However, the union later withdrew its decision of taking the management to the Industrial Court after the parastatals new chief executive officer, Andrew Lunga, admitted that a bridge between the union and the management has been unnecessarily created.

He admitted that the two parties have a recognition agreement, which points out that prior to the implementation of any policy that affects workers, there should be communication and consultation with the union.

Lunga told BOPA in an interview that when he realised that the situation had gone out of hand, he decided to build a better relationship with the union and the organization.

He did this by seeking the services of an independent arbitrator, Lisindi and Career Diversity.

According to Lunga, arbitrator talked to management and the union members about why it was necessary that organizations should retrench and the rationale behind the Botswana Railways retrenchment exercise.

"All parties agreed that the arbitrator was objective and he was then able to break the barrier that delayed the implementation of the exercise." Lunga said.

Following these preliminary meetings, the two parties struck a deal and even formed a joint committee that identified steps to be followed and areas of negotiation, which they were to focus on in order to strike a fair deal.

Lunga said one of the things that the two parties agreed on was that the exercise should be voluntary and attractive to the volunteers.

He said the two parties came up with a fixed figure of P454 000 and a relocation allowance of P5 000.

There were other allowances like pension benefits and those who have served the organizations for more than 15 years are to walk away with additional P10 000. There is also a pension and leave benefit.

Lunga said because of the attractive package, more employees than expected decided to volunteer for retrenchment.

Though initially it was agreed that only 150 employees could be retrenched, the management ended up receiving 400 applications that compelled the parties to agree that only between 200 and 250 employees could be allowed to go.

Botswana Railways would spend P24.4 million in the retrenchment process. Lunga has however, made it clear that the organisation has refused to allow staff whose skills are needed most to leave.

"We have technicians, IT officers and signaling branch officers who wanted to go, but we said, "no" to them. We want Botswana Railways to be a logistic company. We therefore changed positions to fit the company to be a logistic company," he said.

The unions chairperson, Lotlampona Mokgalajwe who has previously worked hard to break the impasse that existed between the management and the union hailed Lunga for being transparent to them.

He said Lungas openness to the union and his disclosure of information to the union members made it possible for the two parties to reach an agreement quickly.

"We are happy that ultimately the Minister of Works and Transport appointed a chief executive who is understanding," Mokgalajwe said.

He said the union is also pleased with the approach that was taken and the proposals that were made to them.

What pleases the union most is that some of their members who are being retrenched are being empowered on how they can live a better life afterwards.

Lunga stressed that the management has encouraged those who will be leaving to form companies that if they so wish could sub-contract themselves to be Botswana Railways. Once it has retrenched some of its employees, the Botswana Railways, which has a workforce of between 1 200 and 1 300 employees will be left with 760 employees.

Both Lunga and Mokgalajwe agreed that the retrenchment exercise is necessary for the organization that has accumulated a loss of P62 million simply because their volume of traffic has been reduced. Besides decline in revenue, their costs have been increased. BOPA