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{
    "id": 998965,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/998965/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 314,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Sen. Sakaja",
    "speaker_title": "",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 13131,
        "legal_name": "Johnson Arthur Sakaja",
        "slug": "johnson-arthur-sakaja"
    },
    "content": "As I said earlier, in our consultations, we have met with the Federation of Kenya Employers (FKE) and Central Organization of Trade Unions (COTU) on top of the other stakeholders. This is what we agreed on labour relations; that the Cabinet Secretary responsible for matters relating to labour, shall with approval of Parliament develop measures to cushion employers and employees during a pandemic. Secondly, that the measures taken by an employer who is adversely affected by a pandemic with respect to an employee, shall not contravene the existing employment and labour relations laws. In the Labour Relations Act and the Employment Act, there are a lot of provisions already that in normal operations of the law, include notice and an agreement between the employer and employee in case they need to review salaries et cetera through their unions or where there are no unions, directly. What we had proposed earlier was that, an employer shall not force an employee to take a salary cut and to send them on an unpaid leave. Many people are not able to do that if you look at our restaurants and the tourism sector. This is because money does not exist. Many employees are saying that they would rather halve, if they used to be paid Kshs.100,000 and the employer says they can do KShs.50,000, half of the salary instead of them being fired. Therefore, we want to leave the leeway and give them space to be able to agree through this. However, to remember that we have other laws, and that is why we are taking up as a Committee the issue of Fairmont Hotel. There are other laws that exist currently that cushion employers and employees. That is the import of the amendment by our Committee."
}