Kenya Airways engineers singing in unity on November 30, 2017 after they
were dismissed from work. They were at Seasons Hotel, Nyayo Estate.
PHOTO | Kanyiri Wahito | NMG
Summary
- 161 technical workers have been issued with termination letters after staging a lengthy sit-in yesterday.
- They want salaries adjusted upwards by up to three and a half times to match wages paid by Middle East carriers.
- KQ's management says their latest demand, the second within a year, is borne of greed.
About 161 technical workers fired by Kenya Airways as punishment for going on strike to demand higher salaries have now threatened to go to court.
The
employees, who rank between technical assistants and senior engineers,
were on Wednesday issued with termination letters after they staged a
lengthy sit-in at KQ’s hangar at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport
(JKIA).
The technicians want salaries adjusted upwards
by up to three and a half times to match wages paid by Middle East
carriers, a demand KQ’s management has ruled out arguing that it already
increased their pay in April.
The airline has now
moved to dismiss the workers saying they are on strike illegally,
setting the stage for a heated court battle between KQ and its
disgruntled staff.
“We have already engaged Anne Babu
& Co to represent us. The law firm has already written to the KQ
chief executive to protest how we have been treated,” Joseph Oyuga, a
senior engineer, said at a press conference Thursday.
“We
expect to file a case at the Industrial Court by the end of the week
and start the legal process. We have tried to engage them, but they
decided not to engage us. We’re not negotiating anymore. We shall be
proven right in a court of law.”
The same employees
went on strike in December last year demanding higher pay, better
working conditions and management changes, briefly paralysing KQ’s
operations.
Following an attrition of engineers and
technicians to Middle East carriers (80 in the year to February), KQ
agreed to increase their pay to stop the exodus of its key staff.
'Greed'
Kenya Airways, which has just completed a balance sheet restructuring
aimed at saving the business, maintains that it has already effected
this pay increment in April and that the latest demand is borne of
greed.
“Management has been consistently communicating,
in good faith, the progress of addressing issues raised by the
technical department. Key to this has been remuneration, and this was
addressed earlier in the year,” Sebastian Mikosz, KQ’s chief executive,
said in a statement.
“The illegal strike at Kenya
Airways hangars by about 140 engineers and technicians is in bad faith
and unacceptable. The management will not be held at ransom by these
engineers and technicians,” he said yesterday.
The
sacked employees have however pushed back on this claim, arguing that
the April increment was a salary harmonisation exercise that benefited
about a dozen staff.
Further, they claim that this
harmonisation was only phase one of the bid to improve their wages and
that the actual increment never materialised as had been allegedly
promised.
Cash crunch
KQ,
which is financially constrained, now says a technical assistant who
saw their monthly salary adjusted from Sh120,000 to Sh200,000 in the
review is now demanding Sh340,000.
Production and duty
control engineers are also now allegedly picketing for their monthly
wages to increase from the new Sh340,000 amount to Sh1.2 million a
month.
Mr Mikosz and KQ chairman Michael Joseph have
both stated that the national carrier will not honour this significant
demand, setting the stage for a bruising court battle.
“These
workers don’t have genuine grievances. They are participating in an
illegal industrial action. Honestly, they are being greedy by asking for
more money,” Mr Joseph told the Business Daily yesterday.
“We shall stand firm on this; we are not paying more than we already have.”
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