With all this wastage, you can’t tell doctors there is no money
What you need to know:
- We are prepared to pay very high salaries to members of Parliament, governors, judges, county executives, and members of the mushrooming constitutional commissions, but drag our feet when doctors demand higher wages.
- Going forward, we must start debating new ways of dealing with boycotts and work stoppages in essential services and how to protect third parties who suffer in the process.
I have been closely observing the secretary-general of the doctor’s union, Dr Ouma Oluga, the leader of the doctors’ strike. He does not strike me as some militant ideologue motivated by a high sense of working-class consciousness.
The on-going strike by doctors is mainly driven by a sense of discrimination and unequal treatment.
Like everybody else, doctors are demanding that their labour be priced in accordance with the economic principle of scarcity.
Didn’t we all read in economics textbooks that labour, like any other factor of production, is priced depending on the forces of supply and demand and that the number of years a worker spends in training and acquiring skills must be factored in when determining his wages and emoluments?
We forget and ignore the fact that a student has to score very high marks to qualify for admission to university to study medicine. How long does it take to train a doctor in this country and does it matter to the employer?
I read somewhere that between 2005 and 2009, 972 locally trained doctors emigrated to other countries.
If the skills are that scarce and considering the time it takes to train a doctor, is it not the height of irony that we pay members of county assemblies more than twice what we pay our doctors?
We are prepared to pay very high salaries to members of Parliament, governors, judges, county executives, and members of the mushrooming constitutional commissions, but drag our feet when doctors demand higher wages.
The fact that taxpayer-funded wages have ballooned unsustainably cannot be gainsaid. But how can the government preach austerity and make public appeals for belt-tightening for doctors when other parts of the public service continue to live in opulence and conspicuous consumption?
The parking lots of the High Court and Parliament are full of fuel guzzlers. Every other day, doctors read about frequent raises in the salaries and allowances of MPs, big perks for members of constitutional commissions, and big salaries for PSs and judges.
The never-ending news stories about corruption and wasteful spending by ministries have undermined the authority of the government even further, making it unqualified to stand on the moral high ground to argue that it cannot afford to pay the enhanced salaries doctors are demanding
I have a few suggestions for the government. First, do not approach the negotiating table with that mundane argument that the government does not have the money to pay the doctors. It will not wash.
Second, seek to show and demonstrate to the doctors that you are struggling to dig deeper into your coffers and are preparing to re-organise your spending programmes to accommodate some of the demands of the doctors. You must go to the negotiating table with an offer, not empty hands.
Third, at this stage of the conflict, you will not achieve much if you involve Ms Sarah Serem of the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) in the negotiation with the doctors. Since doctors want to be recognised as providers of scarce and highly skilled labour, it does not make sense to introduce the issue of harmonisation on the agenda.
The SRC has yet to acquire either clout or widespread acceptance in the space of determining public sector wages. Two years ago, it suffered a major legitimacy crisis when it was forced to succumb to blackmail by MPs and made to beat a hasty retreat over its attempts to reduce the salaries of members of Parliament. So, if you want a quick resolution to the doctors’ strike, keep the SRC away.
My suggestions for the doctor’s union: First, you must accept that the outcome of the negotiations will inevitably be less than perfect. Do not approach the negotiations with intransigence because a protracted strike will be counterproductive in the long run.
Going forward, we must start debating new ways of dealing with boycotts and work stoppages in essential services and how to protect third parties who suffer in the process.
The laws governing industrial disputes and mediation of workplace disputes must provide for alternatives to strikes and lockouts, especially in essential services. The patients who have been abandoned by the doctors are third parties who have nothing to do with the wage dispute. What protection do our labour laws give to such people?
I read that Canada deals with disputes in essential service sectors such as health through compulsory interest arbitration. Businessdictionary.com defines compulsory arbitration as “legally forcing labour and management to submit a dispute to a legally designated neutral third party to settle issues not resolved by collective bargaining, most often to prevent a strike that might seriously affect the public”.
