Court halts BTC Retrenchments

Orders consultations with union on 4 October Telco also ordered to withdraw its retrenchment notice The Industrial Court has ordered Botswana Telecommunications Corporation’s (BTC) to stop its restructuring and retrenchment exercise and to also meet with the BTC employees’ union to resolve the differences held. Justice Molomo of the Gaborone Industrial Court also ordered BTC to retract its restructuring and retrenchment notice. “The parties shall hold a consultative meeting on Tuesday 4 th October 2022,” said the judge. “The effect of the letters of redundancy issued by the Respondent (BTC) shall be suspended pending the outcome of the aforementioned consultation meeting.” [ihc-hide-content ihc_mb_type="show" ihc_mb_who="1,2,3,4" ihc_mb_template="1" ] According to court papers, the financially embattled company intends to retrench at least 230 employees. However, the exercise was halted after the Botswana Telecommunications Employee Union successfully filed an urgent application with the court seeking to stop BTC from proceeding with the retrenchments until it has properly consulted the union. Through its lawyers, Paul and Partners, the union argued that the decision by BTC to forge ahead with retrenching its employees before the consultation process with the union was concluded is unlawful and amounts to illegality. The union was perturbed that it may lose the right to be consulted and have no recourse against the courts if the BSE-listed company was not interdicted. Court papers indicate that around 13 April this year, a meeting was held between BTC management and that of the union as part of efforts to update the union on any issues relating to the company. At the same meeting, the union sought to establish from BTC management if it was considering restructuring and retrenching and BTC management allegedly denied that it intended to embark on any retrenchments. The Managing Director of BTC, Anthony Masunga, was reportedly asked the same question by the employees and he too denied that there were intentions to restructure and retrench. However, on 28 April 2022, BTC management issued a letter to the Commissioner of Labour informing her of its decision to restructure. On 27 May 2022, BTC management called the union to a meeting to inform it that it would be engaging in restructuring. It was also at this meeting that some employees were served with letters indicating that BTC was intending to retrench. The union was notified about BTC’s intention to restructure on the 30 May 2022, prompting it to demand certain documents from the company. At a meeting held on 20 June 2022, the union was served with a resource optimisation plan and exit guidelines which BTC wished to follow in implementing the process. Prior to that, at a meeting held on 14 June 2022, the union sought to establish if it could make an input in the guidelines but was told that the guidelines had already been approved. That being the case, the union argued that it was not given an opportunity to make its input in the guidelines. Papers further show that the same guidelines were not discussed prior to promulgation and they were approved without the union’s input. According to BTC, it presented its company structure to employees on 15 and 16 September 2022. The union argued that this process was unfair because its members were not consulted. The union engaged its attorneys to write to BTC for the company to suspend the process until it had consulted with the union on the new structure and retrenchment packages. However, BTC informed the union that it was proceeding with the restructuring and retrenchment process. On 19 September 2021, employees received letters indicating to them whether they were placed in the new structure or their positions were redundant. [/ihc-hide-content]

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Court halts BTC Retrenchments

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