Public university workers’ unions yesterday threatened to stage nationwide demonstrations if the government fails to honour the agreement reached in September between their union leaders and the government.

University Academic Staff Union (Uasu) and the Kenya Universities Staff Union (KUSU) faulted the government, accusing it of negligence despite initially promising to fulfil their demands.

“Let the public now that we are not going to shy away from calling for another strike next week. If they will not have implemented what we agreed, we don’t have any other choice but to strike,” Uasu Secretary General, Dr Constantine Wesonga, said.

The union leaders claimed that despite several attempts to compel the government into action, their demands were yet to be met, leaving them with no option other than industrial action.

These latest demands come barely three weeks after the union called off its nationwide strike after it reached an agreement with the officials from the ministries of Education and Labour.

In their September 13 meeting, presided over by Labour Cabinet Secretary Alfred Mutua, both parties reached an agreement for salary increments for all university workers.

The parties agreed on a pay increase of between 7 per cent and 10 per cent for university staff.

Return to work

Dr Mutua also agreed to increase the retirement threshold for all academic staff, including graduate assistants, tutorial fellows, and assistant lecturers. Following the agreement, the retirement age for all academic staff was capped at 70 years.

The government also agreed to heed an automatic annual salary increment of 4 per cent of the basic salary which would be implemented for the duration of the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) cycle, which runs from July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2025.

“The Union shall immediately call off the industrial action upon the execution of this agreement. As a result, the employer shall unconditionally withdraw the Employment and Labour Relations Cause Number E780 of 2024 and parties shall bear their costs,” Uasu had stated.

During the agreement, the union workers further agreed to formulate a way to recover all the time lost during the weeek-long industrial action.

The decision to suspend the demonstrations also followed a directive by the Labour Relations court that ordered all striking university workers to return to work pending an agreement between the union leaders and the government.