Today, officials from the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) and the Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) will meet in Naivasha to talk about a deal that will allow teachers to get a pay raise.
Knut and the Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet) have been pushing for a review of the non-monetary Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) that was signed in July of last year.
Collins Oyuu, who is the secretary general of Knut, says that they want to talk about things like the Education committee report and training for teachers’ professional development, among other things.
Knut wants the government to pay for TPD training for teachers. It also wants TSC to let teachers from elementary schools teach in junior high schools. He also wants the Commission to let teachers who have upgraded their certificates move up in the ranks.
But the 2021-2025 CBA, which did not give teachers a pay raise, will be at the center of the discussion.
Even though the CBA didn’t cover salary changes, union leaders are confident that it will be looked at again and a salary component will be added through a supplemental budget.
In the 2021–2025 CBA, which is also known as the “maternity CBA,” teachers did not get a pay raise, but they did get more days off for maternity and paternity leave.
The number of days a woman can take off to have a baby went from 90 to 120, and a father’s time off went from 14 to 21.
The CBA also gave teachers in arid and semi-arid areas (ASAL) the chance to move up based on affirmative action. But this meant that teachers wouldn’t get a pay raise from 2021 to 2025.
Treasury Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yatani gave TSC an extra Sh14.8 billion in the 2022–2023 budget that was read.
The Commission, on the other hand, denied that it would use the money to give teachers a raise.
TSC said in a report that was given to Parliament that the extra money would be used to hire more teachers.
In the budget, the TSC was also given sh 2.5 billion to hire 5,000 teachers full-time and sh 1.2 billion to hire 6,000 teachers for internships.
After talks with Knut are over, TSC will meet with the other unions, Kuppet and Kusnet.
In a letter to TSC on January 17, Kuppet asked for a pay raise of at least 30% for its members.
In its proposal, Kuppet wants the basic monthly salary of the lowest-paid teacher to go up from Sh34,955 to Sh59,425 and the basic monthly salary of the highest-paid teacher to go up from Sh118,242 to Sh153,715.
It also wants to raise the commuter allowance for teachers from Sh5,000 to Sh8,500 for those at the bottom of the pay scale and from Sh16,000 to Sh20,000 for those at the top.
Knut, on the other hand, wants his pay to go up by between 15% and 20%. Oyuu is also trying to get commuter and house allowances changed to keep up with rising prices.
Since Oyuu took office, Knut has brought in 100,000 new members in one year. This brings the total number of members to 115,000, up from 15,000 when he took office on June 26, 2016.
Fewer than the 187,000 Knut that Knut had a few years ago.
“When I took over as secretary general, Knut was facing a lot of problems, like a lack of members and money, as well as bad feelings between him and the TSC,” he said.
Mr. Oyuu said that all 110 of Knut’s branches are now fully operational, that all employees are getting paid on time, that staff medical coverage has been restored, and that the union is slowly paying off the debts it had built up over the two years before he took over.
Due to a financial crisis, the union had to close a few branch offices and auction off things like chairs, desks, and computers.
In one branch, a union bus was put up for bid. Some of the furniture in the head office was also sold at auction because of debt.
“Every month, we pay up to Sh14 million to pay back what the union owes to the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA), pensions, and other debts.
Since Oyuu took office, Knut has brought in 100,000 new members in one year. This brings the total number of members to 115,000, up from 15,000 when he took office on June 26, 2016.
Fewer than the 187,000 Knut that Knut had a few years ago.
“When I took over as secretary general, Knut was facing a lot of problems, like a lack of members and money, as well as bad feelings between him and the TSC,” he said.
Mr. Oyuu said that all 110 of Knut’s branches are now fully operational, that all employees are getting paid on time, that staff medical coverage has been restored, and that the union is slowly paying off the debts it had built up over the two years before he took over.
Due to a financial crisis, the union had to close a few branch offices and auction off things like chairs, desks, and computers.
In one branch, a union bus was put up for bid. Some of the furniture in the head office was also sold at auction because of debt.
“Every month, we pay up to Sh14 million to pay back what the union owes to the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA), pensions, and other debts.
When the new leaders took over, they found out that the union owed KRA more than Sh301 million. It also owed a lot of money to other people.
He said that all union retirees are getting their pensions and other debts are being paid off. But his leadership has not been praised by everyone.
Some teachers have said that Mr. Oyuu and other union officials have given up on the union’s position to make the employer happy.
The Kenya National Teachers Pressure Group (KNTPG) says that Knut no longer cares about issues that affect teachers. It also says that Knut’s officials are working together with the TSC to make teachers’ lives hard.
Martha Omollo, a spokeswoman for KNTPG, says that Knut and other unions are “in bed” with the company.
Ms. Omollo said, “Teachers need a union that looks out for their needs.”
They say that Mr. Oyuu signed a CBA that didn’t include money and didn’t fight against punishment transfers that sent teachers in the group to faraway counties. But Mr. Oyuu said that the group wasn’t legal because it wasn’t registered and didn’t have the right to talk about teachers.
won’t talk to those who quit or lost an election,” he said, adding that the non-monetary part was one of the problems he had to deal with because Knut thought the TSC would raise salaries.
“I care about teachers, and one of my top priorities is to make sure they get a pay raise through a well-negotiated CBA.”
Mr. Oyuu said that restoring Knut hasn’t been easy, but that his top priority has been to make sure that everyone works together well in the education sector, especially with the TSC and the Ministry of Education.
“Trade unionism is about making sure that everyone is happy. We can’t work without getting along with the employer, so that’s what I’ve been doing. I’m fighting for teachers’ rights, and I want the employer to be able to hear me and invite us to the table to talk.
Before he was elected, over 172,000 people had left Knut, leaving it a shell of what it used to be. The union was also challenging in court a number of TSC rules that affected teachers. The fights led to less money, which was put down to the TSC not paying union dues.
When Mr. Oyuu took over, he got rid of all of Knut’s cases against the TSC, signed an agreement with the employer that said the union could only represent teachers in primary schools, and reversed decisions that had made things hard between the union and the employer.
Wilson Sossion, an ODM-nominated MP who was his predecessor, was against a lot of things, including the demarcation policy.
