Nairobi county workers will resume duty today after suspending their strike for 21 days to allow for dialogue with the Salaries and Remuneration Commission.
It was suspended on Friday afternoon. Some operations are back.
The strike lasted 12 days, hurting services in various department. Cleaners, clinicians and cemetery workers left their workstations unattended. The cash office was closed and parking attendants were nowhere to be seen.
The 13,000 workers want implementation of a 15-28 per cent salary increment.
In Decembr last year, City Hall promised to implement a 15 per cent pay hike. The deal was struck between the county government and the Kenya County Government Workers Union in May 2017. The agreement was registered in September last year.
The pay rise was to take effect in the 2017-18 financial year.
The strike hurt the county’s revenue collection, especially parking and rates.
Figures seen by the Star on Friday showed that during the 12-day strike, the county collected Sh800,000 daily, compared to Sh1.2 million on normal days.
Throughout the strike, more than Sh65 million was lost in unpaid rates.
County workers union secretary general Benson Olianga on Saturday told the Star the 21-day suspension will be enough for deliberations.
“We are hopeful because we had talks with the Labour Cabinet secretary, having found the SRC is being punitive. The advice on suspension came from him,” he said.
met labour cs
Last week the union officials met Labour CS Ukur Yatani in an attempt to resolve their grievances.
But Yatani said the stand-off between the SRC and the workers was “unique” because it lacked the element of disagreement between the employer and the employees.
Yatani said the only way he could intervene was to have the county bring all players on board once they agree on the discussions.
Olianga said if the SRC fails to honour the agreement within the 21 days, the workers will go on strike again. “The CBA is a registered agreement and it is within the law,” he said. “The Nairobi government honoured its part and that is what motivated us to try and push the SRC to honour our rights.”
On Monday last week, the union officials appeared in court. They had received a letter from the SRC, asking officials to appear before the Labour and Employment Court.
Governor Mike Sonko also accused the SRC of not honouring the agreement and being the major cause of the delay in implementing the deal.