No turning back for teachers despite order

By Augustine Oduor

Kuppet members from Nyeri County branch demonstrate after holding a strategy meeting over the pending strike.  [Picture: Job Weru/Standard]

Teachers have vowed to go ahead with a strike planned to start on Monday even after their employer obtained a court order stopping them.

Industrial Court Judge Pyrum Ongaya on Friday granted the Teachers Service Commission an order making the strike by public school teachers illegal. This means TSC can legally withhold pay, take disciplinary measures, and even fire anyone who goes on strike.

However, the political muscle of the two teachers’ unions has in the past rendered such orders impotent to prevent strikes or punish strikers.

Bolstered by this, the Kenya National Union of Teachers and the Kenya Union of Post-Primary Education Teachersmay well go ahead with the strike even if served with the order restraining them and their members from industrial action.

Knut and Kuppet officials say they have not been officially served with the order. Barring a reopening of collapsed negotiations to end the dispute, a meeting planned for Sunday will determine what happens next.

Delegates meeting

“Our members must stay put,” said Kuppet national chairman Omboko Milemba. “We have a delegates meeting on Sunday to give direction.” No last-minute reprieve is expected for parents and students, with the Government denying it owes any money under a 1997 agreement and citing legal barriers to any new deal.

The TSC has asked teachers to withdraw their strike action notice, and wait for the TSC Act to be operational before negotiations can reopen on allowances.  TSC secretary Gabriel Lengoiboni said the commission is willing to negotiate with the unions over allowances abandoned by the union in a 2009 compromise, but insisted the structures necessary for negotiations are not yet in place.

“We are ready to start talks with the unions, but the committee that should engage them is yet to be constituted,” Lengoiboni said.

 “We ask the teachers to open schools and not to interrupt learning (as exams approach).”

Knut and Kuppet say they are not seeking to negotiate a new deal, but instead want the final part of one agreed upon under previous structures implemented.

Finance PS Joseph Kinyua, however, insists the Government does not owe teachers any money from previous agreements. In a tough statement to the unions, Kinyua said the Government has honoured all the Comprehensive Bargaining Agreements it entered with them.

In a letter to the Ministry of Education, Kinyua said the demand by Knut under legal notice 534 of 1997 was affected, as part of salary awards that began in 2008. He said some Sh17.3 billion was released to implement the said legal notice over three years.

“There is no pending collective bargaining agreement that is awaiting implementation on the side of the Government as argued by the two unions,” reads his letter.

Kinyua’s statement reflects the position of the TSC, which employs the country’s 260,000 or so public school teachers.

Legal notice

In a letter titled Implementation of the Legal Notice No. 534 of 1997 Consultative meeting With Knut, Mr Lengoiboni says TSC had a meeting with Knut on August 16. He said the meeting was a result of a series of letters Knut had sent to TSC demanding that the provisions of the legal notice of 1997 be paid in full.

“During the meeting they raised concern over the payment of the allowances as per the 1997 legal notice and the harmonisation of teachers’ salaries with those of civil servants,” read the letter dated August 17.

Lengoiboni said the allowances as per the agreement were paid until in 2009 when Knut agreed that the Government awards salary increments, but allowances remain as they were at June 30, 2009.

Then Knut secretary general Lawrence Majali, the then national chairman Fred Ontere and the then education PS Karega Mutahi signed the document in the presence of Prof Sam Ongeri. This means that the union, in the said agreement, suspended the reviews on their allowances.

In his brief, Lengoiboni said: “The union demands that the 2009 agreements be shelved and all the allowances adjusted to the percentage rates applicable as per the legal notice of 1997.”

Knut Secretary-General Okuta Osiany On Friday rubbished the 2009 salary review agreement and said the 1997 legal notice 534 is supreme and must be fully implemented.

Salaries commission

Early this month Finance minister Njeru Githae and Education minister Mutula Kilonzo asked the teachers to direct their grievances to the Salaries and Remuneration Commission. But the SRC has maintained that unions should negotiate their salaries with their employer and that they only harmonise pay.

Early this week, Mutula told the unions that only TSC could address their grievances, and that negotiations could only take place after the commission is restructured.

He said harmonisation (of salaries) can’t be done arbitrarily, and noted that there must be a process and the process was waiting for the TSC Bill to become law.

“The President has already signed it into law. So they have an opportunity to use the law,” he said.

On Friday, in a letter to Knut and Kuppet, Lengoiboni asked the teachers to withdraw their strike notice until the TSC Act is fully operational. He said the commission will institute a team to engage the unions on all their demands and in consultations with the SRC their demands will be met. But the two unions have still maintained that the strike will proceed come Monday.