Labour court blocks SRC from effecting new salary structure

Employment and Labour Relations Court stops SRC from implementing a new job grading structure.

The Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) has been stopped from implementing a new grading structure for county assembly employees.

The order issued by Employment and Labour Relations Court judge Nzioki Makau Monday is a big win for county assembly clerks who had sued to prevent SRC from implementing the new grading structures.

The clerks complained that effecting the grades would result in demotions and slashed salaries and allowances.

Mr Makau ruled that the new structure was unlawful because it downgraded the clerks and would have affected their pay. He also noted that the decision was made without their involvement.

The court ruled that SRC had erred in putting county assembly clerks in Job Group B and D of the Patterson classification instead of B and E3.

It established that there was an initial grading during the tenure of the Transition Authority, which placed the clerks in Job Group E3, equivalent to Job Group S to T in the civil service.

Fully engaged

Claimants in the suit were led by Kirinyaga County Assembly Clerk Kamau Aidi.

But the SRC argued that the clerks were not fully engaged and involved in their roles and that county assemblies did not have any job descriptions befitting definition of top executives who fell under Job Group E.

The court said SRC should never have placed the clerks in Class D while other accounting officers and CEOs are in E.

"The clerk is not a middle-level manager but in the band of senior specialists and top executives. They fit in the band E of the Patterson banding, and not D," the judge stated.

The clerks said aside from being administrative heads of assemblies, they were also the accounting officers, chief executives and secretaries of county assembly service boards as well as chief advisers to the speaker.