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The Kenya National Union of Nurses (KNUN) directed its 45,000 members not to report to work starting June 5 until an agreement on their salaries is signed, registered in court and implemented.
The union, under the leadership of KNUN Acting General Secretary Maurice Opetu, faulted the Council of Governors (CoG), claiming the county chiefs had shown no goodwill in having the impasse resolved.
Mr Opetu said despite negotiations on the contentious Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) being finished, with CoG and the union expected to append their signatures, progress had not been realised.
He claimed minutes of their agreements were yet to be submitted to the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC).
“Up to and including May 31, the CoG has remained silent except that they did an irrelevant communication to SRC not mentioning the resolution of the meeting of May 26 and minutes signed there in,” said Opetu.
He said in the May 26 meeting, which was proposed by SRC, an agreement was reached between the County Public Service Boards and KNUN that all nurses be upgraded and CoG was to write to SRC conveying a ‘no objection’ verdict to pave way for a CBA that was to be signed on June 2.
“It is a painful decision which will affect the public but crisis seems to be the only language the government understands and that Kenyans have to be sacrificed. In fact, this is not a new strike, we are just resuming that which we had suspended,” said Opetu.
Nurses had on December 5, 2016 gone to the streets to protest the government’s refusal to accept a CBA that was to address the pay disparities between nurses working under counties, national government and those in the Ministry of Health.
Two weeks later, CoG, Ministry of Health and KNUN signed a return to work formula whose conditions included a new Sh20,000 nursing allowance on their payslips and a CBA to be in place before March 2, 2017.
However, the government is said to have paid the Sh20,000 that was to be effective January 2017 only once.
“It is very unfair because we negotiated in good faith,” Opetu.
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