Kisii University staff want accounts attached for failure to remit pay, benefits
Kisii University staff want accounts attached for failure to remit pay, benefits
Kisii University staff want accounts attached for failure to remit pay, benefits
Workers at Kisii University want its accounts attached because it has failed to pay wages and terminal benefits to 200 staff declared redundant.
The Kenya Universities Staff Union (KUSU), which represents them, sued in the Employment and Labour Relations Court in Kisumu.
Justice Stephen Radido found that the university unfairly, wrongfully and unlawfully declared the positions of the 204 members of the union redundant.
But he ordered that KUSU and the university come up with a compromise on or before October 14.
If they don’t, he warned, a decree to attach the university’s accounts will be issued without further orders from the court.
The case will be mentioned on October 24 for further directions.
The Nation has seen correspondence between the two sides that called for sittings to agree on a way forward before the deadline imposed by the court.
KUSU sued the university on October 9, 2020, claiming unlawful, unfair and wrongful declaration of redundancy and violation of the constitutional right to fair labour relations.
KUSU and Kisii University had entered a recognition agreement on or around March 19, 2010. The parties then signed collective bargaining agreements.
Redundancy notice
On September 30, 2020, the university sent a one-month redundancy notice to the secretary of the union’s Kisii chapter regarding 204 employees.
The next day, the university sent redundancy notices to selected employees. The union considered the notices unlawful.
The affected employees started working for the university between 1991 and 2018.
Justice Radido said the contracts of the 204 employees were sustained by an injunctive order issued on October 21, 2020, pending the determination of the case and thus they were entitled to benefits accruing under their respective contracts.
“The university to pay each of the 204 employees whose positions were declared redundant the equivalent of seven-months’ gross wages as compensation. The university to compute and file with the court within 30 days a schedule of the terminal benefits due to each of the 204 employees,” ordered the judge.
During court proceedings, KUSU asserted that the university got wrong the process of declaring the workers redundant because the union was not consulted, the selection criteria was not considered, the notice period was less than 30 days as envisaged in law and the local labour officer was not notified.
Besides that, the redundancy notices were signed by a person not authorised to practise as a human resources officer by the Human Resource Management Professionals Act, 2012 and that the university council had not approved the declaration of redundancies.
The university contended that it complied with all the required processes. It asserted that the council resolved to have the management carry out redundancies through a resolution made on August 26, 2019, and a copy of the redundancy notice was served upon the local labour officer.
It also argued that the scheme of service allowed the registrar to sign redundancy notices though the person was not a licensed human resources practitioner at the time.
Rushing to court
The university claimed the union frustrated consultations by rushing to court instead of giving talks a chance immediately upon being served with the notice and that consultations could only be triggered by the notice.
The university also asserted that the selection criteria of “last in, first out” was not the only determining criterion in effecting redundancies and that in this case, the enterprise resource planning system it had embraced made the need for employees performing clerical duties superfluous.
“The court is satisfied that the redundancy was based upon a policy decision of the council and was left to the management of the university to implement,” Justice Radido noted.
“Additionally, the decision by the university thus did not give an opportunity to the union to engage with a view to minimising or mitigating the adverse effects of the redundancies.”
He added: “The notice(s) sent out by the university did not allow room for genuine and meaningful consultations since such genuine and meaningful consultations can only be carried out during the formative stages of the redundancy process.
“The Court is satisfied that the university’s decision signalled through the notice of 30 September 2020 did not meet the threshold contemplated by section 40(1) of the Employment Act, 2017 on genuine consultations and was thus unlawful and unfair.”
The primary reason given by the university for the redundancies was the need to reduce the wage bill in line with the decline or end of module II programmes (for self-sponsored students) in public universities. The university produced reports, including from the Auditor-General.
“The court has no reason nor did the union produce any cogent reason for the court to dismiss or disregard the reports on the financial status of the university,” the judge noted.
