TSC ‘has failed to offer teachers unions increase in basic pay’

Nancy Macharia

Teachers Service Commission CEO Nancy Macharia. 

Photo credit: File

What you need to know:

  • Teachers have been offered several perks in the past, totalling Sh9.3 billion to cover house, hardship and leave allowances.
  • Kenya's 255,000 teachers want a basic salary increase because this will contribute to their pension.
  • The TSC submitted the newest proposal to the Kenya National Union of Teachers on Thursday.

Teachers have suffered a setback in their quest for an increase in their basic salaries after their employer offered a zero per cent raise in the latest counter-offer submitted to unions.

It is, however, not clear if their allowances were raised, with the two unions declining to reveal the offer made to them by the Teachers Service Commission (TSC).

Though they were offered several perks in the past totalling Sh9.3 billion to cover house, hardship and leave allowances Kenya's 255,000 teachers have maintained that they must get a basic salary increase because this will contribute to their pension.

Sources in the unions said at the weekend that the TSC submitted the newest proposal to the Kenya National Union of Teachers on Thursday. The offer was discussed by the union’s top decision-making organ, the National Executive Council, which met on Friday.

During the talks, a team was formed to study the proposal. It will meet on Monday and Tuesday to analyse the offer. If the offer is deemed unsatisfactory, this is likely to set the stage for another confrontation, considering that the two teachers’ unions had asked for a 50-60 per cent increase.

Besides Knut, the TSC also submitted the same counter-offer to the Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet) on Friday. The union is yet to discuss the issue.

EXPRESSED DISAPPOINTMENT

At the weekend, members of Knut’s executive council expressed their disappointment with the document, saying it clearly shows that the commission was not interested in giving teachers a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA).

“It will be hard for teachers to talk of a CBA that has no component of basic salary,” said a source at Knut, adding that unimportant issues such as barring school heads, their deputies and heads of departments from heading unions had been sneaked into the proposal by the TSC.

On Sunday, Knut Secretary-General Wilson Sossion remained tight-lipped about the contents of the proposal, saying it could not be made public yet.

“It is a confidential document and we will study it before we share with you,” he said.

Kuppet Chairman Omboko Milemba confirmed that the union had received the proposal but also declined to reveal its contents.

“I have not studied the document as we speak so I have to go through it before making any statement,” he said.

The counter-proposal from the TSC is aimed at jump-starting talks on a collective bargaining agreement that has been the cause of frequent strikes by teachers.

Speaking in Kericho on Saturday, Mr Sossion asked the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) to release as soon as possible its findings on job evaluations for teachers.

He said sufficient advice from the SRC was required to enable the union and the TSC to reach an agreement and sign a new CBA that would cover the period between 2017 and 2021.

BASIC SALARIES

He also announced that Knut would soon sign another CBA with the TSC outlining the benefits awarded to teachers between 2013 and 2017, before starting talks on the new CBA, which will require the input of the SRC.

“We shall have two CBAs within a short period of time. The second CBA will contain proper and substantive advice from the SRC. Today I am calling on my sister Serem to urgently release the advisory opinion to the TSC to enable us [to] engage with the view of reaching and signing a proper CBA that shall contain basic salaries for teachers,” Mr Sossion said.

Knut and Kuppet have been insisting on a 50-60 per cent increase that was awarded to them by the Employment and Labour Relations Court but was declared null and void by the Court of Appeal late last year.

Teachers held two strikes last year to push for the increase and that led President Uhuru Kenyatta to broker a deal between the unions and their employer in November.

The deal allowed the TSC and unions to go back to the negotiating table and the two had been expected to sign an agreement within a month.

It was also agreed that all parties withdraw pending court cases related to the dispute to enable those involved to come up with a four-year collective bargaining agreement.

However, this was to be done in full recognition of the binding advisory that was to be made by the SRC. It was also agreed that there must be full recognition of a basic point: equal pay for equal work. The SRC is yet to issue the advisory.