@selah - thanks for bringing this up. I have always thought COTU should be the one running point on such things - instead its headed by someone who mouths off at things that really do not matter to the working people it represents.

Its just a matter of time before we "tut tut" again when workers are burnt to death after being locked up overnight in a paint factory.

Every day we see "watu wa mjengo" atop tippers and lorries. Right now I look outside my office window and there is a construction site nearby - no helmets, no gloves, no boots - when these workers get injured, woe be unto them for trying to invoke the Workmen's Compensation Act....

The officials at the Ministry of Labour are equally culpable in allowing this to happen - they get kickbacks from employers to assess the value of compensation (which is peanuts - you lose 3 fingers to a bandsaw and get 25,000 bob, etc. You lose an eye after an explosion and get 50,000 bob, etc).

When Mayor Majiwa took office, one of the first things he did was to raid various premises (factories) - I recall that was near Baba Dogo - behind Allsops - to inspect whether these premises complied to the Factories Act (sanitation, number of toilets per 20 people, canteen, fire fighting equipment, etc)...then that just fizzled out. Who wants to proffer an explanation why?

Having said that, COTU can marshal workers to strike against almost ANYTHING - including the price of Jogoo, or to boycott matatus, or even boycott products...but alas...they do not. In Kenya the tail wags the dog. We can never have a workers revolution - just political revolutions - and even in those, the people get nothing...

Selah, please tell the police. And K24 or those jicho pevu guys.
Just don't let it pass.

@all The reason I highlighted the accident is because the institutions which have been created to serve us the common mwananchi are really a farce.Take this for example.

Yesterday I decide to board a 6.10pm train to kahawa Just opposite muthurwa there was a guy who had his leg crashed by a 5.30pm train writhing in pain with No one to assist him..there was a seizable crowd watching the poor guy cry in pain keeping in mind the Muthurwa police station is about 10 steps away while the Kenya railways police is about 500M from the accident scene.Nobody was bothering....I heard RVR do not attend to people who do not have an official ticket so that guy was supposed to sot himself out.

The police on the other hand wanted the guy to learn a lesson Not to board a moving train.But for a guy who was bleeding profusely to be lying there for more than an hour(I dont know if he survived the bleeding)and no one seemed bothered is really disturbing..Value for life in kenya is slowly diminishing people are comfortable with the statistic of people killed such that no preventive or contingency measures are ever put in place.

I have reported the Tononoka case to Watchman, Nation .Lets see if the Daily Nation will do some investigation to this as part of their duty of putting into light the evil that the common mwananchi faces .

@Sela hongera on the Tononoka missive. But the train story caught my attention equally: Kwani you boarded the train at it roof? I bet the manner in which people crowd the trains and end up at its roof is a pointer at the value they attach to their own lives. When mishaps happens as the case of your story they look for scapegoats. At the risk of sounding insensitive I bet the man put himself in the risk knowing too well what might befall him. I hope someone helped him get to hospital.