Union demands for reinstatement of workers

The Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) Secretary General Wilson Sossion has called for the immediate reinstatement of 28 Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) workers who were sacked for participating in a strike over NHIF rates.

Addressing the KPA workers at the Dock Workers Union headquarters in Mombasa, Sossion – who also doubles up as the Secretary General of the Trade Unions Congress of Kenya (TUC-Ke) – challenged KPA’s move of trying to hire new employees and the use of National Youth Service (NYS) officers to replace the striking workers as unconstitutional and illegal as the workers had a right to picket over their rights.

Sossion further alleged that the current position by the management to intimidate workers at the port was part of a wider scheme to have the authority privatized and the vacancies created offered to the National Youth Service.

He added that the new NHIF rates issue was a project created by the national government to loot the workers money, a matter he said will never be accepted.

The Trade Union Congress has in the meanwhile issued a 4 day ultimatum to the management of KPA to reinstate the sacked workers considering that the Employment and Labor Relations court in Mombasa had this week ordered for the same until a court case over their sacking is determined by the court.

Thousands of job seekers had on Saturday thronged the KPA Bandari College, Mombasa County, to apply for the advertised job opportunities to replace the striking KPA employees.

The new NHIF rates have been the bone of contetion between civil sevants and the government even as the backlash continues over its contributory structure that has seen formal sector workers pay higher contributions.

As of April 1st, 2015 individuals earning Ksh 5,999 and below contributed Ksh 150 and those earning Ksh 100,000 and above have been paying Ksh 1,700.