Details have emerged of some 90,000 teachers who have pulled out of the Wilson Sossion-led Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut).
This follows an ongoing tiff between the union and the teachers’ employer, TSC.
According to the Standard, the fear of being locked out of the ongoing promotions and the looming deduction to recover monies paid to KNUT members following implementation of Collective Bargaining Agreement two years ago is behind the mass exit.
The local daily further understands that the matter has further been complicated by primary school heads, who lead institutions with majority membership of Knut, disowning the union’s push to fight for them, further isolating the union.
Secondary school heads and the rival Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet) have openly sided with the Teachers Service Commission (TSC), casting Knut as a lone ranger in championing teachers’ issues.
According to Sources within Knut leadership ranks who spoke to the daily on Saturday, the likelihood that TSC may not honour any meetings with the Knut leadership to push for teachers’ benefits has further driven away members.
The tutors’ employer deregistered Knut Secretary General Wilson Sossion from the teachers’ roll, arguing that the teachers’ code of conduct and ethics required them to maintain political neutrality at all times and not act in a manner that may compromise or be perceived to compromise their neutrality.
The decision to strike Sossion off the roll has split Knut leadership down the middle, with a crisis meeting called last week to plan for his ouster in the special National Executive Council (NEC) meeting postponed to next Thursday.
“We are in a tight corner as a union because we are unable to even run operations at the branches. But we have one last chance to rescue the union from collapse this week during the NEC meeting,” said a high-ranking Knut official.
The number of members who have exited Knut could be higher as more teachers continue to exit the union citing stalled benefits of the Third Phase of the Sh54 billion Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).
Last month, TSC ran a parallel payroll, locking out all the 190,000 Knut members from the benefits of the CBA signed in 2016.
TSC said it was complying with an order issued by Judge Byram Ongaya that set aside Career Progression Guidelines rolled out in 2017 and reverted to the old Schemes of Service to guide promotions of all teachers under its payroll.
The Commission adopted career progression guidelines in 2017 to enable the implementation of the job evaluation exercise and the CBA that were signed in 2016.
It also emerged that the impending recovery of the monies already paid to Knut members after implementation of the 2016 CBA has further necessitated the mass exit.
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