The Manual Workers Union has successfully interdicted BotswanaPostal Services Limited from implementing the new terms and conditions of employment for its members without its knowledge.

The union, the National Amalgamated Local and Central Government & Parastatal Workers Union took BotswanaPost to court seeking to stop them from implementing terms and conditions of the workers that fall under their membership without being involved on their behalf.

On Monday, Justice Isaac Bahuma of the Gaborone Industrial Court agreed with the union saying the conduct of the Post of giving the applicants’ members revised conditions of service one day and ordering them to sign same on the following working day was totally wrong.

“The act is indicative of an entity determined to circumvent and deny its employees the right to bargain in good faith. It is thus appropriate to interdict the conduct of the Post, no other remedy can provide similar protection,” he said.

Justice Bahuma explained that in the event that the right to bargain was not availed, reasonable apprehension of injury was inevitable that is why a trade union by its nature advances and protects the right of its members, while without it its members are exposed to the might of the employer.

He said apprehension of harm under such circumstances was reasonable because the right of the union to bargain on behalf of its members was statutory. “The court has established that the employees who are a subject matter of this case are members of the applicant, therefore, the union has a right to bargain on the employee’s behalf,” the judge noted.

The judge also pointed out that the act of dealing directly with employees and circumventing the manual workers union was an infringement of their right to bargain.

He said the argument by the Post that the employees whose conditions of employment have been varied were not members of the union was flawed.

Justice Bahuma explained that it was common cause that the union was recognised on August 1, 2022 and that the Post by its conduct accepted the employees in question as members of the union noting that they did so by accepting the list of proposed members that included the employees in question and deducting monthly subscriptions from the employees in question and remitting same to the union.

The judge emphasised that on that basis, the applicant has a right since there was evidence that the employees who are the subject matter of this are members of the applicant’ trade union and the union was entitled to bargain on their behalf as well as to represent them in court.

“The Post argues that as at January 2022 the union was not a recognised trade union at the Post’s work place and it was therefore, incapable of representing any of the employees let alone engage in conduct on their behalf but the question is who were they representing?” he asked.

He questioned the Post’s argument saying if it negotiated with the union on conditions of service in January 2011, who were they representing and where they got the mandate to represent since they were not a recognised union.

Justice Bahuma said the argument was flawed in the sense that even assuming there was employee consultation on the conditions of service in January 2022, the moment the union joined the fray by way of recognition it was entitled to represent its members on all workplace matters including those that are pending from the time the union recognition was not in place.

“Such that even if the negotiations started in January 2022 it does not preclude the right of the union to bargain on behalf of its members once it is recognised,” he said. In conclusion, the judge ordered that the terms and or conditions of service concluded by the Post and members of the union on or around August 29, 2022 be declared invalid and set aside.

That the post and its agent be interdicted from conducting consultations and or negotiations on new terms and conditions of service of members of union without its knowledge and involvement.