Sossion: A defender of teachers' welfare with effective tongue

That the Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) secretary-general Wilson Sossion loves a good fight is not in doubt.

He is a man of many wars and who uses many weapons, the most effective being his tongue.

The nominated MP is once again firing from his favourite weapon, threatening to call for a teachers’ boycott of work unless their employer reviews various policies that he deems punitive.

But the threat from Mr Sossion is not backed by a seven-day notice as required by law, just like the one he issued in August.

This week, players in the education sector will be monitoring him to see whether the threat will translate into more drama.

This is because the boycott warning comes a few days to the start of the national examinations, with Form Fours set to start practical subjects on October 22.

APPRAISAL

Mr Sossion’s latest war cry is as a result of collapsed talks between the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) and Knut in Naivasha last week. However, TSC has called for a second round of talks on October 19.

The issues the union is contesting are delocalisation policy, promotion of teachers based on performance and vacancies in the teaching profession, teacher performance, appraisal and development, teacher professional development programmes, and development of policies in consultation with Knut.

Mr Sossion and his team have insisted that TSC must stop implementation of those policies failure to which teachers will boycott work.

Strike threats appear to be one of Knut’s reliable weapons to make TSC negotiate with them. And Mr Sossion insists that his fights with TSC are for the benefit of teachers.

“TSC only understands one language and that is of strike. And we will not hesitate,” Mr Sossion said recently.

MERGER

One of his more recent fights is the quest to have him deregistered as a teacher. TSC wanted him out of the list of teachers on account of his nomination to Parliament by the Orange Democratic Party.

But he scored a victory when he signed a deal with TSC at the Labour Relations court to retain his seat even as he serves as MP. That ended a tiff that started last year.

There was yet another fight around Kenya’s umbrella organisations for trade unions.

In August this year, Mr Sossion was kicked out as Trade Union Congress of Kenya secretary-general after he initiated talks with Central Organisation of Trade Unions secretary-general Francis Atwoli to merge the two labour bodies.

MUDZO NZILI

Not one to back out of fights, Mr Sossion hit back at the congress by pulling out 200,000 teachers. It did not end there.

He threw out the congress, which is chaired by Nyatike MP Tom Odege, from the Knut headquarters building.

His fight with the union’s former chairman is also well-documented. Last year in November, he retired then Knut chairman Mudzo Nzili and his vice-chairman Samson Kaguma.

In 2013, he ousted Mr Nzili who was then the acting secretary-general.

In 2015, President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto met Knut leaders after a month-long strike but Mr Sossion boycotted the meeting.