Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) officials have sought former Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s help to address the conflict between them (Knut) and TSC after 18,000 school principals and deputies decamped to Kuppet.
The teachers decamp to Knut’s rival union Kuppet came at a time when there is a heated conflict between Knut and the teachers’ employer TSC.
The 18,000 teachers formerly under Knut were among those earmarked for salary increment in the 2017-2021 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).
In a dispute where Knut accuses TSC of having the teachers’ union dues that amount to 138 million shillings, and which is still being handled by the Labour Court, the teachers under Knut would be at a risk of having the implementation of the CBA stopped.
The school administrators reportedly decamped to Kuppet since Kuppet is not part of the dispute in court and will therefore not be affected.
It is the school administrators’ move that pushed Knut officials from Nyanza region to seek an audience with Mr. Odinga to ask him to intervene and bring the dispute to an end, as confirmed by his spokesman Dennis Onyango.
During their meeting at Mr. Odinga’s Capitol Hills Square offices, the Knut officials led by Rachuonyo executive secretary Eliud Ombori asked Mr. Odinga to intervene in the interdiction of 280 Knut members, including its officials, for failing to take part in the Competency Based Curriculum (CBC) training which took place early this year.
Mr. Odinga on his part asked the officials to focus on serving members and consider negotiations before resorting to strikes.
He also advised them to end their internal wrangles as that would only hasten the falling of the union.
Mr. Odinga’s advice to end wrangles follows the current disagreement among the officials on whether or not a meeting of the union’s National Executive Council (NEC) slated for Thursday 29 August should proceed.
While Knut’s Secretary General Wilson Sossion said the meeting had been called off, some members said they would go ahead with it if the Mr. Sossion failed to honour their requisition in accordance with the union’s constitution.
“We are following the constitution of the union. We requisitioned a meeting and gave adequate notice. We are in conformity to Article 9 (3),” NEC member Michael Muna said.
Cotu Secretary General Mr. Francis Atwoli also called on Knut to end their wrangles and work closely for the betterment of their members.
In a statement, Atwoli said that “the differences exhibited within the leadership of Knut are not in the interest of the teachers they serve and we caution the entire leadership of Knut against falling prey to divisive politics from external forces out to wreck the union”.