University unions, State seal deal after hours of tough talks

By Augustine Oduor and Rawlings Otieno

Kenya: Universities Staff Workers union called off their seven-day strike Wednesday evening, bringing to an end the crisis that has led to closure of some campuses.

Back room intrigues, fear of betrayal and suspicion had marred the lecturers’ strike, before they finally agreed on a return-to-work formula to return institutions of higher learning to normalcy.

Finding an acceptable payment schedule that would fully exhaust settlement of the Sh3.9 billion ‘misallocated’ funds was at the centre of maneuvers.

But even after several hours of calculations by representatives from both sides, Vice Chancellors had on Tuesday night rejected the payment schedule prepared by the joint technical team, saying it would have inflated the amount payable to the staff.

The new schedule would have seen the full amount inflated to over Sh4 billion because the salary and house allowances would have been increased by a slightly higher percentage.

University Academic Staff Union (Uasu) and the Kenya University Staff Union (Kusu) demanded that their salaries be increased by 33.1 per cent. The unions also demanded a payment plan that will see their members house allowance increase by 17 per cent.

The computation exercise, however, saw the payment schedule proposed by VCs yield to 22.5 per cent increment in salary, whereas that of the unions rose to 33.45.

“This is what caused the stalemate as VCs declined to sign the return to work formula because the money would have been more than what they bargained for,” said one of the VC’s who attended the meetings.

The two unions called off the seven-day strike after signing a return to work formula that ruled out victimisation of any member who participated in it.

The unions also agreed that the Sh3.9 billion be only paid to eligible members of between job group one to 15 by the end of May.

Kusu and Uasu instructed their members to resume work immediately and noted that the money will be in their accounts by May.

“Only eligible staff will be beneficiaries of the money as was agreed under the 2010 Collective Bargaining Agreement,” said Education Cabinet Secretary Jacob Kaimenyi.

Students bore the brunt of the strike as most lecture halls and libraries remained closed. Some of the universities were closed down as the end to the strike became more uncertain.

Egerton University was the first to be closed through a circular send to all staff and students.

 “The senate at its meeting today (March, 17 2014) has decided that the university (Njoro Campus) be closed until further notice,” the circular by the registrar academic affairs Prof Ochieng’ Owido read in part.

The circular asked students who wished to stay in school to register with the dean of students.

“You area ware that normal academic functions have not been taking place since the staff strike started. The senate has determined that this situation may persist for sometime hereby causing students to be idle,” the circular partly read.

Maseno University senate also held a crisis meeting on Tuesday to assess the effect of the strike and its potential consequences.

And Wednesday, the striking universities staff urged President Uhuru Kenyatta to sack Prof Kaimenyi over his alleged failure to offer leadership in ending the stalemate.

Mock referendum

Staff at the Technical University of Kenya (TUK) formerly Kenya

Polytechnic held a mock referendum election to urge Uhuru to sack Kaimenyi.

Over 360 union members lined up to cast their votes holding two ballot  papers, with one ballot box indicating the name of Education CS

Kaimenyi and the other ballot box indicating Vice Chancellors.

On the other hand, hunger, closed libraries and lecture halls and deserted offices characterized public institutions.

Reliable reports indicated that several other public universities were weighing the option of closing down and sending students away should talks between the VCs and the two universities staff unions’ collapse.

Interviews with some of the students revealed hopelessness and desperation, as the effect of the strike continued to bite.

“Those of us who are under the higher education loans board (Helb) sponsorship get so little money that we have to budget for to take us through the semester,” said David Were, a student at The University of Nairobi.

He said any additional unplanned expenditure affects their budget prompting some students to go hungry.

“Currently we spend up to Sh80 on lunch alone. This is a lot of money because when the university mess is open we spend half that amount,” he said.  The chairman of the Student Union of Egerton University Vincent Hono, said the university mess was closed down last week.