Kenya Airways to dump bargaining offers with pilots, letter reveals By Reuters

NAIROBI (Reuters) – Kenya Airways plans to cancel its bargaining and recognition agreements with its pilots union, saying their present strike is illegal and it quantities to financial sabotage.

Members of the Kenya Airline Pilots Affiliation (KALPA) — a union that represents about 400 pilots on the service – went on strike on Saturday after failing to resolve a dispute over their pensions contributions and settlement of deferred pay.

The walkout led to the cancellation of dozens of flights and stranded 1000’s of passengers.

The service, which is without doubt one of the greatest in Africa, desires to withdraw from its collective bargaining settlement with the union, a letter by signed by its CEO Allan Kilavuka confirmed on Tuesday.

“We hereby give discover by KQ (Kenya Airways) of its quick withdrawal from the prevailing recognition settlement and the collective bargaining settlement with KALPA,” the corporate mentioned within the letter.

The union didn’t reply when Reuters sought remark, saying its management was in courtroom.

On Monday, a decide of the employment and labour courtroom ordered 11 union officers to seem earlier than her on Tuesday to elucidate why they disobeyed the courtroom’s orders, which restrained the pilots from beginning the economic motion.

Throughout a courtroom session within the morning on Tuesday, the decide ordered the airline and the union to return to the courtroom by 2:30 p.m. (1130 GMT) with an settlement resolving the dispute.

The airline has warned the placing pilots they could possibly be dismissed if they don’t return to work instantly. It additionally began recruiting new pilots and to institute disciplinary motion in opposition to these on strike.