- Port Workers Welfare and Performance Group has been opposed to Sang’s way of dealing with port issues.
- Group officials appealed to the union members to ignore the strike which they warned may lead to their sacking.
Image: BRIAN OTIENO
Some dock workers have opposed the call for a strike at the Mombasa port by their union.
DWU general secretary Simon Sang issued a seven-day strike notice last Wednesday, after the management and the union failed to reach a consensus on matters labour relations.
Sang had accused the KPA management of failing to respect and adhere to the spirit of good industrial relations, the Collective Bargaining Agreement and Recognition Agreement as relates to the terms and conditions of service.
According to the strike notice issued on November 10, the workers are supposed to down their tools from Wednesday.
However on Friday, Port Workers Welfare and Performance Group which has been opposed to Sang’s way of dealing with port issues, appealed to the union members to ignore the strike which they warned may lead to their sacking.
Interim chair Waweru Kamau said Sang has a history of throwing people under the bus whenever a strike occurs.
The PWWPG said more than 100 people have been sacked for downing tools and that Sang has done nothing to defend them or ensure they are reinstated.
“Sang is cunning and wants to take advantage of the situation for his selfish ambitions,” Waweru said in a signed statement.
He said Sang’s reason for calling for a strike is not genuine, arguing that the port is an essential service provider.
“The DWU general secretary has not exhausted all avenues to warrant him to issue a strike notice,” Waweru said.
According to Sang, the KPA management has deliberately ignored and refused to apply the Human Resource manual, 2017, to benefit employees who have been in acting capacities for more than six months.
These, according to the manual, should be confirmed to the positions they act in.
Sang said some employees have been in acting capacities for more than four years.
“The union has written several letters to you in respect of the same and you have wilfully and deliberately refused, declined and failed to positively respond to these concerns of the employees,” Sang told the acting KPA managing director John Mwangemi in a letter dated November 10.
On Friday, Waweru, PWWPG interim secretary Ali Khamisi and interim organising secretary Peter Olum said the letter lacks sufficient grounds to paralyse port operations.
“In 2015, 100 KPA employees were sacked for taking part in a protest against the National Hospital Insurance Fund’s new rates and up to now, they have not been reinstated,” the PWWPG leaders said.
The three said the sacked employees, under the then managing director Gichiri Ndua, went home without pension and benefits.
“Some of them are dead and the rest are languishing in poverty,” they warned.
“Those who choose to listen to Sang must learn a lesson from the 2015 incident and considering the current economic situation, the government might take advantage of the strike called by Sang,” Waweru said.
“Sang has nothing to lose whether the strike succeeds or fails.”
However, Sang on Sunday said all he cares for is the wellbeing of KPA employees who have put their faith in him.
He said anyone who does not care about the welfare of port workers is a busybody and only out to endear themselves to the management hoping to get special favours from KPA.
-Edited by SKanyara