Kenya’s Port Workers Fight For Fair Wages Amid Repression

Kenya’s private port workers, also called Bangaizas, in the coastal city of Mombasa are fighting against severe exploitation and oppressive working conditions despite their critical role in the supply chain. In recent weeks, these workers have been organizing to demand that employers and industry brokers comply with the 2023 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) which sets rates for daily labor, overtime, Sunday work, and waiting hours.

In the last week of January, thousands of private port workers at the Changamwe and Shimanzi warehouses staged mass protests to demand employers pay them at agreed upon rates in compliance with the CBA. However, workers were violently repressed by the Kenyan police who were reportedly deployed at the request of warehouse owners and contractors. The police presence was seemingly intended to suppress their industrial action, with officers intimidating workers and preventing those dissatisfied with their pay from approaching the premises. This crackdown has been accompanied by violent attacks on workers by hired goons, further entrenching fear and impunity within the industry.

Bangaizas: undervalued, overworked

As per the CBA which took effect on February 1, 2023, daily labor rates are Ksh 883 (USD 6.8) for an eight-hour shift, increasing to Ksh 918 (USD 7.1) in 2024. Prior attempts by workers to demand compliance with the agreement have been met with threats of job loss, while efforts to organize industrial action have been systematically suppressed through court indictments on fabricated charges such as illegal assembly, trespassing, and incitement to violence.

Kenya’s port workers, engaged in docking support services and warehouse operations, primarily rely on daily contracts or piece-rate wages, despite being essential to the smooth functioning of the port and the broader logistics industry.

Most of these workers are employed by companies in shipping, clearing and forwarding, freight, logistics, and warehousing, but earn meager wages that barely sustain them, leaving no opportunity to save and experience economic stability. The companies that profit from their labor through marine pilotage, tugboat assistance, stevedoring, cargo surveying, waste management, tally clerking, bulking, blending, sorting, loading, and offloading continue to exploit them while disregarding their basic labor rights.

Worker solidarity

Following the police repression of the workers’ mobilization, the Communist Party Marxist Kenya (CPM-K) issued a strong statement condemning the brutal attack on warehouse workers, which they allege was orchestrated with the complicity of both employers and the state. The party denounced the use of armed thugs to suppress workers’ resistance, describing it as a direct assault on the fundamental right to organize and demand fair remuneration.

“We demand that the police stop acting as mercenaries for exploiters & instead uphold the law by taking immediate action against those responsible for violence against workers!” the CPM-K said in a statement.

Hired goons violently disrupted a meeting convened by CPM-K’s National Chairperson, Mwaivu Kaluka, on January 29 of workers and supporters. Shillingi Shevo, Chairperson of the Warehouses Committee, along with two other workers, were singled out and brutally assaulted by these thugs, who they allege were acting on behalf of exploitative warehouse owners. This violent crackdown on labor organizing comes just days after the Registrar of Trade Unions denied waterfront workers the right to form an independent union, an outright declaration of war against the working class, CPMK stated.

The CPM-K National Chairperson based in Mombasa told Peoples Dispatch, “The recent events at the Coastal Kenya is a direct attack on the rights of workers, existing Trade Unions have been silent on the matter which has given some unscrupulous individual an opportunity to doctor a fake Collective Bargaining Agreement to replace the existing one which is against the procedures set out by law in creating a CBA. The issue of remuneration is just one among many other issues that affect these workers who work under unhealthy and unsafe conditions.”

The plight of port workers is part of a broader systemic failure to protect labor rights in the country. The complicity of employers, state institutions, and even mainstream trade unions has left them without a shield against exploitation. If this situation persists, it will push more workers into cycles of poverty. The fight for fair wages, safe working conditions, and the right to organize remains an urgent and necessary struggle, one that demands immediate action from all progressive forces in Kenya.