Employers have supported President Uhuru Kenyatta’s 12 per cent
minimum wage increase but said it did not apply to other employees.
The
Federation of Kenya Employers (FKE) said that though the increase was
only meant for the lowest paid workers, most employees had already
started agitating for an increase of the same percentage.
The
employers, however, asked for a different approach to pay increase
“outside the pressures of Labour Day” saying that had denied them a
sober approach to pay hikes.
The federation executive
director Jacqueline Mugo said that the employees in the other brackets
whose wages were not increased should try negotiate for a rise through
other avenues besides President Uhuru Kenyatta’s directive on minimum
wage.
EMPLOYEE PRODUCTIVITY
“Our
members have told us of an increased agitation by employees to have the
12 per cent increase as per the increase on the minimum pay,” said Ms
Mugo in Kisumu yesterday.
She was addressing the media
after an annual general meeting for the federation’s western Kenya
branch. In the AGM, Mr Vinod Patel of Skylark Company was re-elected
chairman and Mr Charles Owele of Chemelil Sugar his deputy for the
western chapter of the federation.
During Labour Day
celebrations on Friday last week, President Kenyatta announced a 12 per
cent increase in the minimum wage bill.
“As we ask for
an increase in wages, we must also talk about productivity of the
employees we have and not only talk of cost of living,” said Mr
Kenyatta.
Ms Mugo, who said that President Kenyatta had
consulted them widely on the wage bill increase, yesterday said that
Kenyans must stop asking for pay increase on Labour Day only.
“We
cannot always be doing our pay reviews on Labour Day only. We all need
to get off the pressure there is on that day and let us talk about the
wage reviews when we have the time and when there is no pressure,” she
said.
Workers under the Confederation of Trade Unions
(Cotu) and the newly formed Trade Union Congress of Kenya (Tuc-ke) have
used the Labour Day celebrated on May 1 to “bully” the government into
agreeing to their demands of a wage increase.
This year, the unions wanted a 20 per cent minimum wage increase in what they said was an increase in the cost of living.
The unions also vehemently opposed the suggestion that the pay hike must be based on employees’ productivity.
Ms Mugo said that the cost of production and the employees’ productivity in calls for a pay hike could not be wished away.
“’Regarding
the minimum wage debate, FKE reiterates calls for discussions of
elements of cost of production such as enterprise performance, the need
for budgeting, the state of the country’s economy and productivity,”
said Ms Mugo.
UNJISTIFIED DEMANDS
She
added: “These factors should not be analysed individually but
collectively for the country to have a wage structure that is
sustainable and agreeable,” she said.
The executive
director insisted that following the president’s concern that a wage
increase, must be followed by productivity increase, workers must up
work harder.
She said that calls for a wage increase when the companies were not doing well was “unjustifiable.”
“We
hope to see workers taking the president’s advice that better pay will
easily result from better enterprise performance. When enterprise
performance stagnates, calls for wage increase becomes extremely
unjustifiable,” she said.
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