Make or break as teachers’ strike enters third week

By Allan Kisia and Vitalis Kimutai

Kenya: The crippling strike by hundreds of thousands of public school teachers enters a critical week with the Government and unions required to report progress in talks to the Industrial Court Monday.

This morning the Government and the Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet), representing 47,000 members, will finalisean agreement reached on Friday for filing with the court.

But the standoff with the Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut), representing more than 250,000 teachers, appears far from over after talks collapsed dramatically last week.

This was after the Government insisted that Knut must first call off the strike, which enters the third week Monday, prior to negotiations.

Sunday, Knut chairman Wilson Sossion said they were yet to receive official invitation from Government for further talks.

“We have the interest to have things done to the benefit of all parties but we have not received any formal invitation for a meeting with government over the dispute,” Sossion told The Standard the on telephone Sunday.

Sossion denied reports that he led other union officials to a meeting with Government officials led by Labour Secretary Kazungu Kambi over the weekend at a Nairobi hotel.

“We did not meet with Government officials over the weekend. Those are lies being peddled,” he said, referring to newspaper reports of informal talks.

Negotiating table

On Thursday, President Uhuru Kenyatta urged teachers to return to the negotiating table and pledged to hire 10,000 more teachers into the bargain.

This morning, Kuppet officials are expected to hold talks with the Teachers Service Commission (TSC), Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) and ministries of Education, Labour and National Treasury.

The highlight of the meeting is the signing of the agreement that will be deposited at the Industrial Court on July 15. The Kuppet deal will see harmonisation of commuter, responsibility and medical allowances with those paid to civil servants and implementation of Special Needs Schools’ allowances.

“We have been invited to a meeting tomorrow at TSC to compute and sign the agreement that will be deposited at the Industrial Court in a week’s time as directed,” said the Kuppet Secretary General Akello Misori.

Misori accused Knut of misleading teachers by turning the fight for their welfare into a contest for membership. This was in reference to press reports of Kuppet members, apparently angered by their national officials’ decision to suspend the strike, decamping to Knut.

“Knut panicked after we called a strike, engaged the Government for talks and came out with a deal to benefit teachers. They have been engaging in dirty tricks and propaganda,” said Misori.

“They are lying to the public during the day that they are not talking with Government yet they go to look for Government officials at night,” Misori claimed.

Last Monday Justice Linet Ndolo ordered all teachers to report to duty and directed their unions to start negotiations with TSC. Parties were directed to file a report on the deliberations in court by Monday.

Knut has defied the court directive saying they were yet to be served with court papers.

The TSC has since moved to the Industrial Court seeking to have Knut officials jailed for contempt of court and have Sh10,000 docked from the salaries of striking teachers. TSC has frozen teachers’ June salaries.

Sunday, a former Kuppet secretary general Njeru Kanyamba accused the union of misleading its members by calling a strike without the blessings of National Governing Council.

“We want these officials prosecuted for declaring an illegal strike.

The strike begun before the National Governing Council was held,” he explained.

Kanyamba explained that he was not interested in reclaiming his position at the union but was concerned with the “bad state of affairs” at the union he helped found.

“I am not fighting to go back to Kuppet, but I feel pain when I see a union being destroyed by greed,” Kanyamba said.

Members decamping

He added that the increasing number of members decamping to rival Knut is as a result of the manner in which Kuppet handled the strike.

“I would like to register my disappointment with the manner in which the union’s national officials have handled the latest strike. They do not in the very least understand the rules governing trade unions,” he stated.

He claimed the national officials have been running the union without a valid constitution

“We came up with a constitution in 2010 but it was not gazetted as required by law. I did not stay in the union long enough to validate the constitution,” he explained.

But Kuppet officials led by national chairman Omboko Milemba told a press conference in Nairobi that Kanyamba was not a member of the union having been removed from office three years ago.

“Kanyamba is currently an employee of Knut. He should be dismissed with the contempt he deserves,” Milemba

He said Knut was using dirty tricks to depict Kuppet as losing members in a bid to weaken the competition.