Financial troubles at the East African Portland Cement Company have deepened after a court yesterday allowed former contract workers to attach seven bank accounts to recover Sh1.3 billion in salaries owed to them.
The accounts are held at Co-operative Bank, Standard Chartered, Equity Bank, two at Kenya Commercial Bank, an M-Pesa till number account and Kenya Railways Corporation.
Justice James Rika of the labour court in Nairobi also barred the company, maker of Blue Triangle cement, from issuing cheques to any company or individual from the attached accounts until the money is paid.
The former workers, under the Kenya Chemical and Allied Workers Union, sued following Portland’s failure to fully implement a collective bargaining agreement (CBA).
They argued that Portland was being liquidated and if the banks were not forced to pay the former workers, they stood to suffer irreparable loss.
A court had ruled on July 6, 2015 that the company pay them their salary arrears and house allowances, they said. They said the Sh1.3 billion was computed and adopted by the court on December 31, 2017, excluding overtime, shift allowances and leave.
“The said amount has been due and owing by the EAPCC since July 6, 2015 when the court delivered its judgment. EAPCC, despite having large chunks of money in various accounts with different banks, has continually refused to pay,” they told the court through their lawyer Nyabena Nyakundi & Company Advocates.
The court heard that in January 2020 the two sides recorded a consent to settle part of the money, but the cement maker violated the agreement.
They told the court that the company had paid former senior managers millions of shillings without considering the fate of the former employees.
The union said that before it sued in 2014, it asked the cement manufacturer to pay the former workers as agreed to no avail.
The union then reported a trade dispute to the Labour Cabinet secretary. The minister appointed a conciliator, who tried to reconcile the parties in vain.
The conciliator released his findings recommending that Portland stagger the wage increases awarded under the CBA to staff on fixed-term contracts in sustainable instalments.
But the company failed to implement the conciliator’s recommendations, saying they were unsustainable.
That prompted the union to sue. It obtained a declaration that Portland had breached the terms of the CBA by partially implementing it in favour of permanent workers and leaving those on contract.
