The State and Organised Labour in Botswana

This work examines Botswana's acclaimed liberal democracy in order to explore the system of labour repression that represents the dark side of Botswana's constitutional framework of individual rights and democratic freedoms. In Botswana the collective rights and freedoms of trade unions, though formally recognized, are in fact severely restricted. This work argues that workers and their unions need to develop a long term strategy to increase their social weight in relation to the state and capital, and the strategic option recommended is social movement unionism. It is argued that because of the liberal democratic form of Botswana capitalism, social movement unionism, rather than overt political unionism has a better chance of success as it will not split the ranks of the workers along party lines.