The Central Organisation of Trade Unions (COTU) yesterday warned the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) of a plan to terminate its Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) with former giant union KNUT.
Speaking at the Solidarity Headquarters, Nairobi, COTU secretary-general Mr Francis Atwoli affirmed that any ventures by the TSC to disobey its CBA and invalidate its Recognition Agreement (RA) will be met with enormous force.
Mr Atwoli announced that all Cotu comrades stand with the Kenya national union of teachers and are ready to solve the situation by all means necessary.
Breaks between the KNUT and the TSC started up shortly after they both signed the 2013-2017 CBA pay deal. It's the interpretation of the issues contained in the CBA that developed animosity between the teacher's union and the TSC.
In November 2019, the teacher's employer threatened to terminate the CBA it signed with the teachers union over the mass exit that reduced the union's membership. The mass exit was influenced by fights between KNUT and TSC.
The TSC boss Dr Nancy Macharia asserted that with 318,000 members in primary schools, the union needed 159,000 extra teachers, for the CBA to exist. Thanks to the court order that saved the day.
According to TSC, KNUT's membership at that moment had drastically fallen from over 200,001 members in the past 4 years to less than 116,000 teachers only.
The implementation of the 2017/2021 CBA was halted by the commission this year after a court ruled against the implementation of Career Progression Guidelines (CPG) terms of employment giving the commission the advantage to the commission.
TSC interpreted the ruling stating that Knut teachers we're not eligible to benefit from the 3rd phase of the CBA and neither could its members be promoted. This is now when the mass exodus of Knut membership begun as all teachers we're thirsting for the Ksh13 billion salary increment. The union membership is currently said to be at 100,000 only.
Cotu requested that the teachers union register be reclaimed unconditionally with immediate effect noting that the persistent attack on KNUT by Teachers Service Commission was worrying and that such attacks COTU will battle it out.
Atwoli demanded TSC to respect unions and honour their commitment to remit agency fees and union dues and to teachers unions. He called the Ministry of Labour Cabinet Secretary to gazette pending agency fee bids from all unions without negligence.
COTU will now head to court over the failure by the Labour Cabinet Secretary to implement his authorization as established by law. Atwoli insisted that the Ministry of Education should facilitate harmonious working condition between the commission and the union.
