Respite for City Hall as workers temporarily call of strike
The Nairobi County Government has 10 days to come up with a counter collective bargaining agreement (CBA) following the temporarily calling off a strike that was to begin on Tuesday.
The over 13,000 workers had in a letter dated December 15, 2016 given a notice of strike after the collapse of CBA talks.
The Kenya County Government Workers’ Union, which met with the Nairobi Governor Evans Kidero and the County Secretary Dr Robert Ayisi, said they agreed to bring a counter offer to the table by January 18th 2017.
The union’s chairman Bernard Inyangala said that they are demanding 80 per cent salary increase for the least paid county workers and 40 per cent salary increase for the highly paid officers.
He added that they also demanded confirmation letters of over 500 workers in the city mainly those employed by the public health and other sectors.
GRIEVANCES
The chairman added that they had agreed that the demands be implemented within 60 days after they have made the agreement with City hall.
“We have stopped the strike temporarily as we are still in talks with the county once we see the counter offer they are going to give us we will make the decision,” said Mr Inyangala.
Other grievances they had cited included promotions, non-remittance of statutory deductions, salary payment delays and appointment letters as some of their grievances.
“In reference to the CBA, this union and the Nairobi County signed a recognition agreement on February 27, 2014 but no collective bargaining agreement has ever been concluded since then,” said the letter dated 15th 2016.
He said that the county had also agreed to pay its workers every fifth day of the month hence there will be no salary delay.
NEGOTIATIONS
Speaking to Nation the County Secretary Dr Ayisi said that they had reached an agreement with the union and they have called off the parade outside City Hall by its workers.
Dr Ayisi said that the county will give its offer to the union by the agreed dates and then negotiations to start immediately.
“The best thing is that we have made a progress and we have agreed that we will give our offer by January 18, 2017 by 5pm the parade by workers on Tuesday is officially off,” said Dr Ayisi.
He added that the county public service board will start on promotion as soon as possible while in July all the workers will receive gross salary with the county having remitted the statutory deductions.
