Salaries –Standard Group journalists could soon pour on the streets in protest of delayed salaries.
A source has told this media outlet that the industrial action could kick off from January 6 should the employer continue withholding their four months salaries.
According to Kenya Union of Journalists KUJ, Standard Group is already served with a strike notice dated December 23 which demands full payments of any salary due.
In the stern notice, KUJ argues that the company has been attributing its financial woes to the three-year COVID-19 pandemic; what nolonger makes sense now.
It added that even before the pandemic hit the country, the giant media outlet behaved in manner that demeaned the welfare of its workers. For instance, failure to implement clauses of Collective Bargaining Agreement CBA on leave allowance.
“This insensitivity and don’t care attitude has been going on for three months, and to add salt to the injury, the management has unilaterally decided to chop salaries of staff in total disregard to the Employment Act that protects salaries of staff from unlawful deductions. The company only paid 80 percent of staff salaries for the month of October, and kept quiet about the remaining 20 percent,” the union asserted.
This behavior by the media house degenerated into un-payment of salaries as well as arbitrary reduction of staff’s monthly salaries.
“This is inhuman and demonstrates impunity as staff have for the past three months struggled to meet their financial obligations in the wake of soaring cost of living being experienced across the country. The staff have been deprived dignity, especially during this festive season where families enjoy the fruit of their hard labour,” the KUJ statement partly read.
It is reported that, so far, many journalists have run dry of money to keep them moving.