Reject pay demands by unions, TSC tells court

What you need to know:

  • The commission said teachers’ unions should execute a Collective Bargaining Agreement with it on all non-contentious issues which have been agreed and implemented. It also said the unions should be directed by the court to resume negotiation.
  • On allowances, the employer said teachers and other public servants were awarded a substantial house allowance increase which was much more than what had been negotiated in 1997.
  • It also said that the government had approved new house allowance rates for all public servants including teachers which will be implemented from July 1 in the next financial year.

The Teachers Service Commission is unwilling to increase salaries for teachers, citing the prevailing economic situation in the country.

In a memorandum filed at the Employment and Labour Relations Court in Nairobi Thursday, the commission has offered teachers Sh9.3 billion for various allowances, saying it had made the necessary budgetary allocation to ensure that the offer can implemented without fail.

The teachers’ two unions, Knut and Kuppet, had rejected the offer and insisted on an increase in their basic pay which they said was a standard practice for collective bargaining agreements and would benefit them in calculating their retirement benefits.

They also said this would cushion them against inflation.

In the document filed in court, however, the commission argued that teachers were already cushioned against inflation by the continuous salary reviews since 2003.

“The demand based on inflation is not economically justifiable since inflation has fallen from 15 per cent as at 2012 to 6.9 per cent as at December 2014. Therefore a salary review purely based on inflation may not be tenable,” said the commission.

The commission further argued that in the 2014/2015 Budget, the national net total voted recurrent expenditure after deduction of national debts and consolidated fund service amounts to Sh688 billion for the entire country.

UNTENABLE

“The current demands presented by the (teachers’) unions on basic salary and allowances amount to Sh527 billion per annum which equals to about 77 per cent of the voted recurrent expenditure of the entire government,” said the commission.

It argued that this demand is economically untenable and practically impossible and asked the court to dismiss it.

“The Constitution demands equity, fairness and non-discrimination in public remuneration hence, any increase of basic salary to teachers will trigger the same increase of salaries to other civil servants at the same percentage,” said the commission.

It said at the moment its wage Bill stood at Sh161 billion, which is equivalent to 23 per cent of the national wage bill and 59 per cent of the entire sectoral budget.

“Therefore any increase in salary as demanded by the unions will push the figure to Sh684 billion which translates to 99 per cent of the entire national recurrent expenditure and 174 per cent of the sectoral budget less any increment in public service which must also be in harmony with that of the teachers,” said the commission.

“Civil servants and the police service will have to be accorded similar treatment pushing their wage bill further to Sh461 billion,” it said.

RESUME NEGOTIATION

The commission said teachers’ unions should execute a Collective Bargaining Agreement with it on all non-contentious issues which have been agreed and implemented. It also said the unions should be directed by the court to resume negotiation.

The commission also asked the court to hear and determine its petition number 3 of 2015 on its own merit and argued that it was under obligation to seek advice from the Salaries and Remuneration Commission on pay for teachers who are public officers.

The salaries team it said, had advised that review of basic salary be suspended pending a comprehensive job evaluation.

“The job evaluation to be undertaken in the public service is a paradigm shift commanded by the new constitutional order and is meant to grade and reward different jobs on the basis of their worth,” said the commission in its filing.

On allowances, the employer said teachers and other public servants were awarded a substantial house allowance increase which was much more than what had been negotiated in 1997.

It also said that the government had approved new house allowance rates for all public servants including teachers which will be implemented from July 1 in the next financial year. The new rates will be in line with the cost of housing in the country.

The employer was also maintained its position that its mandate and that of salaries team was constitutional and, therefore, the current court-led conciliation process between teachers and the employer was unconstitutional.

“It should be noted that this court invoked a section of the Industrial Court Act which is an alternative dispute resolution process to solve the economic dispute between parties. It will amount to a travesty of justice for the court to turn from that process and determine constitutional questions that have not been formally submitted to it,” the memorandum said.

The employer also insisted that teachers were public servants and the salaries commission was the only government agency that sets and reviews remuneration and benefits of all state officers.

Additional reporting by Maureen Kakah