Tea pickers accept temporary pay raise as talks go on

Tea pickers have accepted a 15 per cent increase in their salaries on a temporary basis while negotiations around their collective bargaining agreement (CBA) continues.

The workers will get a seven per cent raise for 2014 and another eight per cent for 2015 with the backdated salary arrears set to be paid together with the July pay.

This is, however, on an interim basis while negotiations between the disgruntled workers’ representatives Kenya Plantation and Agriculture Workers Union and multinational lobby Kenya Tea Growers Association (KTGA) continue at the Ministry of Labour and the Ministry of Agriculture.

“We have not reached an agreement yet, but at least we have broken the ice and we are on talking terms,” KTGA chief executive Apollo Kiarii said on phone about the meeting held early last week.

Mr Kiarii said the first round of talks over a week ago was a difficult one, having ended with no results.

The workers’ union and KTGA have been locked in a lengthy court battle since 2014 before the staff got a favourable ruling last month.

Nairobi Industrial Court judge Lillian Njega awarded them a 30 per cent salary increment under the CBA, which the tea estates management challenged.

The move angered the workers who refused to pick mature leaf and eventually descended into violence.

The tea pickers, however, broke their strike last Wednesday under pressure from their employers who had threatened to sack them or replace them with machines.