COTU Secretary General Francis Atwoli in his acceptance speech as the President of the Global Industrial Relations Oversight Board (GIRO) in Switzerland took to seting up the Kenyan government for treating striking workers at the Jomo Kenyatta Internationsl Airport as criminals.
The protest of the Kenya Aviation Workers Union (KAWU) earlier this month was declared a criminal act by Transport Cabinet Secretary James Macharia, as government deployed military to disperse the workers.
According to a press release by the Central Organization of Trade Union (COTU), “Atwoli cited the recent developments in the Aviation Industry where trade union officials were treated as criminals and dragged into a non- competent Principal Magistrate’s Court to hear a dispute that the Magistrate was not competent to hear.”
This was met by a decision by the international board to “take up the matter immediately.”
“The delegates who attended the conference stood up in unison to condemn these developments and demanded that GIRO takes up the matter immediately with a view to reporting and taking appropriate action against the Kenyan Government,” read the press release.
The aviation workers were striking against a proposed merger of the Kenya Airports Authority, which would see Kenya Airways take over the operations of Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.
GIRO is the sole body charged with the mandate of regulating and oversighting all Industrial Relations matters as well as monitoring and reporting any cases of abuse at the workplace globally and has field officers throughout the world who execute this mandate covertly and with precision.