UASU suspends national lecturers’ strike
The University Academic Staff Union (Uasu) has suspended national lecturers’ strike set for today to allow for talks with the government.
UASU Secretary-General Constantine Wasonga announced the move advising members to continue with their jobs even as the union chatted a way forward with the government.
Public University lecturers were to boycott their work today after negotiations between their union and the government failed.
“We don’t want talks. We want money. We negotiated and concluded everything so it’s up to the universities to pay our members. Until you hear from me say ‘the strike has been called off’, it is still on,” said Wasonga.
UASU had issued a strike notice a week ago protesting a proposed implementation of the Sh8.8 billion pay deal by the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC).
“By this letter, therefore, the UASU hereby issues a seven-day strike notice with effect from the date of this letter to the 35 Councils of public universities and their constituent colleges,” said Wasonga.
Wasonga claimed that the proposal was not factual and did not capture details of the 2017-21 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).
“The 2017-21 CBA had not been negotiated because it was done in 2019 and registered in 2020. If SRC claims that annual increment payments started in July 2017 even before the CBA was signed whom are they fooling?” he posed.
However, University Education Principal Secretary Simon Nabukwesi said that some universities failed to honour the agreement because of financial challenges due to Covid-19 pandemic effects.
Nabukwesi said that the ministry is working with the National Treasury to ensure the money is released soon.
According to UASU, the Sh.8.8 billion was to cater for salary arrears and adjustment of workers’ salaries to new scales and benefit 30,000 members of Uasu, Kenya University Staff Union (KUSU) and Kenya Union of Domestic, Hotels, Educational Institutions, Hospital and Allied Workers (Kudheiha).
The first installment of Sh6.6 billion was released to all universities last year with the Sh2.2 billion being disbursed to the universities monthly to cover all workers.
