Wilson Sossion trapped in a time warp of threats

It’s no longer a secret that Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) Secretary General Wilson Sossion and the rest of the national office cannot work together.

Since the 2013 “palace coup” that saw Sossion overthrow Mr Nzili from the seat of Secretary General, the question has not been if but when the eventual fallout would happen. The issue is that Mr Sossion takes positions diametrically opposed to his colleagues.

In the latest round of their infighting, KNUT chairman Mudzo Nzili and other top officials supported measures proposed by Education Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i in curbing cheating in national examinations. A few days later, Mr Sossion rubbished the CS’s rules as unworkable.

During this years’ Labour Day, Sossion pleaded with teachers not to attend the celebrations at Uhuru Park. Mr Nzili led a team of KNUT officials to the celebrations.

Mr Sossion’s utterances were clearly misplaced. The Constitution envisages the right of association for everybody.

These public spats between Knut top officials are significant for what they portend for the teachers’ union.

Since the inception of Knut in 1957, top unionists like Stephen Kioni, Ambrose Adongo and Francis Ng’ang’a have been synonymous with tact.

These former unionists had a collegiate approach to decision making and would read the public mood correctly before calling out teachers on strikes.

They had the refinement to know when to seek out government for deals, throw in the towel or defer strikes.

This corporate discretion is acutely missing in the current crop of leaders and especially Secretary General Wilson Sossion who seems to operate on an all-or-nothing principle.

Unfortunately, he may go down in history as the most reckless teachers’ unionist and under whose tenure Knut’s standing in the labour negotiations was relegated from the premier to the junior league.

Worse still, he may forever carry the tag of the person in whose hands the union died. Let’s face it; the past Knut leadership had a keen sense of isolating teachers’ issues and shielding their agitation from all political machinations. But not so with Sossion, who has taken the unfortunate step of politicising teachers’ issues.

His dalliance with politicians began with a political meeting disguised as a prayer session during the teachers' strike in September last year.

This was followed by an embarrassing harambee, ostensibly to raise money for teachers’ salaries, which was led by political leaders.

Later, Mr Sossion would throw all caution to the wind and make a misguided foray into the Kericho senatorial by-election in support of one candidate “to teach the government a lesson”.

The results of these political mishaps by Mr Sossion have only quickened the departure of indignant teachers from Knut, bringing the union to where it currently stands on its knees.

Mr Sossion must show a little decorum and honesty to the union’s mandate of improving teachers’ welfare or resign and join politics. As a bona fide member of Knut, I feel that his occasional political statements and actions are not in members’ best interests.

Whereas Sossion has been harping on the 50-60 per cent salary issue every now and then, it doesn’t require rocket science to know that the court of appeal set a legal precedent in this matter of agitating for salaries.

It ruled that the Salaries and Remuneration Commission must give advice and consensus in all wage deals concerning public officers in Kenya.

But rather than think of new ways of engaging Government under this new legal reality, Knut under Sossion seems trapped in a time warp of threats of strikes and wishful thinking that a 50-60 per cent pay rise is around the corner.

And for Mr Sossion’s information, there is a growing consensus amongst teachers that the events during and after last year’s strike would have taken a better direction if he had been moderate and consultative in his confrontation with government.