Unrelenting pressure from the Kenya Union of Journalists (KUJ) forced the Standard Group to pay the staff who retired early from the company on Monday last week.
The “retired” journalists met the CEO Sam Shollei and HR Director Pauline Kiraithe mid-morning that day through KUJ and threatened to go to court if they were not paid.
“The money was paid within two hours,” says the source who spoke to us in confidence.”During the meeting the finance guy was talking of a technical hitch between a bank and SGL (Standard Group Ltd). We told them it was upon SGL to sort out their administrative issues.”
According to the labour law, the “retired” staff should have been paid immediately after clearance and any delay in payment attracts an interest of 14%. Business Today understands that Standard Group secured a Ksh500 million loan from a commercial bank to meet restructuring costs.
But even after the settlement of the dues, Standard Group may not be off the hook yet. Some of the workers who left through voluntary early retirement are complaining that they got less than had been agreed upon on based on a formula HR proposed and which KUJ endorsed.
“We are also planning to go to court to have Standard compelled to pay them whatever was withheld,” said a KUJ official. Furthermore, KUJ wants an interpretation of voluntary early retirement (VER) as some journalists were coerced into signing the template letters.
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