KENYA DOCTOR WORKERS ASK STATE TO PAY SH 1BN ARREARS TO AVERT STRIKE

Kenya Ferry Services (KFS) workers demonstrate outside their offices on October 1, 2012.

Dock workers have asked the government to release Sh1 billion owed to them to avert a pending strike over salaries dispute. Read (Dock workers vow strike on as union fights claims of sabotage)

The Dock Workers’ Union says the salary arrears has accrued for the past 11 years and the Ministry of Transport has failed to remit full amount for unspecified reasons.

“The ministry is supposed to remit 65 per cent to Kenya Ferry Services (KFS) budget annually. Instead, the organisation has been receiving deposits that cannot run its operations or cater for workers’ salaries,” a union representative said.

Workers say their efforts to hold talks with Transport Minister Amos Kimunya or his Permanent Secretary Cyrus Njiru has been unsuccessful thus infuriating them.

In the current financial year, KFS management requested for a budgetary allocation of Sh698 million but they received Sh280 million making it difficult to conclude the ongoing Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) talks.

According to the union, the talks collapsed on October 23, after the management recommended a 15 per cent salary increment against the workers’ demand of 40 per cent.

“For the past four years, we have not had salary increment. We now want Mr Kimunya to prepare for a bruising battle on November 5, when we meet for the last round of talks,” says the union.

The workers will be meeting on Wednesday to deliberate their cause of action in case the talks fail on November 5.

In a letter addressed to Mr Kimunya, the union's Secretary General Simon Sang asked the minister to urgently address the dispute.

“Please note that employees have pushed both the union and management to the wall due to the delay in finalising the CBA negotiations and they have threatened to take industrial action if the issue of non-remittance of the 65 per cent is not resolved,” reads part of the letter.

From about 200,000 passengers using the channel daily, the ministry is supposed to pay Sh10 for each person apart from also subsidising the 5,000 vehicles through controlled tariffs that it (ministry) approved.

Early this month, the government released Sh11 million as allowances to workers after they threatened to go on strike over salary dispute dating back to four years ago.

The PS flew to Mombasa and ordered the management and the union to fast-track the CBA to its conclusion and avert a looming ferry crisis after go-slow paralysed services at the busy Likoni channel.

PS Njiru also asked the management to send a team to Treasury to request for more budgetary allocation for recurrent expenditure for the next financial year.