Editor's Review

"We have issued a seven-day notice to the Cabinet Secretary for Labour on our intention to stage a work boycott."

The Kenya Union of Journalists (KUJ) has given Standard Group Limited a fourteen-day ultimatum to come up with a clear payment plan for the salaries owed to its journalists, warning of a total shutdown of operations if the payments are not made.  

In a press statement on Sunday, June 30, KUJ Secretary General Eric Oduor intimated that some staff at the media house had not been paid for seven months.   

According to the journalists union, they had raised the issue in the past, but the company had not taken action, maintaining that some of the journalists were on the verge of losing their life savings.

"For seven months now, staff at the Standard Group, the oldest media house in Kenya, have gone through untold suffering due to unpaid salaries despite hard economic times in the countries.

"The Kenya Union of Journalists therefore is demanding an immediate response to the following issues, failure to which we shall force total shut down of operations of Standard Group Limited in the next seven days," Mr. Oduor told journalists. 

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KUJ noted that it had already issued a seven-day notice to the Cabinet Secretary for Labour on its intentions to stage a work boycott.  

The Standard Media Group offices.

The union demanded Standard Group come up with an acceptable payment plan to clear the arrears, failure to which the staff will withdraw their services and begin auctioning prime assets of the company to recover the funds.

It further demanded that the media house provide a convincing payment plan to ensure Standard Sacco is running, or else the company will face similar consequences.

"Staff at the Standard Group have been pushed to depression as they live in a state of uncertainty about the millions of shillings they invested and saved in Standard Sacco. The company has even defied a directive from Sacco's regulator, Sasra, to give this matter priority in its payment plan," KUJ stated.

Additionally, KUJ ordered the media firm to restore the full medical scheme for the staff.

"It has been brought to our attention that the staff, who have since been pushed to the cliff by an unresponsive company, have capped medical claims. This is unheard of, and no one applies to be sick. Therefore, the company cannot purport to regulate sickness," KUJ remarked.