The Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) SG Sossion has directed newly elected officials to ask members to make direct contributions to union’s accounts. He has asked teachers to start giving their union dues through the bank.
“Without a union, you will suffer. The only thing TSC has succeeded in doing is to remove the KNUT check off but not the heart of teachers,” Sossion challenged, further stating that the huge voters’ turnout was a sign of the union’s strength
The Secretary-General said the move is to protect the union from collapsing. Sossion was speaking on 16th of January during the branch elections in Vihiga County.
“I want to state very clear here, here today na msikie, mimi sitoki KNUT na sitoki bunge ( I am not quitting KNUT and I’m not quitting parliament.), and the court has ruled as such,” Sossion said to a cheering crowd of teachers.
He said that the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) tried to overturn his position in 2018 and 2019 consecutively but they failed. In 2020 they tried to remove union’s dues according to Sossion but they also failed.
“We have a solution to getting the union’s dues. These are attacks that we must all reserve to be united as teachers across all staffrooms and stand together. We are telling TSC, pay all teachers who deserve to be paid regardless of union’s membership.
“Those who thought they will kill KNUT, they will themselves die before it dies. The union was formed during the colonial era and I wonder who in 2021 would want to kill it,” Sossion posed.
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