On November 21, 2018, Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko warned that nurses in the county would lose their jobs if they took part in the planned December 10 strike. He said the county was already moving to hire replacements and insisted the walkout would be unlawful.
The warning came after the Kenya Union of Nurses issued a 21-day strike notice on Monday over what it described as unpaid service and uniform allowances. Clinical officers were also protesting separately, saying NHIF policies were limiting the scope of services they could provide.
Speaking to journalists on Wednesday, Sonko said the county had already complied with the signed CBA and that the strike threat had no legal basis. He added that the county had the capacity to bring in private nurses if needed.
"We have a good working relationship with them and I'm not intimidating them, but if they strike, I will sack them. I do not want to go through that route,” he said.
He also said: "We have the capacity of hiring private nurses, but with the working relationship we have, I' sure they will not engage in the strike."
Sonko further said nurses "will be charged with murder" if any patient died during the strike period, and said the nurses' increment would be reflected in that month's salary. He added that the chief officer had drafted a letter to the union stating that the county was complying and that any participation in the strike would be illegal.
In response, Kenya Union of Nurses secretary general Seth Panyako said the planned strike was meant to push for implementation of a return-to-work formula signed in November 2017. He said the union had made several attempts to engage the county through correspondence and requested a meeting, but had not received anything concrete.
The return-to-work formula signed on November 2, 2017, committed the national and county governments to raise the nurses’ service allowance by Sh10,000 in three phases. The agreement set out increases of Sh3,000 in the 2018-19 financial year, Sh3,500 in 2019-20, and another Sh3,500 in 2020-21.
