The public university workers’ unions on Tuesday threatened to stage nationwide demonstrations if the government fails to honour the agreement reached between the union leaders and the government in September this year.
The unions, including the University Academic Staff Union (UASU) and the Kenya Universities Staff Union (KUSU), faulted the government, accusing it of negligence despite initially promising to fulfil their demands.
In a press briefing, the union leaders claimed that despite several attempts to compel the government into action, their demands were yet to be met leaving them with no option other than industrial action.
The union leaders now want the government to honour the agreement failure to which the aggrieved university workers vowed to hold nationwide demonstrations in the next seven days. The looming demonstrations have threatened to disrupt learning in most tertiary institutions across the country.
UASU's latest demand notice came barely three weeks after the union called off its nationwide demonstrations after it reached an agreement with the officials from the ministries of Education and Labour.
In their September 13 meeting presided over by Labour Cabinet Secretary Alfred Mutua, both parties reached an agreement for salary increments for all university workers.
The parties agreed on a pay increase of between 7 per cent and 10 per cent for university staff, with those in grades 13A–15A receiving a 7 per cent increase and those in grades 10A–12A receiving a 10 per cent increase.
CS Mutua also agreed to increase the retirement threshold for all academic staff, including graduate assistants, tutorial fellows, and assistant lecturers. Following the agreement, the retirement age for all academic staff was capped at 70 years.
The government also agreed to heed an automatic annual salary increment of 4 per cent of the basic salary which would be implemented for the duration of the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) cycle, which runs from July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2025.
“The Union shall immediately call off the industrial action upon the execution of this agreement. As a result, the employer shall withdraw unconditionally the Employment and Labour Relations Cause Number E780 of 2024 and parties shall bear their costs,” UASU stated.
During the agreement, the union workers agreed to formulate a way to recover all the time lost during the demonstrations that lasted for one week. "The employees represented by UASU and constituent colleges shall work handily with their employer to establish a viable plan for recovering any teaching and learning time lost due to the strike,” the union leaders directed.
The decision to suspend the demonstrations also followed a directive by the Labour Relations court that ordered all striking university workers to return to work pending an agreement between the union leaders and the government.
