Unions won’t relent, issue fresh conditions on strike

    More than 30 universities and constituent colleges around the country have been hard hit by the ongoing strike. [PHOTO: FILE/STANDARD]        

By Stephen Makabila     

Kenya: Public universities’ staff unions have given the government four conditions that have to be met before the ongoing national strike that could spill into the second week tomorrow, is called off.

The conditions were delivered to the Labour Cabinet Secretary Kazungu Kambi on Friday during a meeting with Universities Academic Staff Union (Uasu) and Kenya Universities Staff Union (KUSU).

The Government in 2010 signed a Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) with the university staff and agreed to allocate Sh7.8 billion to be paid in two installments with the first phase of Sh3.9 having been effected.

 The pay standoff balance was channeled to the VCs last July but has not been disbursed to the striking staff who downed tools on March 12.

 “We met Kazungu Kambi and tabled our four conditions which he promised to share with his Education counterpart and come back to us,” Uasu national chairman Prof. Sammy Kubasu told The Standard on Sunday.

 The Unions delegation was led by Kubasu and KUSU Secretary General, who doubles as the Pusetu-Kenya Secretary General Dr Charles Mukhwaya among others.

 Among the demands is that the CBA be implemented in toto as mutually agreed, signed and registered by the industrial court

Eligible workers

Secondly, the unions want the Sh 7.8 billion released by the government to universities, paid to eligible workers in job group 1 to 5 towards enhancing their basic salary and house allowances.

The third condition by the unionists is the unconditional withdrawal of court order and removal of the case currently before the industrial court

The union also wants a mutually developed and signed return to work formula between it and the relevant government functionaries before calling upon their members to resume work.

The Friday meeting was the second one between the Union leadership and Kambi, who is trying to play a reconciliatory role.

The first meeting earlier in the week failed bear any fruits.

Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) Secretary General Wilson Sossion, who is a Pusetu-Kenya board member, noted teachers were supportive of what the staff in public universities were fighting for.

“As Pusetu-Kenya labour centre, we are fully behind the rights the staff in public universities are fighting for. Pusetu-Kenya stands for the improvement of the welfare of all those affiliated to it,” added Sossion.

The Uasu and KUSU Union leaders have particularly hit out at Kaimenyi for not acting fast to fix the stand-off even as experts warn of heavy wastage of human hours in the 31 public universities and constituent colleges owing to the strike.

Uasu national chairman, Prof. Sammy Kubasu, says Kaimenyi should be personally liable to the crisis in public universities, given the funds from the treasury were first channeled through the Ministry of Education, then to the Universities. “As Cabinet Secretary in charge of Education, he should have supervised or even made a follow-up on the use of the funds disbursed to these institutions,” says Kubasu.

 Staff salaries

Kaimenyi had earlier in the week noted public universities misdirected the Sh 3.9 billion for staff salaries to non-eligible areas.

Prof Kaimenyi, however, noted he has since asked some of the universities that mis-directed the funds to give refunds.

“It is good the Cabinet Secretary noted there was misdirection of funds, but what did he do after the discovery of the misdirection? Is asking the Vice-Chancellors (VCs) to refund the funds enough? Misdirection of funds knowingly, leading to suffering of workers and a crisis such as the one we are in is a ‘criminal act’,” Kubasu told The Standard on Sunday.

Uasu National Organising Secretary Musalia Edebe said it was absurd for VCs to fail to channel money released by the Government last July to their employees’ accounts and that the Government, through the ministry of Education, should establish the root cause of such laxity.

He claimed that the VCs prompted them to carry an audit on management of universities, which unraveled that over Sh2.2 billion meant for the fulfillment of CBA had been diverted to other expenditures. The Unionists have also claimed some of the Vice-Chancellors were intimidating their members, especially Chapter officials to withdraw from the strike.

“So far, two Chapter officials have been intimidated and we have even the Sms messages forwarded to them by one of the VCs in Western Kenya,” noted Kubasu.

Prof Peter Kagwanja, the Chief Executive of the African Policy Institute (API), says the wastage of human hours by both the staff and students owing to the strike was immense.

“The Government also bears some loss because all the public universities are funded by tax payers and when they cease to function, to perform their role of high value knowledge creation, it’s a major loss to the State,” added Kagwanja.