Industrial Relations in Kenya

The history of African trade unions in Kenya illustrates the case of where for several years ‘the settler elite was able to sabotage all efforts at permitting the growth of African trade unions and the introduction of industrial consultations’.1 The colonial government’s attitude to trade unions in Kenya (as in some other former British Colonies) was for some time one of hostility arising from the belief that trade unions meant riots and communism. By identifying and persecuting trade union leaders as ‘communist’ it succeeded in postponing the effective organisation of African workers by many years. The policy of colonial government was to disassociate the trade unions completely from politics both through legal restriction and constant threats of cancellation of their registration as societies.2 The provisions requiring all unions to be registered and subject to administrative approval were used to prevent the legal recognition of some unions which had already established a following among the workers. Government officers were rather advised to form staff associations instead of trade unions because it was easier to deal with staff associations since they had no legal backing and virtually no right to strike.3 Thus until the end of the Second World War there were no registered African trade unions in Kenya although a number of unregistered African staff associations existed.