Kenyan Courts Keep Telling Meta to Let Workers Unionize
Last year Kenyan courts ruled that Meta, Facebook’s parent company, broke the law by firing workers who had attempted to unionize. Meta responded by refusing to pay its employees for over eight months and fighting labor law.
Kenyan lawyer Mercy Mutemi (seated fourth from right), along with fellow counsel, follow proceedings during a virtual pretrial consultation with a judge and Meta’s legal counsel, Nairobi, Kenya, April 12, 2023. (Tony Karumba / AFP via Getty Images)
Last year Kenyan courts filed three lawsuits against Meta, Facebook’s parent company, for its unwillingness to work with organized labor.
Workers sued Meta, which used third-party companies to facilitate content moderation in Kenya, for failing to provide adequate pay, training, or health care for employees who are regularly required to watch images of rape, murder and torture.
In violation of Kenyan law, subcontractors working for Meta fired workers who attempted to unionize last year. When these cases went to court, the company struck back, alleging that third-party firms like Sama, a Kenyan AI firm, were the ones responsible for the labor law violations. Kenyan courts disagreed and ruled that they had the power “to enforce alleged violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms” by Meta and whatever companies it had subcontracted.
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