TSC and Kuppet filed a deal in court that ended the strike and say talks will go on.
Although some teachers across the country were angry that their strike over what they called a “raw deal” was over, the deal between post-primary teachers and the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has been filed in court.
The Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet) and TSC agreed to settle any outstanding issues through talks, which they did at the Labour Court on Wednesday. Justice Anna Ngibuini Mwaure then made the agreement official by making it an order of the court.
They also dropped the lawsuits and counter-suits they had made against each other because of the agreement.
Teachers had been on strike since August 26, 2024, but the deal was made two days after the parties said the strike would end.
A range of responses
Teachers had a range of responses when they heard that the strike would end. Some of them were angry that their union leaders ended the job strike without making a deal. But Secretary-General Akello Misori says that the consent is better than a return-to-work plan because it is now a court order that both sides must follow.
Yesterday, in Mombasa, Mr. Misori explained why he called off the strike, saying that TSC had already dealt with most of the problems Kuppet brought up.
“Some of our leaders are saying they weren’t told about the meeting’s decisions.” “That shocked me because we have a way to talk to each other and the problems that made us go on strike were fixed,” he said.
He had Francis Atwoli, Secretary-General of the Central Organization of Trade Unions (Cotu), standing next to him. Atwoli also supported Kuppet’s national leaders.
“Cotu knew about the talks, and people who say Kuppet did something without their permission should respect the choices their leaders made for them.” “You can’t have a plan for going back to work and still be on strike,” Mr. Atwoli said.
The court document shows all of Kuppet’s complaints that were made before the strike, along with the stages at which they were resolved.
The people who are asking for the case to be heard are TSC and Kuppet. The Ministry of Labour is also mentioned as an interested party.
A big thing that’s missing: JSS teachers
An important desire that Kuppet left out of his original list was for 46,000 junior school teachers who are currently working on short-term contracts to be given permanent jobs.
“The Commission insisted that it did not have the power to make a binding promise because Parliament had not given it the money for that purpose.” We are against making the teaching job less formal.
It is unfair to hire fully trained and registered teachers as interns, and it also goes against the ILO/UNESCO Recommendation on the Status of Teachers from 1966. He said, “We will talk about it with President William Ruto when he gets back from his trip to China.”
The execution of Phase II of the 2021–2025 collective bargaining agreement (CBA) is at the top of the list of problems that have been fixed. At the end of August, teachers got their pay raise, which included back pay for July.
The document says that TSC has taken back all the money that was legally and unfairly taken out of teachers’ pay and has also begun looking again at the controversial rules for job advancement.
TSC has also brought back the money for the teachers’ health plan after they said service providers were turning them away. Along with that, TSC must not punish any teacher for joining the strike.
Kuppet wanted to promote 130,000 teachers right away because they had been stuck in the same job groups for a long time, but they seem to have agreed with TSC’s claim that 51,232 teachers have already been promoted.
The Commission promised to keep pushing for more “as and when budgetary allocations are made available by Parliament.”
The two sides also agreed to start talking about the 2025–2029 CBA as soon as Kuppet gives the boss its list of demands.
TSC and Kuppet filed a deal in court that ended the strike and say talks will go on.
