TSC News 2021: Looming Crisis As Teachers Issue 7-Day Strike Notice
Latest TSC News- CBA 2021-2025: Kenyan Teachers currently serving in various institutions have issued their employer, the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) a seven-day ultimatum to offer them a counter-offer before they proceed into an indefinite industrial strike that will paralyze learning in ways that the public will not imagine.
The teachers’ unions; Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT), the Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET) and the Kenya Union of Special Needs Education Teachers (KUSNET) fell out with the Commission over the greatly anticipated salary increment in a meeting held on Monday, June 29.
The said parties were expected to negotiate a new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) for teachers that will run for the next four years that is 2021-2025. The current CBA 2017-2021 expires in July 2021.
TSC accused of using paternity and maternity leaves to manipulate teachers and freeze salary rise for the next 2 years
After the failed negotiations, teachers’ unions alleged that the Teachers Service Commission wanted to illegally freeze salary rise for two years and scorn teachers by offering them alternatives which included offering teachers paternity and maternity leaves.
TSC Paternity and Maternity Leave Days Increased
TSC employed female teachers were to be accorded 120 maternity leave days up from the current 90 calendar days whereas their male counterparts were given one week on top of the usual fourteen.
This was considered fringe benefits by the aggrieved teachers who argued that TSC was hell-bent on creating a crisis in the teaching sector.
“They did not offer us anything valuable. We have given the TSC seven days to give us a counter-offer; failure to that, we will ask teachers not to report to schools for the 2021 First Term commencing in August 2021.
“How can the TSC use the Covid-19 crisis and the advisory from the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) to frustrate teachers and offer us a non-monetary counteroffer,” KUPPET Secretary-General Akelo Misori lamented.
KNUT Secretary-General Collins Oyuu added that the fringe offers were good but they won’t add value to the teachers’ pockets.
Oyuu, however, played cagey with issuing a strike notice and argued that they would find amicable solutions to their row with TSC.
This comes at the backdrop of a shaky union- KNUT which has been shredded bit by bit by the Teachers Service Commission in the last four years.
Teachers who are affiliated to KNUT were left out of the 2017-2021 CBA benefits.
Latest TSC Promotions
Another offer presented by TSC CEO Nancy Macharia was to promote teachers in arid and semi-arid areas first, with priority given to administrative teachers.
