The nurses’ strike has been called off countrywide, according to Kenya National Union of Nurses (KNUN) Secretary General Seth Panyako. Panyako said this when he appeared before the Employment and Labour Relations Court, together with two other officials on Tuesday for disobeying Court orders to call off the strike. The KNUN Secretary General told Judge Nelson Obuodha that the strike had been called off and that he hadn’t been served with the required papers. The officials were pardoned by the Court. Speaking outside the Court, Panyako reiterated that he hadn’t been served with the Court papers and that the nurses union respects the rule of law, and that any perception that they wouldn’t honour Curt orders was a misquote.
He said that there was a lot of misinformation given to the Judge, including statements that he said he wouldn’t obey the Court orders, and that he would never obey President Uhuru Kenyatta’s orders to call off the strike. “We were saying we hadn’t been served, and that remains our position up to now,” he said. The nationwide strike which had affected select Counties hinged on the failure by the two levels of government to effect an agreement between them and the nurses union, which was agreed back in 2017. The strike commenced on 4th February and has lasted approximately three weeks, with patients in the affected Counties bearing the weight.
Labour CS Ukur Yattani had urged the union officials to call off the strike to pave the way for conciliation talks, and an order had been issued by the Court calling for the same. However, Panyako has said the structure of the talks is still a sticking point, given the position of the Council of Governors. “The issue of conciliation is very tricky because it must happen between an employer, a trade union and the government, that’s the conciliator. In this case, conciliation has been happening between the union and an amorphous organization and the conciliator,” he said, “That has to be corrected first. We want to conciliate with the employer, these are the County Public Service Boards, and the Ministry of Health. The CoG is not a body established in Kenya to represent 47 County governments, it’s not registered by the Ministry of Labour as an employers organization and it’s not even established in the Constitution of Kenya as a corporate body.”
On the issue of sacking the nurses who failed to return to work following the President’s orders, Panyako said even the Head of State is not above the law, and consequently, he can’t order the sacking or dismissal of anybody, “He has only employed Cabinet Secretaries, those are the people he can fire,” he said adding that firing the CSs, PSs and CASs is also a procedure and can’t be done haphazardly.