Members of Kenya National Union of Teachers(KNUT) have been met with awakening shock after Teachers Service Commission, TSC, failed to increase their salary as per the terms of current 2017-2021 CBA.
TSC has said KNUT members could not get pay rise owing to the fact that they fall under the Schemes of Service.
On the other hand, teachers allied to Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET) smiled all the way to bank, after TSC honoured the implementation of the last phase of the CBA.
More than 47,000 teachers in job group B5 were promoted to job group C1 using TSC’s Career Progression Guidelines (CPG) even as 32,556 members of KNUT missed out.
Read also: New TSC Salary Scale For Teachers’ Starting July 2020 Under Phase 4 of CBA
The commission was expected to promote more than 100,000 teachers in Job group B5, who were previously P1 teachers, and automatically move them to Job Grade C1.
The promoted grade B5 teachers, who have been earning a basic salary of between Sh21,756 and Sh27,195, have this month taken home between Sh27,195 and Sh33,994.
Teachers in grade B5 and C1 teach in primary schools. Grade B5 (T- Scale 5) is the entry grade for primary school teachers.
Secondary school teachers who are members Kuppet and who hold administrative positions except those in KNUT also received enhanced salaries.
Among them include; chief principals, senior principals, principals, deputies, head teachers, deputy head teachers and senior teachers.
Parallel Payroll
Things went south when Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) obtained court orders setting aside career progression guidelines TSC was already implementing and reintroduced old schemes of service it had abolished.
In a bid to comply with the court order, TSC opted to ran a separate payroll for Knut members effectively blocking them from the lucrative pay deal.
TSC Chief Executive Officer Nancy Macharia had ealier on explained that in order to comply with the court order, without disadvantaging teachers who are not KNUT members, it had to run two parallel payrolls.
“One payroll for Knut members under Schemes of Service and the other for non-members of Knut under Career Progression Guidelines (CPG),” Macharia said.
Dwindling Membership
KNUT has noted that its membership is dwindling day after day.
While speaking to Nation mr. Sossion who is KNUT SG, revealed that in this year’s July pay roll, Knut membership has dropped to 74,000, down from 80,000 in the month of June.
Since July 2019, Knut has lost up to Sh1 billion in union dues which has grounded its operations to a halt. Prior to the dispute, it used to rake in about Sh143 million monthly.