THE management of Kenya Airways has accused aviation unions of not do enough to protect the interest of its members working with the carrier.
The airline, in its reaction to the allegation that it unilaterally sacked 24 of the 26 Nigerians working for it, accused the unions of truncating efforts at getting them to sit for discussion.
A source close to the airline listed several attempts made by the airline to meet with the unions on the planned redundancy of some of the workers, but the unions avoided meeting even when some of its officials came from its head office in Nairobi, Kenya.
The letter with the reference number: IR/NUATE/11/04/2018/BF dated April 11, 2018, addressed to the General Secretary of the National Union of Air Transport Employees (NUATE) and signed by Bridgette Imbuga, Acting Chief Human Resources Officer, Kenya Airways stated that the airline as at January 15, 2018 notified the union of its redundancy plan and called for a meeting with the airline, which the union refused to honour.
According to the letter, NUATE had picked different dates ranging from February 15, 26, 2018, March 6, 16, 2018, and April 5, 2018 for a meeting with the management of the airline, but failed to honour any of the dates and gave excuses for its inability to honour any of the dates proposed by the union itself.
The letter reads in part: “Despite our displeasure, we dutifully indulged you and agreed to hold the meeting on the 16th March 2018. Although, you kept us waiting at your national secretariat conference room for the better part of the afternoon, you finally turned up for the meeting at 4:30pm local time on the 16th March 2018.”