Tea firm faces losses as staff go on strike

Work at Kenya’s biggest multinational tea producer has stalled after 20,000 tea pickers in Kericho and Bomet counties went on strike over failure by the firm to implement a pay increment they were awarded by the Labour Court last week.

James Finlay Kenya Ltd Director of Corporate Affairs Sammy Kirui on Monday said the firm was suffering major losses as no work was going on.

“The strike has affected our operations big time. None of our factories is operating as we talk, and this will have a big impact on the company,” he said.

This is a huge blow to the company which trades over 100 million kilogrammes of tea annually.

Mr Kirui said the firm could not reach the workers, who were under instruction from the Kenya Plantation and Agricultural Workers Union (KPAWU) to keep away from the tea farms.

“We are just waiting for the court process to resume tomorrow on the matter. There is nothing more we can do,” he added.

The workers were angered when the Kenya Tea Growers Association (KTGA) advised its member companies against effecting a 30 per cent pay increment, and have been on a go-slow since Thursday last week.

James Finlay is one of the members of the KTGA. However, at Kaisugu Tea Limited, Chief Executive Charles Kipngok said their operations were normal.

(Read: Farmers threaten to uproot crop over labour cost)

On Sunday, the planters’ union deputy secretary-general, Mr Meshack Khisa, said the workers would down their tools and go on a hunger strike until the pay increase is implemented in full.

Employment and Labour Relations Judge Monica Mbaru, on June 20, ordered that the basic pay for the workers be increased by 30 per cent over two years.

It was a compromise between the 50 per cent increment demanded by the union and the five per cent offered by the growers’ association.

However, three days later, the association’s chief executive officer, Mr Apollo Kiarie, issued a memo to the effect that member firms would only raise the salary by 10 per cent in two instalments of equal amounts over two years.

In Nandi County, thousands of workers at tea plantations went on strike at the weekend, as they rejected the five per cent increase in wages they had been offered by the KTGA.

They staged demonstrations in Nandi Hills Town where they warned companies against using tea plucking machines.

They claimed the use of the machines would leave 50,000 tea workers in the county jobless.