This trend of handling industrial unrest should worry Kenyans

The current wave of industrial unrest should be very worrying. First is because more questions than answers arise in relation to our industrial dispute handling mechanisms. Do they work, or they are not there? Secondly, these disputes are predominantly between the government and civil servants.  Mind you, the government is the duty bearer and custodian of labour legislation in a situation where either CBAs are not honoured or industrial relations are not valued and respected. It is even more disturbing when the ministries several times thump their chest with arrogance and threatening trade unions. Is the government or its representatives for that matter aware of workers’ rights and labour legislation?

Why have they thrown away dialogue as provided in the industrial relations mechanisms?

The second reason why the situation is worrying, is that, if the government cannot engage workers in proper dialogue and respect industrial relations processes, how do we expect the private sector to respect labour legislation and workers’ rights? Are we in for more trends where workers’ rights will continue being violated with poor working conditions and unfair wages? Shouldn’t this worry all of us if the majority of Kenyan workforce cannot improve their living conditions out of poor wages and poor working conditions?

Thirdly, and more disturbing is that the civil servants involved in the industrial dispute are those within the sectors that provide services considered to be the basic needs of the citizens; health and education; more so targeting the very poor who cannot afford private clinics and private schools. When we continuously plead with doctors, nurses and teachers and reproach their moral conscience using images of the suffering, we need to feed the government with the same.

Kenya’s industrial unrest is becoming untenable and in the long run the economy is what will suffer massively. This economy that so much depends on the workers!!

When trade unions have to meet the president to resolve disputes when the state has industrial dispute handling mechanisms then what we are glaring at is failure in the system.

My observation from these many industrial unrest in Kenya is the government failure to acknowledge the big role played by workers in driving economic development through production/labour and income.

And when signed CBAs are not honoured, and trade unions have to resolve to strike time and again, as we have seen with teachers before, and now doctors, it also points to dishonesty by the government, and I suggest moral failure by the state.

Ultimately, it boils down to one thing: The state has failed to recognised the contribution to the economy made by workers. The worst part is, the striking workers are often civil servants whose services address the basic needs of the citizenry: health and education.

No wonder the former Ministry of Labour has now been squashed to a department within the Ministry East African Community