The Making of an African Working Class by Werbner Pnina

Author:Werbner, Pnina
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Book Network Int'l Limited trading as NBN International (NBNi)

Conclusion

The dismissal of the 461 miners in 2004 refused to go away. As late as 2011, President Khama promised the mine workers that the case of the 461 dismissed miners would be reopened. This chapter has traced the broader mobilisation of the entire labour movement in Botswana in response to this mass dismissal. It underscored the centrality of notions of fairness and a just distribution of resources by the employer in the conduct of union affairs. In the miners’ dispute, the courts were seen to side unfairly with the diamond company management, who had failed to divulge company finances and ‘cheated’ workers with impunity, hiding behind technicalities to ‘grab’ the nation’s wealth for themselves.

But the chapter also highlighted the schisms and cleavages that soon developed within the broader Botswana trade union movement. The moment of solidarity uniting the movement was brief, and soon lost in the politics of factionalism. The achievement of the MWU, one highlighted in the following chapter, was to persuade virtually all public sector workers to join a united federation – not a single amalgamated union – and together to seek recognition for the federation to become the sole negotiator in representing public sector workers on the envisioned new bargaining council, an achievement that had to be fought through the courts despite repeated setbacks.

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