since 1978 and ratified the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention 1948 in 1997. ENDS