Bloody Past Revisited: Browns’ Mass Retrenchment Sparks Fears of Fresh Clashes in Kericho

KERICHO— The ghosts of 2023 are stirring once again across the sprawling tea estates of Kericho County, where the blood of five workers still stains the collective memory of a community that rose in violent defiance against the cold march of mechanisation.

Now, barely two years after that brutal confrontation, Sri Lankan tea giant Browns East Africa Plantations PLC has ignited a fresh powder keg with its announcement to axe over 2,000 workers—a move that union leaders and local politicians warn could plunge the region back into the chaos that once saw machines destroyed, estates invaded, and police bullets flying.

The timing could not be more cynical. Browns swept into Kenya in 2023 with grand promises, acquiring eleven plantations and eight factories from Lipton Teas and Infusions and James Finlay Kenya.

The company’s assurances were clear: jobs would be protected, and any workforce reductions would happen gradually through natural attrition.

Those promises now lie shattered, exposed as little more than corporate theatre designed to smooth a controversial takeover.

In a notice dated September 19, Browns East Africa CEO Rajiv Bandaranayake delivered the guillotine blow, wrapping mass redundancy in the sanitised language of corporate human resources.

The affected workers would receive gratuity, severance pay calculated at 23 days’ salary per year of service, prorated leave, and one-way transport home—as if a bus ticket and a few thousand shillings could compensate for livelihoods destroyed and families thrown into uncertainty.

The company even promised “psychosocial support” and financial management training, a patronising gesture that assumes the workers’ distress can be managed with counselling sessions and entrepreneurship seminars.

What Browns fails to graspor more likely, chooses to ignore is that these are not abstract employment statistics.

These are families whose children attend local schools, whose elderly parents depend on medical cover, whose entire existence is woven into the fabric of these estates.

The Kenya Plantation and Agricultural Workers Union has seen through the charade.

Assistant Secretary-General Thomas Kipkemboi, writing on behalf of COTU Secretary-General Francis Atwoli, flatly rejected the scheme, accusing Browns of railroading the retrenchments without proper consultation.

“The CBA is very clear on retirement age. There has never been any agreement on voluntary early retirement at Browns East Africa,” Kipkemboi stated, his words carrying the weight of a union preparing for battle.

The accusations are damning.

KPAWU claims Browns is deliberately targeting unionised workers to eviscerate collective bargaining power, paving the way for outsourced labour that will work for lower wages, fewer benefits, and zero job security.

This is not restructuring—it is union-busting dressed up in the language of efficiency and modernisation.

Kericho Governor Erick Mutai has joined the chorus of condemnation, demanding that Browns halt the scheme and instead employ more locals to operate the very machines that are now being used as justification for mass layoffs.

The logic is inescapable: if mechanisation requires skilled operators, why not train and employ the local workforce rather than import foreign expertise or rely on contract labour?

The bitter irony is impossible to miss.

Browns entered Kenya riding a wave of post-pandemic optimism in the tea sector, positioning itself as a modernising force that would revitalise estates and secure jobs.

Instead, less than two years later, it is replicating the same playbook that triggered violence in 2023—pushing mechanisation at breakneck speed while treating workers as disposable overhead.

That earlier eruption of violence was no ordinary labour dispute.

Equipment worth millions was destroyed in coordinated attacks. Workers stormed estates to harvest tea illegally, a desperate act of economic sabotage.

Police responded with force. Five people died. The scars run deep in Kericho, and the wounds have barely healed.

Now Browns is pouring salt into those wounds. Union threats of legal action, pickets, and strikes are not idle posturing—they are the opening salvos in what could escalate into another round of violent confrontation.

When desperate people face the destruction of their livelihoods with no legal recourse, history shows us what happens next.

Browns East Africa’s management appears to be gambling that it can weather the storm, that its financial cushion and political connections will insulate it from meaningful consequences.

But this is Kenya, where labour disputes on tea estates carry explosive political and social dimensions.

This is Kericho, where the memory of 2023’s bloodshed remains fresh, where every worker knows someone who was injured, arrested, or killed.

The company’s promises of gradual attrition through natural retirement have been exposed as lies. Its pledge to safeguard jobs has crumbled within months. What credibility does Browns East Africa now possess when it speaks of supporting affected workers or acting in accordance with collective agreements?

The cold calculation is transparent: Browns believes it can mechanise faster, reduce its permanent workforce, and boost profit margins by replacing unionised labour with cheaper, more compliant alternatives. The human cost is irrelevant. The potential for renewed violence is apparently an acceptable risk.

Governor Mutai, MCA Wesley Kiprotich, and union leaders are right to sound the alarm. The question now is whether Browns will pull back from the brink or whether Kericho is destined to relive its bloodiest chapter.

The company has a choice: honour its commitments, engage meaningfully with workers and their representatives, and accept that corporate profit cannot be built on broken promises and destroyed livelihoods.

Or it can proceed down its current path and discover that the people of Kericho have long memories, short patience, and a proven willingness to fight when pushed too far.

The machinery may be new, but the resistance will be familiar. And this time, everyone knows how it ends.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​