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Botswana: Teachers' Unions Ponder Merger
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Mmegi/The Reporter (Gaborone)
10 March 2008
Posted to the web 11 March 2008
Tumelo Setshogo
Gaborone
Two of Botswana teacher's unions, Botswana Teachers Union (BTU) and Botswana Secondary Teachers Union (BOSETU) are expected to meet on Friday to start negotiations on forming one union.
Newly appointed BOSETU executive secretary and former publicity secretary, Justin Hunyepa, broke the news on Friday at the just ended Botswana Business Subjects Association (BOBUSA) conference at Maharaja.
He said in the past the teacher's unions have consulted with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) to help them form one union "but it didn't work out".
Botswana Teachers Union (BTU) gave birth to BOSETU and the Botswana Primary Teachers Association (BOPRITA), which has not unionised.
Secondary teachers who believe that BTU was not adequately advocating for the improvement of their working and living conditions formed BOSETU in 1987.
Hunyepa said the teachers' organisations work together on national and workers issues in different forums and "I don't understand why we are failing to make one strong organisation which will be the sole voice of the teachers".
This will be good news for BTU as they recently said they were ready to form one union, "even if it means changing their name". At the time of going to print, BTU secretary general, Keorapetse Kgasa, was not available for comment.
Government employs more than 20,000 teachers in which BTU has a majority of more than 11,000 while BOSETU has about 8,000.
However, the BOSETU boss said the problem which might hinder progress is that some teacher organisations claim to be more educated than others. He said these are some of the issues delaying the teaching fraternity to succeed in advocating for teachers' welfare.
Contacted for comment, BOSETU president and mastermind behind initiating the negotiations, Eric Ditau said it is still too early to discuss the issue with the media "as I have not received a reply from BTU". Ditau confirmed that he wrote an invitation letter to BTU for a meeting.
Some believe that the announcement by the Minister of Finance and Development Planning, Baledzi Gaolathe, in the budget that the government owned vehicle and property scheme known as GEMVAS will be privatised could have forced BOSETU to team up with BTU.
Gaolathe told Parliament that the scheme would be given to citizen owned companies to manage it. After this announcement, the Botswana Public Employees Union (BOPEU) and Manual Workers Union teamed up to form a company that will bid for the scheme.
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In an interview at the time Andrew Motsamai, president of BOPEU, said MFDP permanent secretary, Serwalo Tumelo had assured them of his support.
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