Employees at the troubled Standard Media Group on Wednesday staged a mass walkout from their workstations in protest against months of unpaid salaries. The strike kicked off at around 12.30pm on at the media company’s headquarters along Mombasa Road.

This resulted in an interruption of the 1pm news on KTN where only one news item was broadcast. Reports say that dozens of employees held a meeting at the outside the offices where they resolved to have everyone at the company down their tools.

The Standard Media Group employees started by moving to the KTN Home docket, the Human Resource, Convergence Newsroom, and eventually Radio.

The strike comes barely two weeks after workers at the media house’s radio department staged a walkout in a similar protest.

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According to the Kenya Union of Journalists, employees at the media house have not been paid for between seven to ten months.

“For seven months now, staff at the Standard Media Group, the oldest media house in Kenya, have gone through untold suffering due to unpaid salaries despite hard economic times in the countries,” said KUJ Secretary General Eric Oduor.

Mr. Oduor says that the situation at the media house has become so dire that it is now pushing journalists into depression over lack of salaries.

“Staff at the Standard Group have been pushed to depression as they live in a state of uncertainty about the millions of shillings they invested and saved in Standard Sacco. The company has even defied a directive from Sacco’s regulator, Sasra, to give this matter priority in its payment plan,” said Mr. Oduor.