CPMK Condemns State-Backed Violence Against Warehouses Workers who were protesting against unfair renumeration that is outside the agreed rates in the existing Collective Bargaining Agreement.
The Communist Party Marxist (CPMK) strongly condemns the brutal attack on warehouses workers, orchestrated with the full complicity of their employers and the state, in a desperate attempt to suppress workers’ resistance. This heinous act, carried out by armed thugs under state protection, is a direct assault on the right of workers to organise and defend their interests.
Today, during a meeting convened by CPMK’s National Chairperson, Comrade Mwaivu Kaluka, state-backed militias were deployed to violently disrupt the gathering. Comrade Shillingi Shevo, Chairperson of the Warehouses Committee, and two other workers were singled out and beaten to near death by hired mercenaries, acting on behalf of the exploitative capitalist class that own the warehouses. This attack comes only days after the Registrar of Trade Unions denied waterfront workers their fundamental right to form an independent union, an outright declaration of war against the working class.
The assault on Comrade Shillingi Shevo is not an isolated incident. Prior to this, he had been summoned by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) in Mombasa, a blatant act of intimidation meant to suppress the planned workers’ meeting. This confirms that the police are not merely complicit but are actively operating on the payroll of the employers, serving as enforcers of capitalist oppression.
CPMK stands in unwavering solidarity with the warehouse workers in their just struggle for independent union representation and against capitalist repression. We affirm that no amount of state violence or employer-backed intimidation will crush the revolutionary determination of the working class.
The fight continues!
Workers, unite!
Down with capitalist repression!
Forward with the workers’ struggle for socialism!
Booker Omole
General Secretary
Communist Party Marxist CPM Kenya