Infighting and confusion hit nurses' strike

The ongoing nationwide nurses’ strike has been marred by infighting and confusion among the health workers’ top union officials.

Kenya National Union of Nurses (Knun) national chairman John Bii, who had sued secretary-general Seth Panyako for abuse of office, on Tuesday disowned the job boycott.

'ILLEGAL'

Mr Bii, who had been removed from the union in February but was reinstated by the Employment and Labour Relations Court, called industrial unrest "illegal".

He called on striking caregivers to resume work until further notice.

But other union officials were swift in dismissing Mr Bii as an imposter even after the court issued an order barring Knun’s executive committee from firing him.

Deputy Secretary-General Morris Opetu said Mr Bii ceased to be the chairman of Knun in December 2016.

The acting chairman, he said, is Joseph Ngwasi.                 

In his press briefing in Eldoret, Mr Bii faulted Mr Panyako, saying he had failed to follow due process before calling the job boycott.

2016 CBA

“It is unfortunate that we are in this scenario simply because we did not want to be a little bit patient,” he said.

He accused Mr Panyako of rushing the nurses to a strike even after receiving communication on efforts to conclude talks on a collective bargaining agreement.

The nurses downed their tools on Monday demanding registration of the CBA in court and its implementation.

According to Mr Bii, Mr Panyako failed to give the Sarah Serem-led Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) enough time to declare its stand on the matter.

The SRC threw out the CBA, saying the Sh40 billion required to effect it was unreasonable.

POLITICS

Mr Bii, who doubles as the Uasin Gishu County Knun branch secretary-general, lauded nurses in the region for not heeding the calls to go on strike.

“The union now has to eat humble pie by calling off the strike and go back to the drawing board to save face,” he said

“Or else, even the little gain we had made as a union will be lost, including the goodwill from both levels of government.”

Mr Bii took a swipe at Mr Panyako, saying that it was wrong to subject innocent Kenyans to suffering at the expense of politics.

Mr Panyako, who is in Geneva, Switzerland, is gunning for the Kakamega Senate seat.

23,000 WORKERS

“Subjecting innocent Kenyans to suffering while the process is still on is nothing but to try and gain political mileage using the ignorance of the nursing fraternity, who are being emotionally whipped to support selfish individuals,” Mr Bii said.

The timing of the strike, he said, is both dangerous to the over 23,000 nurses serving across the 47 counties and the branch leadership.

He said the boycott was likely to expose the health workers to victimisation by politicians.

He urged Mr Panyako to stop using nurses to build his political profile.

'PROTECTED'

“I, therefore, urge the members to disregard the strike until all procedures provided for in the recognition agreement are followed,” he said.

“As the chairman, I did not recall chairing any meeting sanctioning the current strike.”

But other Knun officials defended the strike.

Mr Opetu, the deputy secretary-general, said it is protected because it is a continuation of their December job boycott, which they had suspended.