The Ministry of Labour has appointed a conciliator to mediate a labour dispute between the Kenya National Union of Nurses and Midwives (KNUNM) and relevant government agencies in a move aimed at averting a planned nationwide strike.
What a conciliator can and cannot do
Under Kenyan labour law a dispute can be referred to conciliation before industrial action, and the appointed conciliator has a limited period to get the parties to an agreement. A conciliator cannot impose terms. If the process fails, the dispute goes to the employment court, and a union that has issued the required strike notice can proceed.
So the appointment buys time. Whether it buys a settlement depends on whether the employer arrives with money and a schedule rather than another promise.
The dispute underneath
Nurses’ disputes in Kenya keep returning to the same list: collective bargaining agreements signed but not implemented, promotions and job groups frozen for years, allowances for risk, uniform and call unpaid, staff kept on short contracts, and salary delays. Because health is devolved, an agreement at national level still has to be funded by counties, each with its own wage bill and its own arrears.
That structural split is the reason these strikes recur rather than resolve.
The Kibra angle
For households here the practical question is which facility will be open. When public clinics close the load moves to private and faith based providers, and to chemists, all of which cost cash on the day. People on continuing treatment for hypertension, diabetes, HIV or tuberculosis should collect refills early and keep their treatment cards on them.
KNN maintains a directory of health facilities serving Kibra, including night cover and maternity, and we update it when a strike changes what is open.
What we are watching
Whether the conciliation produces a signed and costed agreement, whether counties commit to funding it, and what happens to staffing at the health centres serving this ward in the meantime.
Read the full report at AllAfrica News: Kenya
Source: AllAfrica News: Kenya
