Nearly 5,000 KNH workers threaten strike over delayed higher salaries
Kenyatta National Hospital workers under Kudheiha, KNUN and KMPDU announce a seven-day strike notice over delayed higher salaries and allowances at the facility in Nairobi on September 21, 2020.
What you need to know:
- They demanded implementation of resolutions from the State Corporation Advisory Committee that were passed in 2012, which upgraded the hospital’s parastatals status from 3C to 7A.
- Following the re-categorisation of the facility, all staff working at KNH were supposed to get enhanced pay but this did not happen, causing some staff to go on strike late last year.
About 5,000 workers at the Kenyatta National Hospital (KNH) have issued a seven-day strike notice over delayed disbursement of improved salaries and allowances.
Kenya Union of Domestic, Hotels, Educational Institutions and Hospital Workers (Kudheiha), the Kenya National Union of Nurses (KNUN) and the Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KMPDU) made the announcement on Monday.
They demanded implementation of resolutions from the State Corporation Advisory Committee that were passed in 2012, which upgraded the hospital’s parastatal status from 3C to 7A.
Following the re-categorisation of the facility, all staff working at KNH were supposed to get enhanced pay but this did not happen, causing some staff to go on strike late last year.
During this time, KNH management and staff discussed a return-to-work formula.
In a letter dated February 12, 2013 to then-Finance Principal Secretary, KNH detailed the breakdown of the salaries from the CEO to the lowest Job Group K16/17.
The lowest basic salary for the hospital CEO was set at Sh400, 000 and the maximum capped at Sh560, 000, with house allowance between Sh60, 000 and Sh80, 000. The lowest worker’s basic pay was set at Sh17,535.
Job evaluation
However, the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) said the formula is not a basis for demanding a review of remuneration as it is not only fiscally unsustainable but will also cause distortions in salary structure in the sector.
KMPDU’s acting Secretary-General Chibanzi Mwachonda said the hospital management has attempted to solve the matter on several occasions but the SRC has maintained that KNH retains the current remuneration structure as it awaits job evaluation for remuneration review cycle 2021/22 to 2014/25.
“In view of the above, we demand that the hospital implement a salary for all employees working in your facility as approved by the State Corporation Advisory Committee through a letter dated September 13, 2020 within seven days, failing which all employees represented by the signed unions will commence a strike on September 28,” he said.
The union’s Nairobi branch secretary Thuranira Kaugiria said the matter lies squarely with the SRC, and not the employer or Treasury.
Dr Kaugiria added that without a letter from the SRC approving the revised salaries, they will begin their strike on Monday.
Governors’ move
The strike threat comes at a time unions have directed health workers who have not been paid to stay at home.
This means that the minimal outpatient services that governors promised when they shut down counties on Wednesday may not be provided, after all.
In a joint statement on Thursday, doctors, nurses, clinicians, dietitians, and officials from other unions, said the move by governors to send home a bulk of their employees, who have gone without salaries for three months, was sufficient to ask their members to stay at home.
Dr Mwachonda said those who will not have been paid by next week should not report to work.
“We have seen a push-and-pull between the county and the national government, yet there is only one government. We have noticed that when it comes to salaries, they always say there is no money so let them come clean and say they do not want to offer services to the people,” he said.
