KENYA UNION OF JOURNALISTS AND ALLIED WORKERS V NATION MEDIA GROUP LIMITED & ANOTHER [2013] KEELRC 397 (KLR)

Section 59 of the Labour Relations Act provides that a collective agreement binds the parties, all unionisable employees of the employer, and that its terms are incorporated into every covered employee's contract. Recognition is granted to a union as representative of all employees eligible for membership, not members alone. Agency fee provisions under Sections 48 and 49 confirm the union is sole collective bargaining agent even for non-members.

The union's lists contained only names without job categorisations, pay slips or testimony. They included supervisory staff expressly excluded under the Recognition Agreement (Editor/Editor-in-Chief, Deputy Editor/Managing Editor, News Editor/Chief Reporter, Chief Sub-Editor). Affected employees should have been called to testify. The court could not find on eligibility from bare lists.

The letter seemed to refer to another dispute, Industrial Court Cause 545 [N] of 2004, where agency fee orders had issued, and was written a week before the Claim was filed. The union should have called the employees who disowned it in that correspondence to testify rather than relying on the letter as an admission.

The letter to Michael Bwire Mugwang'a dated 7th August 2007 predated the CBA, was not shown to be the standard or current letter at the material time, and had no nexus with the dispute. The court nonetheless warned employers to conform to the new constitutional age by shredding such letters and rewriting employment terms.