Kenya National Union of Teachers Knut Secretary-General Honorable Wilson Sossion, took to the stage yesterday on Teachers Day to explain the challenges facing the former giant union.
"Currently if you are a member of KNUT, you are not qualified to be promoted by TSC,… To any administrative position. That's the truth!" Sossion revealed.
Sossion blamed the commission for fighting hard to end the Kenyan teachers union. "It is a mere creation of TSC to try and kill the union, to try and bastardise the union so that teachers can run away." Said Sossion.
Wilson's remarks were fired by the continual fierce battle between the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) and the Teachers Service Commission (TSC). According to the report by the Salaries Remuneration Commission (SRC), TSC was accused of having parallel payrolls for teachers.
"SRC and TSC are one and the same," Sossion said revealing a document signed by Kihumba Kimotho on 28th of July 2020, which told teachers that they were running on two parallel payrolls.
The parallel payrolls that Sossion was about were drawn after TSC suspended the implementation of the CBA. Much disturbing factor to Sossion was the meddling affair of KNUT by the Teachers Service Commission which has currently brought down the union to its knees.
According to the analysis conducted by KNUT between June 2019 to September 2020, the union's gross income has reduced from Sh144,000,000 when it had 187,471 union members to the current Sh32,000,000. "So the truth is that KNUT is shutting down financially. TSC deliberately refuses to key in members. Our members should stand to over 230,000 members. Some of them are saying a strong union is bad to the government."
Sossion insisted that TSC should reinstate back it's members failure to which the wrangles will continue to be escalated. "We know very well that TSC conducted countrywide meetings with headteachers and ordered them to move out of the union," said the Secretary-General of KNUT.
KNUT union called for the urgent release of the national school calendar to assist teachers and learners plan on how to make up for the lost time caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
