Wilson Sossion threatens industrial action over SRC stand on allowances

A trade union congress has issued a seven day notice to the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) to revoke a circular on allowances that it issued last week to public officers.

Trade Unions Congress of Kenya (TUC-K) secretary-general Wilson Sossion warned that failure to do that will lead to industrial action.

“The Trade Unions Congress of Kenya shall meet to declare a labour dispute and to take the necessary action to save workers and the labour market from disintegrating into untenable discourse,” said Mr Sossion.

The Congress whose members include teachers, university lecturers and dock workers said the decision was arrived at without public participation and declared it null and void.

On Thursday, SRC announced radical changes that will see several allowances scrapped in the public service with a target of saving more than Sh125 billion which will translate to 25 per cent of the total wage bill.

According to the Commission, more than Sh184 billion was paid in the form of allowances to state and public officers in the last financial year.

OVERSTEPPED ITS MANDATE

Mr Sossion also demanded that the government moves fast to conclude all pending collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) with various unions to avoid throwing the entire public service sector into unprecedented industrial unrest.

Mr Sossion, who is also the Kenya National Union of Teachers secretary-general, said the SRC was overstepping its constitutional mandate as provided for in Article 230 (4)(b) which states that the Commission advises the national and county governments on the remuneration and benefits of all public officers.

“The SRC in its own word has without due regard to established law, practices and procedures in determining remuneration of public officers frozen any further review of basic salaries for public servants until the job evaluation exercise is concluded,” said Mr Sossion.

He went on: “This is outrageous as the SRC is fully aware that all the unions in the sector are engaged in collective bargaining in order to sign tripartite agreements upon conclusion.”

The secretary-general observed that whereas the SRC is mandated to offer advice to the relevant governments, it had taken upon itself the role of making decisions on the remuneration.

He said the SRC was exhibiting clear hypocrisy; while it appear readily agreeable to freeze, to set, to limit and to approve what is good to them, the Commission was passing the burden of leave allowance to the process of CBAs which it had outlawed.

“Upon confirmation that the SRC has established that there exists over 150 different types of allowances in the public service, the minimum that would be expected of the Commission is first to publish all the types of allowances and de-gazette them at once,” he said.

He added that for the Commission to purport to consolidate them is an exercise in futility which would see the same types of allowances back in place in new forms.

Mr Sossion accused the Commission of double standards with regards to compensation for commissioners.