Teachers issue fresh strike threat over failure to pay new salaries

KNUT Secretary General Collins Oyuu. [File, Standard]

Learning in public schools could be paralysed if two teachers' unions make good their fresh threat to call for a strike.

The Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet) and Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) have declared intentions to go on strike over the government’s failure to implement salary increments this month as expected.

This means reopening of schools for the third term may be thrown into crisis. On Tuesday, Kuppet joined Knut in rallying its members to boycott work when schools open.

The union said it will convene its National Governing (NGC) to deliberate on key issues, including mobilising for an industrial action starting in September. Kuppet demanded that the government implement the second phase of the 2021-2025 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) that was to take effect in July.

“The union’s organs are being mobilised for a national strike from September to force full implementation of the 2021-2025 CBA, employment of 20,000 new teachers and the conversion of the 46,000 intern teachers into permanent and pensionable terms,” the union demanded.

The union also decried consistent cuts to the education budget despite the wastage reported in government.

Knut Secretary General Collins Oyuu said the CBA is legal and binding document signed between Teachers Service Commission (TSC) and Knut in 2021 and rightly deposited in the Employment and Labour Relations Court.

“There is no way the National Treasury, which is fully aware of the existence and content of the agreement, can backtrack on the CBA by failing to fund adequately TSC to meet its contractual obligations as regards implementing 2021/25 CBA,” said Mr Oyuu last week.

They demanded that the Treasury restore, unconditionally, the Sh10 billion it has reduced from the TSC budget terming it as a violation of the CBA, a move that illegal and immoral. “Teachers will not accept anything short of the second phase of the 2.5 per cent to 9 per cent salary increment as stipulated in the amended 2021/25 CBA,” Oyuu said.

The union called on TSC to use all means possible within its reach to ensure that the agreement which is legal and binding is honoured failure to which the union will use all legal means within its disposal to ensure full compliance.

The two unions said that teachers have received their July payment without their deserved increment which was already negotiated, signed and deposited to the industrial and labour relations court. 

Again, the government has cut Free Day Secondary School (FDSE) capitation funds by 24 percent from Sh22,244 per learner per year to Sh17,000 despite repeated calls by principals and other education stakeholders for an upward review of capitation to offset the high inflation of the last seven years.

Kuppet accused the government of implementing the most ambitious rollback of social spending since independence, regretting that the scale of cuts to the education budget has no parallels in history.

“Even the infamous Structural Adjustment Programme (SAPs) forced on Kenya by the World Bank and the IMF in the mid-1980s did not result in the magnitude of cost deductions being made today,” the union said.

Even more concerning, the union said the government is now going back on its commitment to employ 20,000 new teachers and convert 46,000 intern to permanent and pensionable terms.