KSDA STATEMENT

1st May 2003

 LABOUR DAY: MAJOR ISSUES FOR KENYAN WORKERS

Kenyan Workers are celebrating this year’s Labour Day at a highly disadvantaged position. The celebration comes at a time when the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) with 240,000 members has issued a July strike notice to the newly elected government of the National Rainbow Coalition (Narc). The regime has refused to implement a pay package that the teachers won after they downed their tools in 1998 to demand a pay rise during the dictatorship of Daniel arap Moi.

The labour day celebrations are also being held against a backdrop of an ongoing strike by locomotive drivers employed by the Kenya Railways Corporation. The drivers are demanding a salary increment of 25% that was awarded more than seven years ago by an Industrial court but which has not been implemented because the government claims that it has no money. The strike paralysed the railway network in the country forcing the Corporation to hire scabs from the pool of retired drivers to try and break the strike.

 Just as their teachers counterparts who have been waiting for 5 years for their salary increments, the drivers feel cheated that their salary hike has not been forth coming after seven years of waiting. For the Narc government, this year’s Labour day is a tense moment because on Friday April 25th, Doctors demanded that their pay be increased from Ksh 60,000 to 300,000 while they also called for the establishment of a Health Service Commission to carter for the remuneration of Health professionals in the country.

 The government is unable to pay teachers because it claims that it has not received money from IMF and World Bank and fresh calls from Doctors that their salaries be increased with a margin of Ksh 240,000 is likely to cause lots of indigestion to the Kibaki Administration. In fact, the best the government can hope for is that Doctors will not issue a strike notice or collaborate with teachers to stage a joint strike in July as a way of getting the government to act. Such a move would impact on other workers to take similar actions especially those whose strike actions have already been defeated through silence and inaction by the government. Strikes are becoming a natural option for marginalised and exploited workers *********************************************************************************************

Apart from the thorny issue of the implementation of the Teacher’s salary allowances and fresh demands by Doctors for a pay hike, this year’s Labour day is coming at a time when the Kenya Sugar Cane Growers Association (KESGA) has just called off the Cane farmers strike which lasted for two months. The farmers were demanding higher prices for cane deliveries. It appears that the strike was called off after KESGA leadership was compromised because there was no official explanation for the calling off of the strike.

To be precise, strikes are increasingly becoming a natural option for marginalised and exploited workers in Kenya. In fact, the fundamental question is how a political alternative capable of converting the strikes into a struggle for power by Kenyan workers can materialise. As we write, employees from five Coffee cooperative societies in Gucha location in Kisii district are on strike demanding payment of outstanding dues for 27 months.

 According to press reports, the workers have totally paralysed operations at the giant coffee processing factories in Bomachoge constituency while the workers have also vowed to resume duty only after their pending dues are settled. It is like every worker in Kenya wants the wage situation reviewed or changed altogether. On Friday April 14th, the Kenya Veterinary Association demanded that their salaries be reviewed. Although the Association did not issue a strike threat, the message was the same – that the government should expect action if it cannot act. Strike threats and demands for higher wages aside, other significant developments have also been taking place within the workers movement in Kenya.

 The Kenya Electrical Trades and Allied Workers Union (Ketawu) has opposed a plan to retrench 900 workers from the giant State owned Kenya Power and Lightning Company (KPLC) that has also been earmarked for privatisation. The retrenchment plan was announced last month by Mr. Ochillo Ayako, the Minister of Energy, an announcement that created panic among workers at the company. The planned retrenchment is evidence that privatisation means loss of jobs. The situation was so tense that Mr. Samuel Njiru, a top official of Ketawu, had to issue a statement saying that “liquidity problems facing the industry are unlikely to be sorted out through staff reductions”. Ironically, the retrenchments were being planned at a time when, according to Mr. Njiru, KPLC was understaffed. The planned retrenchment is a contradiction of an electoral pledge by the Narc government to create half a million jobs every year while it also undermines President Kibaki's message last month that since Narc took power, 7,000 jobs have been created. What Kenyans are witnessing as the new government stumbles on is a situation where instead of creating more jobs to try and put the 11 million unemployed Kenyans to work, the government is axing existing jobs thereby increasing the level of unemployment. Strike actions have ended in defeat because Workers are politically unorganised ***************************************************************************************************

We could go on and on. But the major issues for Kenyan workers include a struggle against starvation wages, lack of political representation, lack of proper remuneration sufficient for a decent standard of living, violation of the right to collective bargaining, lack of job security and lack of freedom to form independent and fighting Trade Unions with full rights to link up with International Workers organisations. The big illusion drawing the Workers’ struggle backwards is that workers believe that the liberal bourgeoisie opportunists they elect to Parliament at each and every election can represent them and struggle for a change of their poor economic and social conditions.

Teachers voted as a block believing that a Narc government would implement their salary allowances in January. But after being betrayed and told that they have to wait for ten years, and after witnessing MPs raise their monthly salaries to almost a million Kenyan shillings immediately after the ninth Parliament was opened, teachers have resorted to the tactics they used against the former dictatorship of Daniel arap Moi - strike action. KSDA has already welcomed the July strike notice. From our perspective, strike actions alone are not enough to change the immediate situation of workers in Kenya. Since January this year, at least 30 industrial actions by frustrated workers have been witnessed in Kenya with some strikes spilling over into the streets and turning violent. In extreme cases, riot police have been called in to brutalise workers demanding higher wages.

 But all these actions have ended in defeat and many of the demands that were being made by striking workers were not met. This is because Trade Unions are weak while Kenyan Workers are not yet organised politically under a Worker’s Party to fight for their interests. Without new initiatives, the situation will not change. Our position is that there is need for workers to be represented in Parliament so that their interests can be raised and debated directly by workers’ representatives practicing politics under a Workers’ Party armed with a Workers program of action. Because of their key role in production of wealth, workers deserve a say in the running of the government and distribution of resources. Kenyan workers are celebrating this year's Labour day with a deep sense of dejection. They continue to live in poverty while the Unions, which are supposed to represent them and fight for their interests, have a long tradition of working with a corrupt government after their leaders were bought off by State agents. A pathetic example is the Central Organisation of Trade Unions (COTU) that was effectively an extension of the Moi/KANU dictatorship which was defeated in the December elections. Thousands of workers in Kenya have been retrenched under IMF/World Bank programs without Union or State intervention.

Wages are low, remunerations are poor while certain basic rights like the right to form or join a Union do not exists for many workers. As workers celebrate Labour day, our solidarity goes to the suffering Kenyan teachers preparing for their July strike action, the exploited seafarers whose efforts to link up with International workers' organisations have been frustrated by the Kenyan government for years, marginalised long distance truck drivers working under impossible conditions, EPZ workers who were sacked after downing their tools to demand higher wages, Tax collectors whose grievances have been ignored for years, Oral workers whose salaries have not been adjusted for decades and Locomotive drivers currently on strike in Kenya. We remember all retrenched workers from different sectors as a result of IMF/World Bank programs and casual workers who have been denied the right to permanent employment after holding their jobs for more than a decade. This year’s Labour day should serve as another reminder to workers in Kenya that they need to organise and compete for political power because leaving their crucial interests on the hands of wealth grabbers and other looters in Parliament has not delivered a single victory. Throughout the world, workers are struggling to capture State power and Kenyan workers should not be left behind. Okoth Osewe Secretary, Kenya Socialist Democratic Alliance (KSDA ----- ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

KSDA is a revolutionary Socialist Alliance which fights for Socialism in Kenya and the World. The Alliance believes that the fundamental social, economic and political crisis facing Kenya today requires a democratic Socialist revolution with Kenyan working class taking a leading role in the struggle. The Alliance advocates for the formation of a Workers' Party in Kenya and the abolition of capitalism in the country. Contacts: KSDA Box 74, 123 22 Farsta, Sweden. website: <http://www.kenyasocialist.org>. Tel: 00 46 736533068. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++