The teachers’ employer has struck off 72,000 educators from the Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) register.
The Standard has established that after a Labour court compelled Teachers Service Commission (TSC) to remit union dues to Knut, TSC only deducted Sh83 million from 115,000 teachers.
Previously, Knut enjoyed a huge membership of about 187,000 teachers, generating up to Sh140 million in monthly dues. This means the union has lost Sh57 million for the month of September alone.
Stunned by the development, the Knut leadership yesterday convened crisis meetings to deliberate the matter, as the fate of July and August dues remained unclear.
The setback deepens the woes for the union embroiled in a protracted legal battle with TSC and leadership wrangles seen by recent attempts to eject the Secretary General Wilson Sossion.
Yesterday Mr Sossion downplayed the matter, saying the union was in talks with TSC.“We wish not to fight with the employer over this. We are in the process of building bridges and avoiding fights. We are, however, in talks with TSC so that they can reinstate the full Knut register,” said Sossion.
But even as Sossion downplayed the matter, union branch executive secretaries who spoke to The Standard yesterday said operations of Knut regional offices had stalled.“This is the third month without salaries, and it has been a difficult time for the union,” said a secretary in the Central region.
A huge chunk of Sh140 million received monthly by Knut is disbursed to its branches to pay staff and run regional activities.
Details of Knut’s expenditures show that about 61 per cent of the cash the union receives from TSC is disbursed to the 110 regional offices.
This translates to about Sh84.5 million wired to the branches every month.
The remaining 38 per cent–about Sh54 million– is used to run the various programmes at the Knut head office every month. It includes legal fees.
Sources at the TSC, however, said yesterday that the teachers left Knut on their own after the union won a court battle that reverted to the old scheme of service instead of the career progression guidelines that were being rolled out by TSC.“The teachers opted out on their own, having realised that continued stay in Knut would cost them benefits,” a senior management official told The Standard.
TSC adopted career progression guidelines in 2017 to enable the implementation of the job evaluation exercise and the CBA that were signed in 2016 by Knut and the Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers.
TSC Chief Executive Officer Nancy Macharia said last month they were unable to effectively implement the third phase of the Sh13 billion Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) based on the court ruling, saying the orders of the court varied the benefits.
Dr Macharia said it was necessary to run parallel payrolls to cushion non-Knut members who did not prescribe to the return of the career progression guidelines. TSC argued that the payroll under Schemes of Service had posed numerous challenges.
Opting out
Consequently, thousands of teachers quit the union after it emerged they would miss out on the hefty pay deal largely affecting primary schools heads, principals of high schools and senior teachers.
Under the 2017-2021 CBA, all the 318,000 teachers were expected to receive revised payment for the third phase of the agreement from July. However, school managers and senior teachers were set to benefit more from the third phase.
Sources in Knut revealed that the threat to deny these teachers benefits resulted in mass exodus.
Macharia explained to teachers that based on the court ruling, TSC was unable to fully pay their salary increment that was due at the end of July.
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