18 Jun 2020

Department of Labour in Palapye on June 17 successfully managed to get Stefanutti Stocks Construction Company workers to go back to the negotiation table over their grievances.

During a meeting with more than 100 workers of the company, which is constructing a Water Utilities Corporation (WUC) water treatment plant in Palapye, who had engaged in a strike, labour officer, Mr Otlaadisa Koontse implored both parties to engage constructively to come to a mutually beneficial conclusion.

Mr Koontse further urged the employees to note that under the Emergency Powers Act, it was not permissible for them to engage in a strike, stressing that having embarked on a strike was therefore a violation of the law.

He said if the employees felt that their grievances were not being attended to, they should have reported the matter to the district labour office, which would in turn have assisted the parties to come up with a solution that would be satisfactory to both of them.

Voicing the employees’ concerns, their representative, Mr Loraka Bakae said they had approached the company’s management on the issue of low pay rates on numerous occasions, particularly for shutters, but such efforts had not borne fruit.

Mr Bakae said shutter hands were at some point informed that their rates would only be reviewed next year, but when they raised a concern that they would not wait that long, their pleas then fell on deaf ears. 

He said often, employers did not want to meet with them to resolve issues.

He said they also complained that given the general lack of transparency in the way the company did things, workers were likely to be cheated of their day-offs. 

He said they suspected that the days when they had not worked due to being on day-offs, were likely to attract deductions from their wages.

Stefanutti Stocks Construction Company’s human resource director based in Gaborone, Ms Thembi Gatwesepe said it was true that the employees met with her office requesting for rates review on several occasions, but that no agreement had been reached.

Ms Gatwesepe said one of the reasons why it was not easy to reach a conclusion on the matter was that the company operated not only in Botswana and a local rate review would therefore affect all the company’s operations in other countries.

She noted that the review of the rates could not be done overnight, indicating that in such matters the director of the company had to be involved, as the outcome could affect all employees, both locally and internationally. ENDS