Vihiga County is no hub of factories or collective bargaining agreements, but a landscape of small farms, boda boda sheds and roadside trade; livelihoods stitched across uncertain incomes.
Its selection to host this year’s Labour Day celebrations acknowledged a reality labour institutions have struggled to confront: the Kenyan worker has moved from unionised workplaces to dispersed, informal and increasingly digital work.
Yet while labour has shifted, its power has not. The structures that enable organisation remain anchored in stable employment. In Vihiga, as across Kenya and Africa, labour is everywhere, but increasingly unable to act collectively.
The new world of labour in Kenya is fast, flexible and largely unprotected—a space trade unions barely reach. Earnings are volatile, often falling below minimum wage levels. Drivers finance their own vehicles, couriers absorb fuel costs, and freelancers pay commissions to platforms that can suspend them without warning. There are no pensions, no paid leave, and no meaningful grievance systems.
This marks a sharp break from the era Makhan Singh wrote about between 1952 and 1956, when dockworkers, railway staff and urban labour were concentrated, organised and disruptive. Their strikes did not just halt production; they rattled colonial power, making labour a political force. It was from that position that Singh declared on May 1, 1950, “We demand Uhuru now!”—a stance that led to his arrest and detention without trial for over 11 years.
Today, the rise of new forms of work has eroded the very conditions that once gave labour its strength. Where unions drew power from concentration, stability and clear employer-employee relationships, workers are now dispersed, managed by algorithms rather than supervisors, and classified as ‘independent’ even as they remain economically dependent.
The structure that once underpinned labour power—proximity, permanence and a visible adversary—has largely been stripped away. The new system fractures labour even as it centralises control. Platforms coordinate thousands of workers without employing them, turning collective power into individual competition.
Labour remains central to value creation, but is increasingly unable to convert that role into bargaining power. Where earlier generations organised, today’s workers are pushed towards exit — into global digital markets or out of the country altogether. By 2022, about 1.9 million Kenyans were in digital or digitally enabled jobs, with roughly 1.5 million working through gig platforms that generate around Sh100 billion annually — about five per cent of GDP. These workers are largely young, urban and educated, and for many, this is their main source of income. They are workers in every sense except in law.
Each year, about one million young Kenyans enter the labour market, but only a fraction find formal jobs. With limited prospects at home, many look outward — to Gulf construction sites, European care work or global freelancing platforms. The government has leaned into this shift, promoting labour export as a response to unemployment.
Remittances now exceed $5 billion annually, rivalling key export sectors, and for many households, the most reliable income no longer comes from Kenya. Yet Kenya’s labour framework still rests on an outdated assumption — that work occurs in a fixed workplace under a defined employer. The gig economy has dismantled that model. Platform workers, classified as ‘independent contractors’, fall outside most protections of the Employment Act, leaving the fastest-growing workforce segment the least protected.
Workers organise in WhatsApp groups — sharing tips, warning of price cuts and occasionally coordinating protests. Their solidarity is fluid: they have a voice, but little leverage.
Some efforts to formalise this are emerging. Francis Atwoli of the Central Organisation of Trade Unions has argued that ride-hailing drivers and mobile money agents should be recognised as employees with full labour rights. The Transport and Allied Workers Union has taken platforms to court over commissions and driver deactivations, while gig worker and freelancer groups attempt to organise outside traditional unions.
Their reach remains limited — fragmented and under-resourced. But workers who see their future abroad or online have little incentive to invest in local institutions. It is difficult to join a local union if your real employer is elsewhere, or to organise if your plan is to leave. This civic exit weakens not just labour power but accountability itself.
Organising can no longer rely on physical workplaces or stable employers. It must move into the digital spaces where workers already operate — turning WhatsApp groups into recruitment channels and platform networks into bargaining units.
More fundamentally, unions must push to change the law. Kenya needs a new legal category for platform workers, guaranteeing minimum earnings, social protection and collective representation.
The writer is a board member of KHRC and writes in his individual capacity. @kwamchetsi; [email protected] .
