Federation of Kenya Employers executive director Jacqueline Mugo after a press conference in Nairobi August 14, 2013. Photo/Anthony Omuya
What you need to know:
The employers, through their lobby the Federation of Kenya Employers (FKE), said delay in legalising the 14 per cent minimum wage increase announced by President Kenyatta on Labour Day was causing tension at the workplace.
Labour ministry officials distanced themselves from the delay saying they had done their part when they revised the minimum wages, shared the draft with employers, and sent it to State Law Office for gazettement.
Public sector employers have withheld a 14 per cent pay increase awarded to minimum wage workers more than three months ago because of a delay in gazetting the presidential directive.
The employers, through their lobby the Federation of Kenya Employers (FKE), said delay in legalising the 14 per cent minimum wage increase announced by President Kenyatta on Labour Day was causing tension at the workplace.
“The long delay is totally unacceptable... We cannot implement the new rates before they become law,” FKE executive director Jacqueline Mugo told a press briefing in Nairobi Wednesday.
The comments represent an interesting twist in the minimum wage debate from a lobby that had previously called for market - determined rates for various categories of workers.
On May 1, the President ordered public employers to raise the pay for lowest wage workers by 14 cents on every shilling earned up to end of April.
The employers have, however, retained their employee wages at levels applicable before the May Day directive saying the government has to legalise the new rates through gazettement.
“The Federation is perplexed and mystified that a simple process of gazetting the Minimum Wages, which had previously taken one month, is taking this long,” said Ms Mugo.
The delay means that house workers in the agricultural sector — the lowest paid category of labour — are still earning Sh4, 861 per month or Sh185 per day.
Similarly, farm clerks and foremen — the upper end of the minimum wage category in agricultural sector — continue to earn Sh7,681 per month or ShSh324 per day.
For the remaining segments of the economy, a general labourer continues to earn Sh8,579.80 per month or Sh412.80 per day for jobs in Nairobi, Kisumu and Mombasa.
In other towns, a general labourer earns last year’s rates of between Sh7,915.90 and 2,577.20 per month depending on the location.
Failure to gazette the new rates has also seen Grade One artisans’ salaries — the upper limit of minimum wage workers — stagnating at last year’s level of Sh19,360 per month or Sh932 per day in Nairobi, Mombasa and Kisumu and Sh18, 219.30 to Sh17, 082.60 in other towns.
Wednesday, Labour ministry officials distanced themselves from the delay saying they had done their part when they revised the minimum wages, shared the draft with employers, and sent it to State Law Office for gazettement.
“Actual gazettement is a mandate of the Attorney General’s office, which already has the draft Minimum Wage Orders,” deputy labour commissioner Isaiah Kirigua told the Business Daily Wednesday.
For individual employers, every month of delay means they have to stash cash to clear arrears in lump sum once the legal hurdle is cleared.
For labour-intensive sectors such as agriculture and manufacturing, the arrears could run into millions of shillings.
“Employers are currently facing a backlash from employees who believe that it is they who have declined to implement the new wages,” said Ms Mugo.
