Council of Governors chairman, Ahmed Abdullahi,declares that the ongoing nurses' strike illegal . [File, Standard]
Governors have warned that counties will take action against striking health workers.
The Council of Governors chairman, Ahmed Abdullahi, declared on Thursday that the ongoing nurses’ strike illegal and insisted there was nothing to strike about.
Abdullahi said the governors were already negotiating with health unions on the new Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBAs) and questioned why nurses had resorted to industrial action while talks were still ongoing.
“Negotiations for the new CBA are ongoing, so we don’t know why they are on strike. What they are striking about is the new CBA, and the county government is ready to engage on that, so there’s nothing to strike about,” he said.
He said the Council of Governors already had a team of governors negotiating new CBAs with the unions, while every county government was implementing the existing CBA.
Abdullahi warned that individual counties would deal with health workers who continued to stay away from duty despite the court orders suspending the strike.
“If some healthcare worker in a particular county decides, despite of all that, they are not coming to work, it just means they don’t want to work. I leave that to the county service board and the individual counties to deal with,” he said.