Hope as Knut, ministry inch towards pay deal

Hopes of a deal to end the teachers’ strike that has paralysed learning in public schools for two weeks rose on Saturday as the union and government appeared to soften their hardline positions.

Labour Cabinet Secretary Kazungu Kambi met top officials of the Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) at a Nairobi hotel and said both parties had ceded considerable ground.

“What we can say at this stage is that teachers will not go back to class empty handed. But we want to have a new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) with them first, something which they have agreed on,” he said.

“There is good progress. We are almost there. The government side has agreed to vacate Legal Notice 16 of 2003, while the teachers will forego the Legal Notice 254 of 1997,” Mr Kambi told the Sunday Nation.

The teachers have been pushing for the implementation of the 1997 deal which gave them increased allowances but the government argues that Legal Notice 16 of 2003 invalidates the earlier one.

Knut chairman Wilson Sossion, however, said there was no agreement.

“What I can confirm is that we have met the Cabinet Secretary and there was absolutely nothing agreed upon during the meeting,” Mr Sossion said on the phone.

Mr Kambi, on his part, said talks between the two parties will resume on Monday.

“We have agreed to another meeting with the Knut officials to discuss the finer details and evaluate the progress of our weekend talks after consulting other stakeholders,” said the Labour Cabinet Secretary.

During the meeting, it also emerged that the union officials had asked for the immediate release of June salaries for all unpaid teachers, but Mr Kambi insisted that they had to call off the strike first.

On Saturday, Knut officials were also scheduled to meet the Teachers’ Service Commission (TSC).

TSC chief executive Gabriel Lengoiboni said that the meeting was meant to iron out issues around the Legal Notice 534 of 1997 on the basis of which the teachers are demanding a house allowance equivalent to 50 per cent of the basic salary of a teacher.

Other demands include medical allowance at 20 per cent and commuter allowance at 10 per cent.

“We have put all these demands together and forwarded them to the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC). The commission has since insisted that the demands must be fiscally sustainable and in harmony with the pay in the civil service,” Mr Lengoiboni said.

According to him, the SRC has issued guidelines on how to meet the demands of the teachers without distorting the remuneration of other public sector employees.

Mr Lengoiboni, however, said that even within the framework of the SRC guidelines, teachers will enjoy better perks.

“That is why I am meeting the officials on a daily basis in a bid to end the stalemate,” he said.

It will cost the government up to Sh47 billion to meet all these demands.

Sources in government who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue however revealed that at least Sh11 billion has been hived off from “lower priority areas” of the government budget to be offered to the teachers.

It is not clear at this point what these are but Knut has been pitching for the re-allocation of funds for the laptop project to meet their demands.

The project will see the government fork out up to Sh53 billion in three phases starting January next year.

Already Sh17 billion has been allocated for the initiative in the current financial year.

President Kenyatta on Thursday pleaded with the teachers’ union to call off the strike and engage the government in negotiations as had been ordered by the Industrial Court.

But Mr Sossion has ruled out calling off the work boycott, saying that was a different matter that had to be dealt with differently.

“We are ready for talks even at night, but our concern is that the government negotiators are not sincere,” he said. “They keep changing goal posts and putting hurdles at every step; you can’t negotiate within such a framework.”

According to the union rules, it is only the secretary-general who can call off the strike upon the advice of the National Executive Council.

Mr Sossion cited the Wednesday negotiations that were chaired by Mr Kambi which, he said, started well but changed dramatically in the evening, saying this showed lack of willingness to resolve the matter.