Hassan Lwabayi Mudiba, General Secretary of the union, said, “Following Government’s failure to implement salary enhancement in spite several remainders we gave Notice to the Government through the head of Public Service and Secretary to Cabinet on 18th September 2025 of workers’ intention to undertake Industrial Action commencing on 1s October 2025 pursuit to section 14 (a) (b) on serving notices between Government and Labour Union”
He added, “Unfortunately, Government has not responded to the Notice and yet workers resolved to lay down tools as a way of expressing their dissatisfaction with government’s failure to address salary disparities within the Public Service”
The union pointed out that government allocated Shs 8,554,565,115,786 as the wage bill for the financial year 2025/2026 an increase of Shs 724,724,060,158 from the previous year yet local government workers categorized under unconditional grant-wage did not benefit from the increment and were only given Shs 380,637,200,000 which is only 10.71 percent of the wage bill allocated to the sector
“This has exposed our members to loss of purchasing power against the high cost of living and yet they go to the same markets, hospital, house rent, and their children go to same schools,”Mudiba said.
The union highlighted salary disparities across public service sectors with senior officers in local government earning between Shs 902,612,990,589 while their counterparts in medical, police, civil aviation, and other sectors earn significantly higher
Regarding the agreed salary enhancements under the 2018 Collective Bargaining Agreement Mudiba noted, “As a way of harmonizing salaries and remuneration of all civil servants in the local government it was agreed through Collective Bargaining 2018” and added that many of these increases have still not been applied to local government staff
He emphasized that the strike is protected under Ugandan law citing.
“Strike in Uganda is protected under Article 40 (3) which guarantees workers right to form or join a union, undertake collective bargaining, right to representation and right to withdraw labour in accordance with the law and Article 20 of the Constitution which imposes duty to all organs and agencies of government and all persons to respect, uphold and promote rights and freedoms of the individual and groups enshrined in this chapter of fundamental rig and other human rights and freedoms”
Mudiba also pointed to the Public Service Act Cap 91 Section 15 and the Labour Unions Act Cap 228 Section 24 saying, “No suit or legal proceedings shall be brought in any civil court against a registered organization or any of its officers or members in respect of any act done in contemplation of or in furtherance of a dispute concerning a registered organization to which the registered organization is a party” and added, “A suit brought against a registered organization or against any of its members or officers on behalf of themselves and all other members of the registered organization in respect of any tortious act alleged to have been committed by or on behalf of the registered organization shall not be entertained by any court of law”
He warned, “Owing to the above Constitutional and legal framework of Uganda we would not expect any administrative authority either RDC, Chairpersons LC IV, Lordship the Mayor, Chief Administrative Officers and District Police Commanders among others to interfere, intimidate or harass workers during their peaceful strike as it is already under the Constitutional and Legislative framework as articulated above and this serves as a notice to whoever intends to interfere with workers’ rights to strike in total disregard of the above mentioned legal framework the union will not hesitate to proceed against those officers in their individual capacities much as Government as their employer could remain vicariously liable”
The union said”This is to notify the public that if they do not get staff in their respective offices, they be away on strike”