Sacked Homa Bay employees demand pay from county

Former Homa Bay County Government workers addressed journalists accussing the county government of failing to pay in line with a court order issued five years ago. [James Omoro, Standard]

A group of 68 former Homa Bay County Government workers who were fired illegally are demanding compensation they were awarded by the Labour and Employment Relations Court sitting in Kisumu.

They are among 1,000 workers who were fired in 2017 on grounds that the county government was reducing the wage bill. They moved to court to challenge their sacking, arguing that their dismissal was done illegally.

In the petition, they sued the County Government of Homa Bay and the County Public Service Board as the first and second respondent respectively.

On October 24, 2019, Justice Nduma Nderi delivered a judgment indicating that the county government dismissed the workers unlawfully.

Nderi ruled that the termination of the employment of the claimants violated the Employment Act.

The court also noted that the workers were neither paid their terminal benefits nor compensated for the unlawful and unfair sacking.

He ordered the compensation of the affected workers, which included benefits such as one month's salary instead of termination notice for each claimant, 15 days' salary for each completed year of service by each petitioner and three months' salary instead of leave days not taken to all the petitioners who had served for more than three years.

The compensation was supposed to be done within 45 days from the date of the judgment.

However, the workers have expressed concerns that they have not been compensated five years after the orders were issued.