A group of teachers in Siaya County are protesting and calling for the implementation of a policy that prohibits headteachers from joining trade unions.
Bunge La Walimu Group Chairman Antony Awuor told the press that TSC had developed guidelines to ensure that headteachers do not hold positions in trade unions, but that these guidelines were not being followed.
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Anthony Owuor, chairman of Bunge la Walimu, has called for the policy to be implemented. He challenged KNUT Secretary General Collins Oyuu to intervene in the matter immediately.
“We want to address this issue of administrators being in the leadership of KNUT. We want Oyuu to know that we are much aware of what is going on,” Antony Awuor said.
Owuor went on to say that, despite the fact that the TSC had issued guidelines stating that school heads would be barred from holding those positions beginning in July, Siaya had been exempted.
The nonmonetary CBA signed between KNUT and the Teachers Service Commission prohibits headteachers from joining the union. “In Siaya, the most lucrative positions are held by the headteachers,” one KNUT member observed.
The group's chairman protests that despite efforts to address this issue, nothing has been done and no communication has been made.
“It is now long overdue and we are left with no option but to let the whole nation know about it,” he said, adding that they would be forced to seek legal redress on the matter.
According to the agreement signed on July 13th by TSC and KNUT leadership, all secondary school teachers would no longer be members of KNUT. The agreement also prohibited all primary and secondary school principals from joining the union in any capacity.
Siaya Branch Executive Secretary Alex Dunga, when contacted, dismissed those demands stating that any worker has the right to join trade unions and even to be elected.
He went on to say that the CBA would not be implemented immediately, but would take effect in 2026.
This comes at a time when the TSC is experiencing numerous issues with KNUT. Previously, when the Ministry of Labour authorized unions to collect fees from their employers, the KNUT was not one of them.
Despite the non-monetary type of CBA with TSC, teachers affiliated with the Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) were deducted union agency fees. The deductions did not spare over 150,000 teachers who quit the former giant union shrinking its membership from 187,000 to merely 15,000.
This was confirmed by KNUT deputy secretary-general Hesbon Otieno who said that “Primary school teachers who are not members of the union have been deducted the fee" which he termed as a monthly affair.
The deductions did not go well with teachers who now protest that they should not be forced to pay union fees stating that the signed deal lacked monetary gains.
KNUT deducts two per cent of its member's salaries while the Kenya Union of Post Primary Teachers (Kuppet) takes at least 1.8 per cent.
Under the Labour Relations Act, 14 of 2007, a trade union that has signed a recognition agreement with the commission, shall get its dues deducted from the payrolls of its members who have joined voluntary, signed, and then submitted a prescribed membership from an authorized to commission to deduct union due at the source.
The commission is obliged to deduct and pay the trade union an agency fee from the salary of each unionizable team member who is not a member of the union but has profited from CBA that is negotiated and concluded between the union and TSC as per part VI of the Labour Relation Act of 14 of 2007
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