Central Organisation of Trade Unions (COTU) Kenya Secretary General Francis Atwoli has urged the Safaricom Board of Directors to relieve the telco’s CEO Peter Ndegwa of his duties terming him dangerous over his managerial style.
The outspoken COTU boss was reacting to news in the local dailies that Peter Ndegwa has caused anxiety among more than 6,000 Safaricom employees by them to reapply for their current jobs.
In a statement on Monday, April 26, Atwoli claimed Ndegwa’s managerial style seeks to maximize profits at the expense of its employees through a managerial restructure.
He cautioned the Safaricom boss against axing employees saying the move goes against ILO Conventions particularly on the protection of jobs.
“It has come to our attention that Safaricom PLC is on a mission to restructure its mode of management whilst at the same time doing away with some of its employees.
“Even though, as COTU (K), we don’t have control over the management style employers adopt from time to time, we are highly concerned about the prospects of job security with the implementation of certain management styles,” Atwoli said in part.
The Trade unionist further noted that COTU was alive to the fact that Safaricom has refused several attempts to unionize their workers and that Ndegwa while serving as the CEO for Guinness Nigeria PLC faced off with unions as he forcefully reduced the workforce by nearly 45 percent.
“It’s insensitive and inhuman for Ndegwa to bring drastic changes at Safaricom PLC while infringing on the rights of workers who have built Safaricom to what it is today with more than 30 million subscribers. It is also shocking that even though Ndegwa is the first Kenyan Safaricom CEO he remains the most dangerous CEO in the company has ever had when it comes to protecting workers’ rights,” Atwoli said.
