Assignment on KQ.

In the current employment industry in Kenya we have various dispute resolution mechanisms
emanating from the terms and conditions of employment.

These include company designed grievance handling procedures such as mediation,

negotiation, conciliation and arbitration.

Other mechanism of dispute resolution may include (but not limited to);-

a. Collective bargaining.
b. Tripartite negotiation.
c. Industrial Court
d. Strike notice.

Grievance procedures, mediation and negotiation

The basis of many workplace disputes and industrial conflict tends to be about disagreement over
wages and entitlements. Employers feel that wages and conditions to be provided to workers are too
costly, or inappropriate for the skills and the tasks at hand. Employees and their unions, on the other
hand, feel that proposed wages and entitlements are not fair or generous enough. In this situation,
employers and employees both have grievances that need to be resolved. This is why grievance
handling procedures have been developed, to avoid costly and bitter industrial disputes such as
strikes.

Grievances may be solved at the workplace; negotiation can be effective when third parties such as
unions and the employer representative are involved during collective or individual bargaining. In
recent times, grievances have been resolved internally. There is an increased awareness on the
importance of equipping the human resource departments with staff trained in conciliation, negotiation
skills as well as experts in conflict resolution. Nowadays most companies have employed
Employee/Industrial relation managers who are trained lawyers to pre-empt any industrial disputes.
When grievances can't be resolved in the workplace, mediation - where a neutral third party helps
employers and employees reach agreement - can break such deadlocks.

Dispute resolution under the system of conciliation and arbitration

Dispute resolution refers to the need to end conflict between unions (representing employees) and
employers (often represented by employer associations e.g. FKE) concerning the terms and
conditions of employment contracts. Major disputes in employment and industrial relations have
declined in recent times and may reduce further if employees receive more power in individual wage
negotiations with their employers.

In the past, disputes over wages and conditions of employment were resolved or prevented by a
system of conciliation and arbitration. This system involved an independent arbitrator, formerly the
Conciliation and Arbitration Court that used the law to try to find a satisfactory compromise or
outcome for the parties to a dispute that usually involved unions in disagreement with employers.
Ironically, this system of dispute resolution largely failed to prevent workplace disputes and strikes by
workers and unions. Although there were few lengthy industrial disputes in the past, the system of
conciliation and arbitration was held responsible for an increase in short and disruptive strikes. Strikes
affect the productivity time of employers and business.

Workplace disputes usually needed to be resolved or arbitrated because of a basic conflict.

Employers wished to set the terms and conditions of employment for each individual, while employees
and their unions wished to bargain collectively with employers to maintain improved wages and
entitlements. When disputes eventuated, unions would regularly take strike action, until the
Government stepped in to resolve the dispute. Although workers' wages and conditions improved
under conciliation and arbitration, employers felt that this system of dispute resolution was too costly
to business and biased towards the collective bargaining preference of unions.

Industrial action like strikes or legal action became a 'weapon' for both employers and employees,
within a system termed 'Industrial collective bargaining'. In effect, this meant that industrial action
could only be used in specific situations to allow award wages and conditions to be maintained and
individual and collective bargaining to occur. Employers, employees or their unions could lawfully put
forward their case in collective bargaining. These reforms to the process of negotiating and setting
wages and conditions greatly reduced industrial disputes and hence reduced the need for dispute
resolution.

I. From the wider perspective the claim that the employees were making was outrageous at
130% despite the company’s earnings going down in the year under review. They should
have given the management realistic expectations since after all they ended up taking a
much lower percentage of 20%.This exposed the employees as unrealistic in the first
place give the fact that they yielded to this rate which was much closer to the one offered
by the management.

The time for the wages increase had elapsed and the management was reluctant to
resolve the deadlock; which was going to affect the employee’s income and other benefits
that they had agreed to implement. This was in spite of holding 25 meetings without
reaching a compromise.

The employee’s morale was also affected as they were loosing confidence on top
management position on making a favourable decision to implement the pay increase;
instead they decided to take advantage of the employees by forcing them to take a lower
increment which was not agreeable by the staff.

Legally the employees were entitled to down their tool that is after giving the 21 day
notice as per the Labour Relations Act 2007.

Ethically the employees were right in downing their tools because it was the only
remaining bargaining tool left at their disposal after they had exhausted the negotiation
options

II. The Employees should not have their pay deducted for the loss
suffered because the strike was legal and the industrial court had
allowed a strike notice. Secondly, the strike in itself is a regarded as a
way of facilitating the negotiation dispute. It was the management
fault that the issue had to go the extreme level of the strike whereas
they could have settled it before as they had all the resources. It was a
management failure to notice earlier that with the strike they were
going to incur the said losses. Also deduction of pay has never been in
the collective agreement in any negotiation dispute that resulted into a
strike.

III. Yes, the integrity of KQ will still hold as they were able to meet the
costs of all passengers that had been accommodated due to the
cancellations and delays of flights. Furthermore the Management did a
well coordinated public relations (PR) through the media and was able
to give a positive image on their operations. Also the Company was
able to sustain their creditors and debtors without having a constraint
on their cash flows. This proved that they have sound crises
management tools/systems. Because the management settled the
issue fast enough without victimising any employee, this help to retain
the integrity as there is no mistrust between the employer and
employees.