Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) Secretary-General Wilson Sossion maintained yesterday that the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) is to blame for the woes haunting his organisation.

Sossion in a statement to newsrooms accused the commission of planning a well-calculated move to permanently cripple the union through distortiion of facts to misinform the public.

He claims that the move by TSC Corporate Affairs department to react to the union’s letter addressed to the Ministry of Labour claiming that teachers willingly left the union constitutes to insubordination.

“The assertion that the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) supervised Knut’s register at TSC is illegal since the same are not kept by employers and are inspected by the Ministry of Labour,” said Sossion.

Sossion claimed TSC has systematically continued to mutilate the Knut membership register with the sole aim of cutting it off completely maintaining that the union has a membership of over 200,000 teachers.

According to Sossion, since July 1, 2019, TSC unilaterally suspended the Knut/TSC CBA against its members, further blacklisting Knut members from benefiting from promotions saying the move was meant to cripple operations.

He maintains that the union has not received any letter from its members resigning from the body saying the TSC violates the constitution by denying teachers to be part of a trade union.

“Further, they have gone to hire staff at the IPPD to offload Knut members illegally, the law is clear when a member resigns from the union,” he added.

Financial benefits

The SG added that the Career Progression Guidelines for teachers had already been suspended by the court accusing the commission of managing teachers out of the law saying they have ignored a court order.

He avers that due to this blatant violation of the law, deserving teachers who are Knut members have been sidelined in promotions and upgrading leading to huge financial benefits in the CBA.

“It should be brought to the knowledge of all that the CPG is not embodied in the 2017/2021 Collective Bargaining Agreement hence it cannot be used to promote and upgrade teachers Knut members have been locked out of the CBA,” said Sossion.

Sossion now wants the Labour Cabinet Secretary to intervene and within seven days bring an end to the dispute pitting the union and the commission accusing the latter of dishonesty amid protracted court battles despite the CBA having been property negotiated and awarded.

“In light of the ongoing, Knut has implored the CS to intervene failure to which, the union will take drastic actions by the law, the commission cannot come out and talk carelessly,” he added.