Botswana diamond firm trampling on workers’ rights

The union, an IndustriALL affiliate, says management is pushing through job cuts while refusing to bargain honestly with unions. Talks collapsed in mid-March. The union is now negotiating under protest as it believes the process is being abused but will not walk away and leave its members unprotected.

Management is hiding the books

At the heart of the dispute is a simple demand: show us the numbers. The union says management has refused to hand over audited accounts, wage records, company structure details and board minutes. Without this information, workers cannot assess whether the job cuts are genuinely necessary or whether alternatives exist. Section 25 of the Trade Unions and Employers Organizations Act requires management to share this information. Genesis HB is not doing so, making meaningful negotiation impossible.

Are union leaders being targeted?

Seven workers face retrenchment. Four of them sit on the union committee. The union believes this is no coincidence. Targeting union representatives to weaken workers’ collective voice is union-busting and it is illegal. The BDWU is putting management on notice that it will not let this stand.

A crisis made worse

The job cuts come at the worst possible time. Botswana’s diamond industry generates roughly 80 per cent of the country’s export earnings and funds a third of government spending and pays for schools, hospitals and public services that millions of Batswana depend on. That industry is now under severe pressure from laboratory-grown diamonds: synthetic stones that are chemically identical to mined gems but cost a fraction of the price. In just a few years they have captured an estimated 15 to 20 per cent of the global jewellery market, hitting hard on demand for natural diamonds.

Even De Beers, one of the most powerful companies in the diamond trade and Botswana’s most important industry partner, recorded a sharp drop in rough diamond sales in 2023 and has started selling laboratory-grown stones itself. This is a clear sign that the industry’s problems are deep and lasting, not temporary. In this climate, every job in the diamond value chain matters. The BDWU says management should be working with workers to find solutions not retrenching them.

What the union is demanding?

The union is calling on Genesis HB to stop the retrenchment process immediately and sit down with workers to develop a fair redundancy policy that genuinely explores alternatives to job losses. If management refuses, the union will take the dispute to the Commissioner of Labour and Social Security or apply to the Industrial Court for an urgent order to halt the process.

Workers will not be silenced

“Genesis HB thinks it can silence workers by targeting union leaders, but the union will fight back,” said Dominic Mapoka, chairperson of the BDWU.

Paule-France Ndessomin, IndustriALL Sub-Saharan Africa regional secretary, placed the dispute in its wider context.

“Diamond-dependent countries are already bleeding jobs to synthetic stones. Companies that respond by crushing unions are adding injustice to injury. Retrenchments must be handled transparently, in a way that protects both unions and jobs.”