Teachers seek talks with MPs to prevent pay strike

Knut Secretary-General Wilson Sossion. Teachers want an urgent meeting with legislators over the court-awarded salary increase. PHOTO | SALATON NJAU | NATION MEDIA GROUP 

In Summary

• Knut Secretary-General Wilson Sossion says in the letter that the union was under pressure from teachers to call a national strike when schools reopen next month.
• Teachers and their employer negotiated over basic salaries and allowances for several years up to the end of 2014 when the commission called off the talks, leading to a strike in January, he explains.
• Knut’s letter was copied to Education committee chairperson Sabina Chege, commission chairperson Lydia Nzomo and chief executive Nancy Macharia.

By OUMA WANZALA
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Teachers want an urgent meeting with legislators over the court-awarded salary increase.

The Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) has written to the National Assembly’s education committee seeking a meeting before Thursday next week.
Court award

That is the day the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear the Teachers Service Commission’s (TSC) plea to suspend the court award.

Knut Secretary-General Wilson Sossion says in the letter that the union was under pressure from teachers to call a national strike when schools reopen next month.

“The strike would disrupt the education of children and particularly because it will be the term leading to national examinations,” he says in the August 6 letter.

He says the union wishes to brief the lawmakers that teachers “will be pushed into that strike by the intransigence of the Teachers Service Commission and the government”.

Teachers and their employer negotiated over basic salaries and allowances for several years up to the end of 2014 when the commission called off the talks, leading to a strike in January, he explains.

Knut’s letter was copied to Education committee chairperson Sabina Chege, commission chairperson Lydia Nzomo and chief executive Nancy Macharia.

The teachers commission argues that it does not have money for a 50 to 60 per cent pay rise as directed by the court.

It would require Sh17 billion to do so yet the amount was not budgeted for.

Ms Chege yesterday said the committee was yet to receive Knut’s letter, but would hold a meeting with the teachers’ unions, the Education ministry and the commission to seek a solution, she added.