Kenya National Union of Teachers Secretary-General Collins Oyuu and his Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers counterpart Akelo Misori.
The first week of the third school term has been rocked by demonstrations in various parts of the country as teachers affiliated with the Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet) agitated for their grievances with their employer.
While Kuppet has been on the streets and at loggerheads with the Teachers Service Commission (TSC), their counterparts under the Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) resumed duty on Monday without much hullabaloo.
Knut secretary-general Collins Oyuu called off the strike notice on Sunday with only a few hours left to its commencement.
The scenario is a complete reversal of roles where Knut has a history of fiery leaders and Kuppet has been for long seen to be the less combative teachers’ union since its formation in 1998.
Then President Daniel arap Moi supported the formation of Kuppet to counter Knut following a nationwide strike in 1997.
The current standoff between TSC and Kuppet is a case of the shoe being on the other foot as Knut appears to have mellowed and is now the darling of the government while Kuppet is on the receiving end.
Knut has been praised by the TSC and Education Cabinet secretary Julius Migos for calling off the strike.
“We’ve come up with a technical team with the TSC. We’ve forwarded a list of more than 20,000 who are due for promotion. People who are experienced don’t know anything about strikes.
"We’ve been there before and we can see far. We withdrew the notice and our members are safe. I wasn’t in a popularity contest and therefore did what was right,” Mr Oyuu told the Nation.
“Kuppet has accused us of being government agents. What they did for a long time is what we’re now doing. They’ll suffer.”
Kenya National Union of Teachers Secretary General Collins Oyuu speaks to the media at the Union’s headquarters in Nairobi on August 25, 2024.
He claimed that they had agreed on Saturday night with the Kuppet leadership to call off the strike notices but the national governing committee of Kuppet insisted on a strike.
On Thursday, Kuppet and TSC exchanged letters that indicated a frosty relationship between the two.
Kuppet secretary-general Akello Misori has accused TSC of using “dirty tricks” after the employer rejected a request by Kuppet for a meeting to resolve the issues at hand. The commission insisted that it would only meet the union if it calls off the strike.
“We express our deep concern about the dirty tricks that the TSC is employing to drag out the on-going strike in its schemes to punish Kuppet. If calling off the strike was a pre-condition for engagement, why then did the TSC reach out to us knowing well that we had not done so?
"It is obvious that the commission was setting us up to portray the union as desperate for a meeting or giving up on the strike,” said Mr Misori during a press conference he convened at his office late in the evening on Thursday.
“The TSC’s selfish goal is to teach Kuppet a lesson and assuage the feelings of Knut, which bolted out of the strike under duress. The union is created to negotiate. At the same time, we will not negotiate under pressure. Draconian tactics against union officials will not dampen our spirit,” he said.
Mr Misori revealed that TSC did not deduct union dues from its members pay for August for remittance to Kuppet.
This is the same strategy employed during a major fallout with Knut in 2019, a decision that almost brought the union to its knees. At the time, Wilson Sossion was the secretary-general of Knut.
At the time, TSC introduced an exit command on the teachers portal (T-Pay), after which Knut members who left the union benefited from an increment under the existing collective bargaining agreement (CBA), leaving out Knut members.
In his book, Teachers, Unions and Labour Relations in Kenya; A History of the Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers, Mr Misori highlighted the danger T-pay portends for unions.
“As Kuppet, we had had no problem with the system beyond the fact that it was not provided in law.
"The procedure of trade union recruitment is provided under Section 48 of the Labour Relations Act. The section provides that any member wishing to join a union must sign a list provided by the union, which is then submitted to the employer.
"Once a member has fulfilled this process, the employer is required to deduct union dues and submit the same to the union within 30 days,” the book reads.
The union did not fight against the system that validates teachers’ financial commitments to third parties but anticipated its use against them in the future.
“Having feared that the commission may use the system to reduce our members, we devised a system to beat it at its own game. We issued all national officials and staff iPads to ease their recruitment of new members, and sent teams to schools to help teachers undertake the validation,” the book reads.
However, it appears, they did not do enough to beat the system.
Mr Sossion Friday accused the commission of using “asphyxiation” methods to weaken unions.
Former Knut Secretary-General Wilson Sossion.
“They should address the issues raised. You can’t use courts to criminalise a strike that’s legally protected. Check-off (deductions) is an obligation of the employer. This divide-and-rule tactic is wrong as well as intimidation,” Mr Sossion told the Nation.
He added that the tactics are not new and cited the example of the jailing of Knut secretary-general Stephen Kioni in 1969 on charges that he had stolen Sh5,000 meant for teachers from the Murang’a Knut branch.
“Uhuru Kenyatta had me locked up and orchestrated my removal from office. This is a lesson for unions in Africa to migrate from check-off and have members pay dues through standing orders. For members to do that, they must get value for their membership. Unions must be transparent and effective.” said Mr Sossion.
