11 Aug 2020

Minister of Employment, Labour Productivity and Skills Development, Mr Mpho Balopi, says a trade dispute between employees and management of Kromberg and Schubert emanated from reduced orders in South Africa.

Mr Balopi said this affected production in Botswana, resulting in a shut down by the company from March 26  to April 16.

“While the company was on the shutdown, the country went on extreme social distancing of 28 days, which was extended up to May 22. This then disrupted the shutdown that was supposed to end on April 16.

Upon return to work, the management engaged the Employee’s Representative Committee (ERCO) on the implications of the lockdown in South Africa and extreme social distancing in Botswana,” he said.

Mr Balopi said during the meeting, management offered employees three options of taking annual leave for the period of extreme social distancing, unpaid leave for those that did not have leave days or that employees who did not have annual leave days to be advanced leave days.

He echoed that employees were paid in accordance with the option chosen from the above for the month of April and May 2020 plus the wage subsidy.

“For the month of June, employees were paid for days worked, but work was spread amongst the employees, resulting in reduced hours of work. In addition, they were also paid wage subsidy.

The employees did not agree with these options and they embarked on an industrial action on June 29,” he said.

Mr Balopi said following his intervention and apprehension of the trade dispute by the office of commissioner of labour and social security, the tripartite comprising his ministry, Business Botswana (BB) and Botswana Federation of Trade Unions (BFTU) mediated the matter from June 30 to July 3.

He stated that the mediation by the tripartite resulted in an amicable settlement that was reached on July 3.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, on July 26, the office of commissioner received information from the management of Kromberg and Schubert indicating that some employees had embarked on industrial action, said Mr Balopi.

According to Minister Balopi, the tripartite convened a meeting on July 27 with a view to assisting the parties and it emerged from the meeting that the contentious issue was the July wages, which were found to have lot of errors.

Collectively, these errors included, erroneous deductions of stop orders, non-payment of shift allowance, non-payment of efficiency bonus and non-payment of paid public holidays and days worked, Mr Balopi said.

Although management acknowledged these errors and attributed them to their payroll system, Mr Balopi said employees nevertheless decided to go on an industrial action because they felt  management did not communicate with them.

Mr Balopi said at the mediation hearing, management indicated that corrections were being made in the payroll and would be completed by July 28.

Therefore, management made a commitment to pay any discrepancies by July 31.

“However, the investigations revealed that some employees were paid accordingly and nothing was owed to them. This once more resulted in dissatisfied by some employees, who then embarked on another industrial action on July 29,” he said.

Mr Balopi highlighted that the said employees were reported to have been violent and this resulted in injuries to some people and damage to property.

He explained that police were called to stabilise the situation. In addition, on July 30,  10 employees were arrested  for unlawful gathering and violation of COVID-19 protocols.  

He was responding to a question from MP for Sefhare - Ramokogonami, Dr Kesitegile Gobotswang, who had asked if the minister was aware that contrary to his recent public pronouncements on the labour dispute between Kromberg and Schubert and the workers was amicably resolved, the situation remained volatile.

He wanted the minister to further state what the ministry was doing to resolve the issue. ENDS