Former Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) Secretary-General Wilson Sossion came clean on staging a breakaway teachers union.
Sossion on Wednesday, August 11, denied having a hand in the formation of the National Education Union (NEU) but welcomed its idea calling on other unions to collapse them and operate under one entity as presented by the new splinter union.
NEU whose motto is "Service, Justice, and Unity" is seeking to bring all teachers on board running the recruitment exercise from pre-primary, primary, secondary, and tertiary levels.
NEU also plans to recruit private school teachers who have been isolated by the current unions. It also plots to offer a platform for teachers in special needs schools.
"Teachers are rebelling. Splinters are formed to fill vacuums. I left Knut and shouldn't be associated with activities within the teaching service," the nominated MP told Nation.
Sossion response was triggered by a statement made by Knut secretary-general Collins Oyuu who blamed the old officials for staging the breakaway.
"It's wrong. The world is not ending. if you lose an election, just accept and let others work," Oyuu stated in reference to his predecessor.
The formation of the splinter union was majorly informed by the failure of existing ones to champion the teachers' rights. The non-monetary CBA signed by Knut and TSC in July topping the list of why NEU was formed. The CBA froze teachers' salaries increase for four years from the financial year 2021-2025.
The splinter union now seeks to address salaries increment for all teachers, reduction of union fees from 1.8 per cent to one per cent, and furthermore address all teachers' issues without any form of bias.
The union vests teachers with full powers to elect their representatives and not through delegates.NEU wants all classroom teachers to earn the same amount of salary as the school administrators.
Kuppet has 130,000 members while Knut which had 187,000 members has only 15,000 members left.
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