•Through their lobby group, Kenya Aviation Workers Union (Kawu), the workers said they will officially issue a seven-day strike notice to the government on August 12.
•KAWU has voiced its opposition to the proposal by the Adani Airport Holdings to take over management of the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.
Image: JACKTONE LAWI
Operations at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) will be partially paralised for three hours on Monday August 12, Kenya Aviation Workers Union has said.
Through their lobby group, Kenya Aviation Workers Union (Kawu), the workers said they will officially issue a seven-day strike notice to the government on August 12.
Secretary General of the Kenya Aviation Workers Union Moss Ndiema announced that its employees will be on a go slow between 8AM and 11 AM as they proceed to issue a seven day strike notice.
"We will not be available for duty for two to three hours because we will be joining the procession to the KAA managing director's office where we will be issuing a seven-day strike notice," said Ndiema.
"The entire airport will be affected. We don't intend to launch a strike on Monday. But we will pull our members out of work for purposes of delivering the strike notice," he said during a press conference in Nairobi.
KAWU has voiced its opposition to the proposal by the Adani Airport Holdings to take over management of the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.
The call for industrial action comes a week after KAWU issued a seven-day notice to the government to halt the process of leasing JKIA to a private company identified as Adani Airport Holdings Ltd.
The union said the Kenya Airports Authority (KAA) has not yet conducted proper public participation on the proposal by the Indian conglomerate to acquire a 30-year concession period which includes a new runway, terminal and refurbish existing infrastructure at the aerodrome.
“We have never been involved as a union and as representatives of the workers, further this deal will lead to a lot of job losses” said Ndiema.
The move has led to broadening the calls for resignation of top KAA officials who are allegedly supporting the Adani deal.
KAWU, insists there is mischief in the deal and that the government is insincere, accusing the management of KAA of orchestrating the lease, and calling for their resignation.
According to Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi, Adani Airport Holdings submitted a Privately Initiated Proposal as per the Public Private Partnership Act in March this year, with the proposals currently being scrutinized.
JKIA which was constructed in 1978 has outpaced its capacity of 7.5 million passengers annually to the current 8.6 million.
The government has been considering a PPP model to aid in the construction of the facility which is projected to handle at least 30 million passengers annually within the next three decades.
“The proposed expansion of JKIA is estimated to cost Ksh 260 billion ($2b), a sum that the government of Kenya is constrained to fund due to the current tight fiscal situation,” said Mudavadi.
According to KAWU, any deal on the facility should focus on putting up a new facility.
“We don’t agree that KAA is unable to fund its own expansion, moderniation and face-lifting. That is a blunt lie. If you look at the latest valuation, KAA is worth Ksh 1.1 trillion. With that value, KAA can comfortably mobilize resources and conduct its own projets,” said Ndiema.
KAWU further says the private management of the facility risks putting livelihoods of thousands of Kenyan workers at stake.
“We will not support anything that interferes with job security. This will affect not less than 20,000 households. KAA alone we are looking at about 3000 employees,” he added.
The union now threatens to paralize operations of the facility over the proposal.