Court stops Nairobi council staff’s planned strike

By ISAIAH LUCHELI

Over 10,000 employees of Nairobi County have been restrained by the Industrial Court from going on strike scheduled for on Tuesday.

The county government through lawyer Prof Tom Ojienda moved to court seeking to halt the planned strike as it breached the mandatory legal provision of the Labour Relations Act and the employees were engaged in the provision of essential services in the city.

The workers had planned to go on strike in order to compel the county government to implement a Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) dated September 1 last year but according to the county government, they were not party to the pact.

The county government told Industrial Court judge Maureen Onyango that the revenue it collects from the city was not sufficient to implement the CBA or subsidise the operational costs of services.

“The revenue collection by the applicant for the month of July 2013 amounted to Sh453,724,817 which in a year translated to Sh5,444,697,804. Implementing the CBA would require an annual cost of Sh10,439,936,631 an amount that is nearly double the total annual revenue collected,” argued Ojienda.

issue notice

The county government said the Kenya Local Government Workers Union had failed, refused or neglected to issue the national government, which under the Constitution and the county government Acts, is liable to implement the impugned CBA, with a seven-day written strike notice as required by law.

“The bargaining agreement was entered into by the workers and the national government, and the county government was neither a party nor can it legally implement it,” submitted Ojienda.

The case will be heard on September 9.