The long and painful trek to Kenyan teachers historic pay boom

NAIROBI: The State shot itself in the foot twice during the court case by teachers’ unions clamouring for a pay rise.

First, the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) tabled an offer of 50 per cent increment but later withdrew it after Treasury insisted there was no money.

Then another unit from the Ministry of Labour filed a document backing hefty increment for teachers, citing rising inflation and the need to cushion teachers from the high cost of living.

At the time, a furious Labour Cabinet Secretary Kazungu Kambi (now suspended) disowned the document by the Central Planning and Monitoring Unit (CPMU), which would later file another document basically retracting the offer.

The confusion highlighted the dramatic journey that has been the battle between the Government and teachers' unions. On January 9, 2015, TSC moved to court seeking orders to quash the nationwide teachers' strike that had paralysed learning in all public schools.

The Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) and the Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet) had both issued a seven-day strike notice.

The two unions went on strike almost at the same time, throwing the education sector into chaos. TSC raced to court seeking orders to restrain union officials and members from continuing with the strike.

Employment Court Judge Nduma Nderi declined to issue the orders of the injunction sought by TSC and instead directed all necessary parties including the officials of the two unions to appear before him on January 14, 2015.

The meeting was called after the unions and their employer failed to agree on the salary increments for the 288,000 teachers even after holding six consultative meetings.

Justice Nderi, under section 15 of the Employment and Labour Relations Court Act, presided over the conciliation exercise.

After about eight hours of talks, Nderi, Knut and Kuppet agreed to call off the strike and also agreed to submit a joint memorandum for adjudication.

TSC, Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) and the Labour ministry were also asked to each submit their memorandum.

In their submission, Knut and Kuppet demanded a basic salary rise for 300 per cent and allowances that they wanted the court to grant.

The two unions argued that TSC had earlier granted a 50 to 60 salary raise, which was later withdrawn with the advise of SRC.

The clandestine proposal by TSC would have seen TSC pump some Sh50 billion annually into its wage bill to cater for basic salary increase.

In addition, TSC also proposed Sh18 billion and Sh10 billion leave and house allowances annually.

But in a tough letter to TSC, SRC said the proposed salary raise was not sustainable and asked the teachers' employer to justify the increase.

“The Commission (SRC) does not concur with TSC’s proposals to increase the basic salary by 50 to 60 per cent as the rationale for the proposed increment has not been provided,” SRC said in a statement signed by Anne Gitau, the SRC acting commission secretary.

The Commission said it had observed that due to cost implications, it was important that Treasury confirmed availability of funds to meet the resultant expenditure.

SRC asked TSC to demonstrate budgetary provision for the proposed remuneration structure.

The commission also advised against further review of allowances.

“Review of the proposed allowances (should) be held in abeyance until the completion of the study on allowances payable to public officers,” SRC said.

The advise by SRC set it against Kuppet and Knut, who termed SRC as a “stranger”. They said it did not have the jurisdiction to review their salaries.

In its memorandum, TSC asked the court not to grant unions their prayer. The teachers' employer said if the demands by the unions were met, the wage bill would be unsustainable. TSC said the demands would push teachers' wage bill to Sh683 billion.

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It said its current annual salary expenditure is Sh106 billion, adding that this would shoot up to Sh330 billion if teachers would be granted their wish.

Then there was the filing by CPMU. The unit asked the court to consider awarding teachers a 128 per cent increase, translating to some Sh137 billion annually.

CPMU based the figures on the changes of consumer price index between July 1, 1997 and June 30, 2013.

The CPMU also proposed that the award be spread across four years with a payment plan of Sh34.3 billion annually. Kambi, however, told the court that CPMU did not consult his office before filing the document and requested to have it expunged from court records.

Justice Nduma Nderi declined and allowed filing of a second memorandum by CPMU.