Workers attack Atwoli for defending MPs payrise

Central Organisation of Trade Unions secretary general Francis Atwoli addresses unionists at Cotu headquarters in Nairobi on April 20, 2013. He has been criticised for supporting MPs payrise. 

By BY AGGREY MUTAMBO amutambo@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted  Tuesday, April 30   2013 at  15:21

IN SUMMARY

The Worker’s Right Watch (WRW), an NGO that campaigns for employers to respect rights of workers says Mr Atwoli is “ill-informed and up to no good” in his argument that MPs’ salaries should not be reduced.

A workers’ rights lobby group has criticised Central Organisation of Trade Unions (COTU) secretary-general Francis Atwoli for defending MPs’ demands for payrise and calling for the Salaries and Remuneration Commission to be disbanded.

The Worker’s Right Watch (WRW), an NGO that campaigns for employers to respect rights of workers says Mr Atwoli is “ill-informed and up to no good” in his argument that MPs’ salaries should not be reduced.

Mr Steve Ouma, a lead researcher on employment affairs at the organisation and the president of the Legal Resources Centre in Nairobi told journalists on Tuesday that the Salaries Commission has a role to bridge the inequalities and should be left to work.

“He is either deliberately misleading the country or distorting the facts about the state of remunerations in Kenya,” he said in Nairobi.

“What the secretary general of Cotu ought to have done is to use the precedent set by the Commission to push for quality in remuneration in companies where workers are members of Cotu.”

WRC argued Cotu’s engagement on the matter should start with reducing the pay gap between senior officials and junior officials in rather than defending a “minority of people and supporting inequality.”

“We reject on that rhetoric by Cotu and we call on the workers not to be hoodwinked by Toil’s own machinations and call for equity in salary distributions at the workplace.”

Mr Atwoli has been campaigning for the disbandment of the Commission on the basis that it violated the International Labour Organisation principle of not reducing the pay of an employee.

The commission under its Chair Sarah Serem recommended that MPs pay be reduced from the Sh851, 000 they used to earn to Sh532, 000 as a way of reducing the national wage bill.
But a section of MPs complained the money could not be enough to enable them do their work.

On Monday, Mr Atwoli defended his stand, arguing that he was not for increasing MPs pay, but was only against the reduction.

“I have never agitated nor advocated for MP’s salary hike (but) you can never reduce a worker’s pay which has already been agreed between him and the employer,” he said at a Thanksgiving ceremony in Nairobi.

“Cotu will be setting a dangerous precedent if we can’t stand firm and protect the wages paid to every workers irrespective of their stature in the society,” he added in a paid-up ad.

On Monday, Machakos Senator Johnstone Muthama also reprimanded Atwoli for calling for the dissolution of SRC
.