Court summons sisal firm boss over sackings

Volunteers sneak in donations after they were barred from accessing Makongeni Primary School in Rongai, Nakuru County, on June 16, 2016, where sacked workers are residing. In the suit filed before the Employment and Labour relations court in Nairobi, a union accuses the firm’s management of evicting the employees despite the existence of an earlier restraining court order. PHOTO | SULEIMAN MBATIAH | NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • The union, through its lawyer moved to court on Monday after Migotiyo Plantations went ahead and dismissed 324 employees despite an earlier court order that the union had obtained barring it from doing so.

The Employment and Labour Relations Court has summoned the management of Migotiyo Plantations associated a prominent political family over the dismissal of over 300 workers about three weeks ago.

The company and its Human Resources Manager Lucy K. Njagi have been sued for contempt of court by the Plantations and Agricultural Workers Union whose General Secretary is also the Central Organisation of Trade Unions Secretary-General, Mr Francis Atwoli.

In a sworn affidavit, a court process server Mr Hebron Odhiambo Omolo, who delivered the union’s restraining court orders to the firm’s offices in Alphega, Mogotio, in Baringo County on June 6, avers that the Human Resource and Administration manager accepted the service of the order dated June 2 and retained a copy of the same “but declined to sign on the principal one claiming to have been instructed so by the owner of the farm Hon Gideon Moi-Senator Baringo County.”

The union, through its lawyer moved to court on Monday after Migotiyo Plantations went ahead and dismissed 324 employees despite an earlier court order that the union had obtained barring it from doing so.

Migotiyo Plantations went ahead to evict the workers from its Alphega sisal estate in Rongai,Nakuru county, against the court order.

In the suit filed before the Employment and Labour relations court in Nairobi, the union accuses the firm’s management of evicting the employees despite the existence of an earlier restraining court order.

The firm’s Human Resources Manager is required to appear before the court next week in person to show cause why she should not be committed to six months imprisonment for disobeying the earlier restraining court orders, which were delivered on June 9.