Governors threatens action against striking nurses as union presses governors over CBA

Council of Governors chairman, Ahmed Abdullahi,declares that the ongoing nurses’ strike illegal. [File, Standard]

Governors have warned that counties will take action against striking health workers.

The Council of Governors chairman, Ahmed Abdullahi, declared on Thursday that the ongoing nurses’ strike illegal and insisted there was nothing to strike about.

Abdullahi said the governors were already negotiating with health unions on the new Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBAs) and questioned why nurses had resorted to  industrial action while talks were still ongoing.

“Negotiations for the new CBA are ongoing, so we don’t know why they are on strike. What they are striking about is the new CBA, and the county government is ready to engage on that, so there’s nothing to strike about,” he said.

He said the Council of Governors already had a team of governors negotiating new CBAs with the unions, while every county government was implementing the existing CBA.

Abdullahi warned that individual counties would deal with health workers who continued to stay away from duty despite the court orders suspending the strike.

“If some healthcare worker in a particular county decides, despite of all that, they are not coming to work, it just means they don’t want to work. I leave that to the county service board and the individual counties to deal with,” he said.

On Universal Health Coverage (UHC) workers, Abdullahi said the COG had held a meeting to discuss their employment and funding, saying governors were seeking to entrench funding for the cadre to ensure money was available to sustain them.

He said UHC workers should report to work because they were being paid, while governors were open to their demand to be employed on permanent and pensionable terms.

“We are okay with their push to be put on PNP. However, we need to match the funding model with the kind of contract they are seeking,” he said.

Abdullahi said the COG was also seeking to ensure that the funding model for UHC workers matched the employment terms being demanded by the nurses.

The remarks came as nurses marched to the COG offices at Delta House in Nairobi, demanding that governors address the grievances that have kept them out of public hospitals for more than a week.

The nurses demanded that governors sign the negotiated CBA and take it to the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) for approval, maintaining that the agreement had already been negotiated and that the ball was now in the governors’ court.

The union officials were later allowed into the COG offices, where they met Abdullahi.

Addressing journalists before the meeting, KNUNM Deputy Secretary General Maurice Opetu said nurses would remain on strike until the outstanding issues were resolved.

He said the negotiations had already yielded an agreement on several monetary items, including an increase in uniform allowance from Sh10,000 to Sh15,000 in the first quarter, Sh20,000 in the second and Sh25,000 in the third.

The nurses are also seeking an increase in nursing allowance from Sh20,000 to Sh30,000 and a monthly risk allowance of Sh10,000.

“The CBA has been agreed upon. What we want is the Council of Governors to come down from the high towers where they are standing. Come down and sign the CBA,” Opetu said.

The union is also demanding permanent and pensionable (PNP) letters and payroll adoption for UHC nurses, implementation of career progression guidelines and reinstatement of the 48 nurses dismissed by Kisii County.

The nurses have maintained that court orders directing them to resume work will not resolve the issues behind the strike.

They also criticised threats of replacing striking nurses, saying the courts should not intimidate them with replacement.

The contrasting positions leave the strike at an impasse, with governors insisting negotiations are ongoing and workers should return to duty while nurses maintain that they will not resume work until the CBA and other outstanding grievances are addressed.