By AUGUSTINE ODUOR
KENYA: Public schools reopen Monday under the threat of a strike by teachers after secret talks between their union and employer on a pay rise collapsed.
It comes on the heels of the Parliamentary Service Commission budgeting for higher salaries of Members of the National Assembly and Senate.
The Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut), whose chairman Wilson Sossion has backed the MPs salary demands, was in talks with the Teachers Service Commissioner (TSC) on revocation of a legal notice that overruled payment of hefty allowances to teachers.
Under a 1997 agreement, the teachers were entitled to a raft of allowances totalling Sh24 billion annually, but the Narc Government in disowned the deal in 2003 through a legal notice.
If the new perks were implemented, the lowest paid teacher in Job Group F, who earns Sh16, 692, would pocket an additional Sh11, 616 a month in allowances. In February, Knut declared a strike after the Government failed to revoke the legal notice, even after direction by a parliamentary committee, prompting authorities to initiate fresh talks.
However, the latest month-long talks brokered by a State-appointed conciliator, Mr J N Makaa, failed and Knut has vowed to press on with the strike.
Sources familiar with the matter say the State was not keen to part with Sh2 billion monthly as it would worsen the already spiralling wage bill that President Uhuru Kenyatta has stated is unsustainable.
Separately, Knut and the Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet), which have a membership of more than 250,000, have issued a 14-day strike notice over another dispute.
Unresolved dispute
The ultimatum, which expires on Monday, is to protest the TSC’s freeze on promotion of teachers and the withdrawal of hardship allowances in some parts of the country.
On Sunday, Sossion told The Standard they would ask their members to boycott work.
“After the certificate of disagreement was issued it meant that Knut can call a strike any minute because we had already complied with the law in February,” Sossion said.
“We will reactivate the strike because we had only suspended industrial action to give room for talks. All organs of Knut had sanctioned the strike.”
Through a letter dated March 27, Makaa declared the dispute between the State and Knut over the legal notice, which Knut claims illegally amended the allowances negotiated in 1997, had not been resolved.
“Following conciliation efforts I hereby confirm that the dispute remains unresolved as provided by section 69 of the Labour Relations Act 2007 on the core contention of the de-gazetted Legal Notice No. 16 0f 2003,” reads part of the letter a copy of which The Standard obtained. “The parties are at liberty to advance the subject dispute to the next level.”
Knut argued the letter by Makaa, according to the Labour Relations Act, allows them two options: to withdraw labour or move to the industrial court.
The union has ruled out going to court and says based on Makaa’s letter, the State has essentially given their impending strike legal recognition.
According to the Act, a strike is protected if the effort by a conciliator fails and a certificate of disagreement is issued.
“If a trade union dispute is not resolved after conciliation a party to the dispute may refer it to the Industrial Court in accordance with the rules of the Industrial Court,” reads section 73 of the Act.
Terms and Conditions
The Act also protects all teachers who will participate in the strike under Section 76.
“A person may participate in a strike or lock-out if the trade dispute that forms the subject of the strike or lock out concerns terms and conditions of employment...”
Under this section of the Act, a trade dispute is deemed to be unresolved after conciliation if the conciliator issues a certificate that the dispute has not been resolved.
Makaa’s letter is copied to TSC secretary Gabriel Lengoiboni and the Federation of Kenyan Employees, Labour Commissioner and the Secretary General, Confederation of Civil Servants Union (Pusetu).
Lengoiboni confirmed that the talks did not yield a solution and said they are not at war with the unions.
He said the report by the House Implementation Committee indicated that Parliament should ask the Education minister to de-gazzette the legal notice.
“We wrote to the minister and he also responded. The views also incorporated the advice from the attorney General and that is still the position,” Lengoiboni said.
Learning paralysed
Under a 1997 agreement, teachers were supposed to earn half their basic pay as house allowance. They were also to pocket 20 per cent of their basic pay as medical allowance and another 10 per cent of their salary towards commuter allowance.
But the contentious Legal Notice No. 16 of 2003 stopped the enjoyment of these perks.
The Government has always held that this particular notice overturned Legal Notice No.534 of 1997 under which all the allowances in question were negotiated and agreed upon.
This was also the cause of last year’s three-week nationwide teachers strike that saw learning paralysed in all public schools across the country.
