The National Assembly Public Petitions Committee has rejected a petition that required the country’s teacher employer, Teachers Service Commission (TSC) to stop unlawful deductions in favour of the Kenya Union of Special Needs Education Teachers (KUSNET) especially to those teachers who never signed up for membership of the union.
This is revealed in a detailed report on the Consideration of Public Petition No. 54 Of 2023 Regarding Unlawful Deductions by TSC in Favour of KUSNET signed by the Committee Chairperson Ernest Kivai Ogesi Kagesi, who is also the Vihiga MP, on April 22, 2025 and tabled in parliament on April 23, 2025.
In the report, the committee states that TSC in compliance with Section 49 of the Labour Relations Act has been empowered and mandated to effect the agency fee deductions since the provisions of Section 54 of the Labour Relations Act which culminated into signing of a Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) in line with Section 49 of the same Act, KUSNET requested the Cabinet Secretary of Labour and Social Protection to issue an order requiring the Commission to deduct agency fee from each union sable teacher under KUSNET who has not registered as a member of the union.
The Committee reiterated that the Commission deducts union dues from teachers who have duly registered as members of KUSNET and Agency Fees from teachers who are under the constituency of KUSNET and have not registered as members of the union.
In the report, the Committee observed that each Recognition Agreement (RA) in the teaching service fell under a distinct constituency, for instance, Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET) membership was derived from post-primary teachers, Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) from primary school teachers.
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It added further in the report that KUSNET membership is comprised of teachers deployed to teach in Special Needs Education (SNE) institutions or teachers dully registered as Persons with Disabilities (PWD) under PWD Act, hence the existence of a CBA between the Commission and KUSNET, automatically placed Special Needs teachers under KUSNET jurisdiction.
At the same time, the Committee rejected the prayer in the petition that required TSC be compelled by the committee to refund the money to the affected teachers on grounds that the agency fee deductions were lawfully done pursuant to the provisions of Section 49 of the Labour Relations Act, hence the teachers are not entitled to any refund as they are beneficiaries of the CBA negotiated by KUSNET.
The Committee also rejected the prayer in the petition that TSC be compelled to allow teachers to join the union of their choice maintaining that the Commission has not forced the teachers to join the respective unions.
The Committee observed that the Commission had developed and operationalized an online platform called Teachers’ Pay (T-Pay) to enable teachers manage third party deductions in their payslips including the union dues and also allows them to stop remittance or opt in or out of a union, among others.
KUSNET Secretary General James Torome thanked the committee for its work and also the members of the union for their continued support, and warned those that maligns union that they will take legal action over them.
“KUSNET takes the earliest opportunity to thank its resilient membership. Let us stay glued together as we fight for a common course to a brighter future. On the same vein, SNE teachers should be wary of one Edwin Juma Gituma, the self-imposed Chairman of an amorphous organization known as SNE teachers,” said Torome.
“He masquerades as a fighter of SNE teachers’ rights while soliciting their hard earned monies purporting to fight for unknown courses that are not anchored in law. KUSNET will seize the earliest opportunity to seek legal redress to anyone who maligns its name with unsubstantiated and malicious allegations of whatever nature,” he added.
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However when reached by Education News for comment, Gituma rubbished the allegations maintaining that his entity is not an amorphous organization as alleged since they are legally registered as an association with registration certificate.
“These allegations are not true. It is about the SNE teachers in Kenya who feels that their rights are being infringed, because we were forcefully recruited into KUSNET without our consent. The ones who are purporting to be representing the SNE teachers are the ones who are referring to us as amorphous group,” said Gituma.
“SNE teachers in the country know who their legal elected leaders from the grassroots are. As per the constitution, a group, maybe of workers or anybody in Kenya, has a right in the Constitution to raise issues that are affecting them directly or indirectly, through either court or the national assembly through a petition, until you make sure that you get your right as an individual or group, so we are within the law,” he added.
By Hezron Roy
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