The demands of striking doctors are unfair and unaffordable, according to the SRC

The Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) has reprimanded striking doctors demanding that the government respect the collective agreement signed in 2017.

Doctors working in public hospitals have been on strike since mid-March, causing untold suffering to poor Kenyans who rely on public hospitals.

The Commission declared that the doctors’ demands are unfair, unaffordable, unsustainable and inequitable.

SRC advises national and county governments on the compensation and benefits of all other public officials.

“Currently, crown corporations, for the most part, are between the 60th and 75th percentile. Other sectors operating in this category are commissions and independent offices as their salary structure is similar to that of Crown corporations,” said Lyn Mengich, President of the SRC.

She added: “Doctors are between the 75th and 100th percentile; in fact, the majority are at the 100th percentile. In other words, they are at the top of the market, with a few executives at the 75th percentile. Civil servants are around the 32nd percentile, which is below the 40th percentile.

Ms Mengich was speaking at a press conference in Nairobi yesterday ahead of the third conference on the wage bill scheduled for April 16-17 in Bomas, Kenya.

“The current situation is the result of the collective agreement signed in 2017 after a strike, and the reality is that the government cannot afford to respect it. It is important that we do not find ourselves in the same situation.”

“You have to ask yourself if the employer can’t afford the 2017 CBA, how will they then be able to afford what you’re asking for,” she said.

She added: “And we have to ask ourselves about fairness and justice. Why would some public officials be below the 40th percentile while others are at the 100th percentile and those who are at 100 ask for more?

Mengich said these are the questions Kenyans need to think about so that we do not end up with another return to work formula that is unsustainable and demonstrates injustice in the public sector.

She said: “This must take into account fiscal affordability, sustainability, equity and justice so that we have a sustainable strategy for the future. »

President William Ruto, in a recent speech, urged striking health workers to return to work, saying the government had no money to pay them.

Cabinet Secretary for Public Service, Performance and Benefits Management Moses Kuria says he will soon centralize CBA negotiations so no professional body deals with its employers like this is the case today.

“We have engineers, they are professionals who are A students, just like doctors and actuaries; we really can’t have rules for a profession for people who went to high school and came out with the same grade but went in different directions, and then we treat them differently,” Kuria said.

He added: “That’s why I’m having this conversation to end all professionally motivated collective bargaining agreements. Now, if doctors continue to negotiate for their own ABC, then actuariists, engineers, professors, there will be chaos. I will tell this to my fellow cabinet secretaries so that in my role I can stop all these collective agreements focused on the profession so that we centralize the negotiations of collective agreements and thus have fairness and consistency.

On the payment of medical interns, he said 58,000 applied for the 8,600 advertised positions and it is not possible to pay Sh45,000 to each of them.

According to the SRC, intern doctors are expected to receive salaries ranging from Sh47,000 to Sh70,000.

Labor Cabinet Secretary Florence Bore called on doctors to give dialogue a chance in order to break the current impasse.

In a statement, Bore admitted that the current industrial actions in the health sector are serious because of the services doctors provide to Kenyans on a daily basis.