Senate questions Omamo on sacking of 447 KQ staff

The acting Labour secretary Raychelle Omamo was Wednesday hard pressed to explain why her ministry did not forestall the retrenchment of 447 Kenya Airways employees, and the subsequent hiring of 517 staff shortly thereafter.

Ms Omamo was appearing before a Senate committee that is investigating affairs at the loss-making national carrier, which reported a Sh25.7 billion net loss in the year to March 2015.

Among the issues that the senators are investigating is staff retrenchment at the airline, which is said to have caused resentment between the workers and the management.

KQ laid off the employees in 2012 citing the airline’s poor financial performance and declining profitability.

READ: Ministries differ on KQ workers lay-off before House team

The airline then hired some 517 foreign workers through a recruiting agency Career Direction Limited.

The foreign employees were given Class D permits that is normally given to more experienced aviation workers and were paid higher salaries than the retrenched staff.

The Senate joint committee sought to know why a statutory notice issued to the ministry by KQ about an impending retrenchment was not acted upon.

“Had you performed your role under Section 40 of the Employment Act, probably there would not have been a redundancy,” said committee chairman Anyang’ Nyong’o.

The National Assembly has challenged the senator’s constitutional authority to investigate affairs at KQ, but Prof Nyong’o said Wednesday the law mandates both Houses of Parliament to summon any person to provide information during an enquiry.

READ: KQ probe stokes Parliament supremacy wars
Written submissions by the airline to the committee show that on August 1 2012, KQ wrote to the PS in the Ministry of Labour notifying its intention to retrench workers. The same letter was copied to the Labour commissioner in the ministry. The ministry was supposed be the mediator between the airline and the employees on receipt of the notice.

An employer seeking to retrench ordinarily writes a letter to the Labour offices as well as the workers union.

KQ is partly banking on a Treasury bailout to reverse its fortunes.

READ: Taxpayers oppose Treasury plans to bail out ailing KQ

During its investigations, the committee observed that frequent industrial unrest by employees prevented the creation of a healthy business environment.

Committee members demanded to know why the ministry did not take up the matter on receipt of the retrenchment notice and had to wait for the disputing parties to approach it as an arbitrator.

Ms Omamo said the role of the ministry was to ensure the law was upheld in the retrenchment of workers and that those affected were compensated.

“Issues on work permits and foreign employees have not been brought to my desk so I cannot respond to that,” she told the committee.

She submitted that there have been a number of disputes brought to the attention of the ministry since 2005 from the aviation industry employers or the unions including the Aviation and Air Service Union, Kenya Airlines Pilots Association (KAPA) and the Kenya Aviation and Allied Workers Association.

The disputes involved recognition of the workers’ unions, dismissal of workers and employer/employee disagreements.

The ministry is currently handling disputes forwarded by KAPA involving a collective bargaining agreement and termination of pilots’ contracts.