Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) and the Kenya Union of Post-Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET) have engaged their employer in salary pay rise talk to avoid a strike that could disrupt national exams next month.
Following the expiration of the previous CBA, which was worth Sh54 billion, the two largest teachers’ unions are negotiating a new pay agreement with the Teachers Service Commission (TSC).The three signed the 2021-2025 CBA last year, which provided no monetary benefits to members.
In a letter to TSC dated 2022, 17th January, KUPPET demanded for a 30% pay increase and threatened to go on strike if the commission did not respond within 21 days. On January 20, they responded.
“The commission is interrogating the issues raised therein, we will respond thereafter,” Mr Cavin Anyuor, the legal, labour and industrial relations director at TSC, said in the letter to KUPPET Secretary-General Akelo Misori.
KUPPET’s National Executive Committee (NEC) met in Nairobi yesterday. They requested for a pay rise of between 15% and 20%.
KNUT Wants 30-70 Per cent Salary Increase for Teachers, Calls for Renegotiations. The union is running a campaign to rehire teachers who left between 2019 and June of last year when TSC had a falling out with the leadership of then-Knut secretary-general Wilson Sossion.
KUPPET’s proposal calls for the lowest-paid teacher’s basic monthly salary to be increased from Sh34,955 to Sh59,425 and the highest-paid teacher’s salary to be increased from Sh118,242 to Sh153,715.
It also wants to raise the commuter allowance for lower cadre teachers from Sh5,000 to Sh8,500, and for higher paid tutors from Sh16,000 to Sh20,000.
If their demands are met, Kuppet members who are eligible for hardship allowance will see it increase from Sh10,900 to Sh16,350 for the lowest-paid teacher and from Sh38,100 to Sh57,150 for the highest earners.
Kuppet has also proposed a new risk allowance for science teachers, ranging from Sh5,465 to Sh30,587.
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