The Kenya National Union of Teachers(KNUT) has called off a strike that had threatened to derail the forthcoming KCPE and KCSE national exams.
KNUT Secretary General Wilson Sossion wrote a letter to the Teachers’ Service Commission (TSC) Chief Executive Officer Nancy Macharia on Friday, February 26, withdrawing their earlier strike notice following a new pay deal by the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC).
“Note that we had already registered a trade dispute with the Cabinet Secretary, Ministry of Labor. However, based on the commission’s response citing the process of concluding internal consultations with SRC, we hereby retract our letter to the CS and urge that you give strict and clear timelines of undertaking the salary negotiations.”
This move by KNUT paves way for the forthcoming national examinations.
The SRC admitted to having not completed the job evaluation for teachers, which is an important process for guiding Collective Bargaining Agreement(CBA) negotiations. It added that the negotiation parameters would be issued once the evaluation is concluded.
KNUT had written to TSC warning of two weeks on Monday, February 15, threatening to take industrial action over salary raises.
Sossion noted that the current teacher’s salary rates of Ksh 54 billion, meant to cover 2017-2021 would end in June 2021.
The teacher’s union gave TSC 30 days to pay the teachers, failure to which they would institute a nationwide strike. Sossion also pointed out that the union had closed down due to delays in remittance of monthly contributions by TSC.
He further said that TSC had failed to respond to KNUT regarding negotiations on the 2021-2025 new CBA.
KNUT complained that TSC had not involved them in the negotiations when they submitted salary proposals to the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC). The teachers’ employer proposed a 16 to 30 percent salary raise in the 2021-2025 CBA proposals.
