UASU meets over Govt Sh7b pay deal

By Augustine Oduor

University lecturers and workers are currently holding a meeting at a Nairobi Hotel that may result in signing of a return to work formula.

This is after the government announced an offer of Sh7.8 billion to settle the backlog of stalled Comprehensive Bargaining Agreements that signed several years ago.

Higher Education minister Margaret Kamar said the offer was a result of a daylong meeting that ended late last night.

“As far as we are concerned we have made the offer and we are all in agreement. What we did not agree on is how the money shall be paid,” said the minister in her Jogoo House office.

She said the government has offered to pay the money in two phases sh 3.9 billion starting January next year and the balance be paid by July next year.

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“The first phase will be paid this financial year through the supplementary budget. The next phase shall be settled in the 2013/13 budget,” she said.

But the University Academic Staff union (Uasu) and the Universities Non-Teaching Staff Union (Untensu) said they are still consulting before issuing comprehensive statement.

“We are currently holding a meeting to discuss the figures and what the raise tabulates across all the cadres. We shall issue a statement soon,” said Untesu secretary general Charles Mukhwaya.

Prof Kamar said the unions and the government were in agreement that all the backlog should be paid ahead of another bargaining agreement that is slated to start mid next year.

She said the cabinet subcommittee meeting placed the offer after acknowledging that the lecturers and university workers grievances are genuine.

“They have accepted the figure. They are currently holding a meeting and we expect them to sign a return to work formula. We then expect lecturers back in class tomorrow morning and by Monday all classes should be back and running,” she said.

She said the raise the cash will address the 2010/12 CBA and also the 2013. “This translates to 7.5 per cent increase for each of the years,” she said.

The development comes a few days after the government through the Inter Public Councils Consultative Forum (IPUCCF) offered a 0.5 per cent salary increment for the lecturers that they said translated to some Sh 200 raise per month.

It also comes after University lecturers and allied workers rejected the cabinet proposal last week that they return to work terming it a lazy decision.

The workers said they will not honour any government’s directive and laughed off the efforts by a cabinet sub committee to jump start talks.

The two unions faulted the government’s move to award a 400 per cent salary increase to university executives and demanded that their pay be halted until all salaries are restructured.

Uasu secretary general Muga K’Olale and Dr Mukhwaya said the university vice chancellors currently take home at least sh. 1.3 million every month yet the workers earn peanuts.

But as part of their demands, Uasu wants a new salary structure that will double the basic pay of lecturers and improve their allowances by more than 100 per cent.

If granted, the unions propose that the pay of a professor be raised to a maximum of Sh400, 000, up from the current Sh165, 000 a month.

With this, the new house allowance will rise to Sh95, 000, up from Sh64, 000.

The lowest paid staff also known as graduate assistants would have their pay increased to Sh78, 000, up from Sh40, 000.

Their housing allowance would shoot to Sh45, 000 housing up from Sh30, 000.