RVR suspends commuter train services

[John Ashworth]

Rift Valley Railways suspends train services
The Standard
Published on 15/07/2008

By Benson Kathuri

Rift Valley Railways (RVR) has suspended commuter train services within the city until a workers’ strike is called off.

The workers, mainly from Nairobi and Mombasa, downed their tools 10 days ago protesting over delayed salaries for last month.

RVR managing director Roy Puffet expressed fear that it would be unwise to run the services when nearly all 3,500 workers were on strike.

"RVR is committed to sound and good industrial relations with the staff and will continue to encourage them to return to work," said Mr Puffet during a press briefing in Nairobi.

"We value security of our services and we will resume operations only when it is safe," he added.

He urged the workers to resume duty and appoint representatives to spearhead the talks.

However, the acting Commissioner of Labour Isaiah Kirigua, who had earlier failed to convince the workers to resume work, advised the company to lodge a case at the Industrial Court as a matter of urgency.

The grievances

Puffet expressed disappointment that the workers had declined to resume work for the ninth day running despite assurances that their grievances would be addressed. Sources, however, said the workers had a long list of grievances against the company. Among them is demand for a clear grading system and job classification.

Puffet said the company had asked the Federation of Kenya Employers (FKE) to develop the system.

"The grading system has taken much longer than we anticipated, but the FKE gave us the recommendations that have taken six weeks to do," he said.

He said the firm has faced challenges since it took over the running of the joint Kenya-Uganda Railway almost two years ago. The company incurred loses running into billions of shillings when protestors uprooted sections of the rail line at the height of post-election violence in January and February.