Safaricom Accused of Unfair Labour Practices

Safaricom Accused of Unfair Labour Practices

For many reasons people want to be associated with success and we dream of working for big companies with big names out there for various reasons; call it the big company syndrome. Some of these companies have a name; a brand to reckon with, and have scooped awards in various sectors that make news nationally even internationally. But are they what we see? Is their good appearance a reality?
Am sure as a mobile subscriber you have called customer care and you were welcomed by that nice, sexy, eloquent voice of a lady or gentleman to assist you. Some are tempted to ask for their personal numbers to know them more. These employees are the face of the company, but some have gone through hell behind the scenes; in terms of how they are treated.
We have seen employee’s mistreatment by our national carrier; Kenya Airways; ‘the pride of Africa’ that has witnessed battles with its workers. Safaricom has now perfected the same employee mistreatment but no one is there to stand up for them. Customer care employees who fall sick during the course of their duty are changed departments, no medical care and are  finally dismissed on grounds of early retirement.
Francis Atwoli must read this story as reported by one of our subscribers. For obvious reasons, we have withheld the identity of our subscriber.

My issue is to do with one of the so called big companies. I have been working for this telecommunication company for more than 4 yrs in a position of customer care. All was well until I started developing a work related health issue i.e an ear problem. I was taken through so many tests with different doctors because they had this notion that we are pretending.
I was later on deployed from picking calls in October 2010. The health issues became so rampant that they (HR ) did not know what to do. One day they decided to come up with a policy to counter the situation.  They came up with a policy called ENT policy stating that once someone develops a problem with the ears or voice and the doctor recommends that you be redeployed from calls you are given 3months within which you are to apply for jobs in other departments within the company and if you are not successful you are retired on medical grounds.
Those of us affected who were not comfortable with the decision and we went to an extend of seeking audience from the CEO of the company but unfortunately he did not help us. As we are speaking, I was retired on medical grounds at an early age of 30 with no compensation for the damages and the company claims that it is not responsible for the damages; the unlawful termination not forgetting the discrimination among others. I do not understand why I was retired yet I was in a department where I was off calls and there are people who were left doing the same and yet do not have any health issues. Another place I would have served the customers better was at the retail centers where the service is face to face as opposed to via call as in the call centre.
We are intending go the legal way because we feel abused. We are a group of around 20 people although there are those who are still suffering silently and watching closely our next step. I just want this to be known to the whole country and even the whole world what these big companies do to their employees despite their daily attempts to create a good impression in terms of CSRs yet they can watch as their employees suffer. It should not just be about scooping awards in other areas and covering their sins under the table.
Believe it or not, the company is SAFARICOM