Standard Media Group journalists down tools over salary arrears
Standard Media Group journalists on Wednesday afternoon downed their tools demanding the media house to settle their salary arrears in full
Standard Media Group journalists on Wednesday afternoon downed their tools demanding the media house to settle their salary arrears in full.
According to reports, the journalists went on a go slow at 12:30 pm and paralysed the station’s 1:00 pm bulletin.
Sources revealed that about 40 employees attended a meeting that was held at Green Park Grounds inside Standard Media Group’s Mombasa Road headquarters.
During the meeting, the employees reportedly resolved to visit every office and remove everyone from their workstations.
“The team started at KTN Home, moved to the HR office then to convergence newsroom then to output, and eventually to radio and TV studios,” our source revealed.
In the process, they disrupted a live bulletin hosted by Jesse Rodgers, forcing the news anchor to take a short break at around 1:07 pm after presenting only one news item. The bulletin did not resume after that.
According to our source, the journalists want all their payments settled in full and arrears cleared.
The protest follows an earlier version on Thursday, July 4, when radio employees from Radio Maisha, Spice FM, Berur FM, and Vybez Radio downed tools due to salary arrears dating back to June 2023.
At the time, the presenters staged a walkout from their respective workstations and converged at the staff cafeteria from 7:00 am.
All radio stations were left playing music with no presenter on air as they demanded the management honour their contractual agreements.
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Days earlier, the Kenya Union of Journalists (KUJ) had given the media house 14 days to meet four demands failure to which it threatened to force a total shutdown of operations.
The four demands presented were settlement of 7-month salary arrears, provision of Sacco savings contributed by its employees, and removal of a cap on medical claims.
The union also wanted the station to stop capturing the biometric data of staff to enforce a new directive on reporting time.
“For seven months now, staff at the Standard Group PLC, the oldest media house in this part of the world, have gone through untold sufferings due to unpaid salaries despite hard economic times in the country,” Eric Oduor, KUJ Secretary General, told the press at the time.
Also read,
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