Teachers ask for Sh25bn and set strike for Monday

Teachers in public schools countrywide will go on strike starting Monday when a seven-day notice expires.

The top decision–making organ of the Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) on Thursday endorsed the strike after talks between them and the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) collapsed.

Speaking after a three-hour Knut national executive council meeting, chairman Wilson Sossion said the government had up to Sunday to pay teachers Sh25 billion in allowances or they would stay away from work starting Monday morning.

“We have asked all our members not to report to duty on Monday after the expiry of the strike notice that we issued on Monday,” Mr Sossion said.

TSC, the Salaries and Remunerations Commission, the ministries of Labour and Education have been served with the strike notice, he said.

Allowances

At the centre of the row is the payment of Sh25 billion house, medical and commuter allowances for the teachers.

The allowances were a part of an agreement signed between Knut and the government that ended a three-week strike last year.

The teachers want to be paid 50 per cent of their basic salary as house allowance, medical (20 per cent) and commuter (10 per cent). Basic salary constitutes 30 per cent of their pay.

“We feel that the government has reneged on its earlier promise to pay teachers the allowances after Parliament ruled that teachers were legally mandated to demand the allowances,” Mr Sossion said.

This followed the repealing of the contentious legal notice Number 16 of 2003 which was tabled before a select committee of the tenth Parliament by former Mutito MP Kiema Kilonzo.

The committee was to determine the validity of the legal notice that sought to amend another legal notice of 1997 that awarded teachers various allowances.

In the report tabled before the committee by Mr Kilonzo on January 3, the House had urged Education minister Mutula Kilonzo to de-gazette the TSC (Remuneration of Teachers Amendment Order 2003 gazetted in the Kenya Gazette supplement Number 17 of February 21 2003) as legal notice Number 16 of 2003.

This would set the stage for the award of the Sh25 billion allowances to the teachers.

As part of their return-to-work agreement last year, the government and the union agreed to respect the decision made by Parliament regarding the validity of the notices.

Mr Sossion had urged the government not to invite unnecessary pressure from teachers by failing to implement the payment of house, medical and commuter allowances with effect from January 1 following the repeal of the contentious legal notice.

And last week, TSC invited Knut to discuss the awards and avert the strike by the union if the allowances were not paid.

Although the meeting took place on Wednesday last week, the teachers announced that the talks had collapsed and given TSC five days to discuss the matter with the government.

At the expiry of the five-day period, Knut this week issued a seven-day strike notice which expires on Monday.