TSC News: Blow to teachers as SRC backs TSC in heated salaries row
TSC Teachers CBA: The Teachers Service Commission, TSC appears to have won a bitter battle against teachers that had drawn the much-needed attention of the Salaries and Remuneration Commission, SRC.
This win sounds a warning to members of the Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) who will continue to miss out on the lucrative Sh. 54 billion pay deal, promotions and other subsequent salary increments.
This is after the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) dismissed all union claims tabled before it, hence taking sides with the TSC.
TSC Double payroll
According to the SRC investigations report, it was found that the TSC does not run an illegal double payroll as it had been alleged by KNUT.
“TSC has one payroll which it implements with the technical support of Integrated Payroll and Personnel Database (IPPD),” the SRC audit report said.
The report further stated that TSC rightfully implemented the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), the job evaluation report and the Career Progression Guidelines (CPG).
Career Progression Guidelines, CPGs
According to a related report that appeared in the Saturday Standard, at the centre of the dispute between TSC and Knut has been a ruling by the labour court, which set aside the contested Career Progression Guidelines (CPG), which were introduced by teachers’ employer to guide promotions.
“Knut opposed the new guidelines introduced by TSC, demanding promotions be based on merit, seniority, vacancies, academic and professional qualifications. The consequences of the ruling were that all Knut members, who declined the CPG, were locked out of the lucrative Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), pushing some of them out of the union. The matter has seen Knut members drop from 187,471 in June last year to 51, 215 last month with revenue dipping from Sh. 144 million to a paltry Sh. 37 million,” the report said
Apparently, Knut had also claimed that the TSC had set up a desk at the head office where members were manually exited from the union, most of the time even without teachers’ consent.
“Knut also insists that TSC used digital validation process to attack its membership register and also used the CBA as dangling carrot to push teachers out of the union,” the report in the Standard said.
“The salaries agency found that teachers exit a union from time to time and absolved the TSC from allegations of Knut that the employer deliberately tampered with union register. These key findings that have given TSC a clean bill of health are likely to further complicate matters for Knut members, which SRC says may not benefit from the lucrative salaries deal until the court matter is settled,” the report further said.
On its part, the SRC report said that the TSC complied with the court order by implementing CPG guidelines for Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet), Kenya Union of Special Needs Education Teachers (Kusnet) and all non unionisable staff and schemes of service for Knut. It added that while implementing the CBA, TSC retained the existing number of salary points or notches at an increasing rate-automatic annual increment as a percentage of basic salary.
“The majority of staff in Grade B5 are due for automatic promotion to C1 in July 2020 in line with CPG,” the report said. TSC Teachers CBA.
