COTU boss Atwoli calls off tea workers’ strike

COTU Secretary General Francis Atwoli now wants striking tea workers to resume work with immediate effect after the Court of Appeal declared their strike illegal.

Justice Monicah Mbaru on Tuesday morning ordered the Central Organization of Trade Unions (COTU) to call off the strike.

“We are on the right track now because a meeting will be held on Tuesday next week between the workers and the employers on how to implement the CBA,” said Atwoli.

Negotiations between COTU and the Kenya Tea Growers Association (KTGA) had yielded no results, as the latter took a hard stance of implementation of the CBAs.

The appellate court is also expected to give its ruling on a case COTU filed to compel KTGA to implement the 2014/2015 CBA.

On October 19 the COTU boss declared a nationwide strike for workers in multinational tea companies, demanding for the implementation of the 2014/2015, 2015/2016 and 2016/2017 CBA.

The more than 60,000 tea pickers, under the Kenya Plantation and Agricultural Workers’ Union, had also downed their tools, over the implementation of a 30 per cent pay hike granted to them by the Labor Relations court in 2014.