BY BILLY MIJUNGU
The Central Organization of Trade Unions in Kenya was created to protect the rights of workers. It was meant to be a strong voice for the common Kenyan, standing up to exploitation and injustice in the workplace.
Today, COTU is a shadow of what it was meant to be. It has become a personal empire, an old fortress built to protect a few at the top while the ordinary worker continues to suffer.
Francis Atwoli has been at the helm of COTU for close to 40 years. Forty years is nearly half a century. In that time, Kenya has changed, governments have come and gone, but COTU leadership has remained the same. While workers continue to retire, resign, and rotate through their union leadership, Atwoli has refused to let go. Year after year, he has maneuvered the system to secure yet another term. Not through renewal of ideas or performance, but through strategy that suppresses any real change.
Young leaders with vision are either silenced, absorbed into the system, or convinced to conform. And this is how COTU has lost its edge. It has stopped growing. It has stopped challenging. It has stopped being the voice of the worker.
Today it is the voice of one man and a few loyalists clinging onto outdated methods and personal glory.
Kenya is no longer in the era of shouting on rooftops to fight for salaries. We are now in a constitutional dispensation that demands reasoned engagement and structured negotiation.
Workers’ rights are protected in the Constitution. The law is clear. It provides room for dialogue and for meaningful representation. We need leaders who understand that. We need COTU to transform into a modern institution that not only agitates but also innovates.
Salaries and allowances are no longer the only issues facing workers. We are talking about dignity at work. We are talking about fair working hours. About toxic environments. About misuse of employees. About mental health. About harmonizing pay between the public and private sectors so that workers in similar jobs earn similar pay.
Even within the public sector itself we see shocking disparities. A cleaner in a parastatal earns more than a qualified officer in a government department. That is not just unfair. It is wrong. And COTU has been silent about it for too long.
It is clear that COTU cannot be reformed without first changing its leadership. Atwoli must step down. Not because he has done nothing. But because he has done enough. His time has passed. No one should lead for life.
Leadership is not ownership. It is stewardship. Real leaders build space for the next generation. They mentor. They guide. And then they step aside.
The workers of Kenya are not asking for a miracle. They are asking for change. They are asking for a voice that speaks with honesty, with energy, and with an understanding of today’s workplace. They are asking for leadership that does not speak just to the cameras but negotiates real results behind closed doors.
Forty years is enough. Kenya has changed. The workplace has changed. And so must COTU.
(The writer is Migori senator aspirant in forthcoming polls, follow him on Facebook, X, Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn @BillyMijungu)
