By Roy Hezron
The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has confirmed that it will start negotiations regarding the 2021-2025 non-monetary Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) with the Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET) in January 2023.
TSC Director of Legal, Labour and Industrial Relations Cavin Anyuor has confirmed that they have received not less than 7 letters from KUPPET Secretary General Akelo Misori demanding for mid-term review of the CBA which for the case of the 2021-2025 CBA will be 2023.
“What I know from a technical point of view is that we are going to meet KUPPET very early in January [2023] to jump-start the negotiations,” said Anyuor.
This is after Misori, during the union’s 24th Annual Delegates Conference (ADC) in Murang’a on December 10, 2022, noted that they take the bull by its horns in 2023, since the last salary increment for teachers came in 2020 with the implementation of the last phase of the 2016-2021 CBA.
“If teachers do not obtain new salaries by July 2023, they would have gone one CBA cycle without salary reviews, since the most consequential increment in CBAs come within the first three years,” said Misori.
He observed that since 2020, all other cadres in the public service including employees of the Judicial Service Commission (JSC), the Parliamentary Service Commission (PSC), County Government and semi-autonomous government agencies received salary increments and noted that teachers will not be an exception.
The union National Chairman Hon. Omboko Milemba who doubles as Emuhaya Member of Parliament (MP) echoed the sentiments and added that the 2021-2025 CBA was a bitter pill they had to swallow in order to safeguard the previous gain in the 2016-2021 CBA.
“In June 2021, we signed a non-monetary CBA. It was a bitter pill to swallow, and we did so to safeguard and protect the previous gains. It was at the tail end of COVID-19 pandemic and after a negative advisory from the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) on suspension of public sector CBAs for a period of two years,” said Milemba.
He added: “We need to own our decisions and now focus on giving our members a new monetary CBA. That’s the journey we are currently undertaking.”
The same call was also emphasized by Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) Deputy Secretary General Hesbon Otieno who addressed the KUPPET delegates during the ADC.
KUPPET is pushing for classroom teachers to receive a salary increment of 70 per cent and administrators to receive a 30 per cent increase.
“Teachers in [Grades] C2 and C3 to have higher increment of 70 per cent while those in D4 and D5 to have 30 per cent salary increment,” reads the union proposed CBA in part.
This means that the lowest teacher at Grade C2 will earn a proposed salary of Ksh 59,425 from the current Ksh 34,955 on the minimum and a proposed Ksh 74,280 from the current Ksh 43,694 on the maximum; while the highest teacher at Grade D4 will earn a proposed salary of Ksh 153,715 from the current Ksh 118,242 on the minimum and a proposed Ksh 184,458 from the current Ksh 141,891 on the maximum.
KUPPET is also pushing for teachers to get four new allowances in addition to what they enjoy currently under the 2021-2025 CBA which are risk, overtime, post-graduate and accommodation allowances.
