- The strike notice comes four weeks after UASU instructed its members to strike on August 6 over the non-implementation of the 2017-21 CBA.
- Wasonga said the latest conciliatory talks held Tuesday collapsed with no recourse to their grievances thereby necessitating a fresh strike notice.
Image: FILE
Learning across all 35 public universities will grind to a halt from September 18 if lecturers make true their threat to boycott teaching over stalled negotiations on the 2021-25 collective bargaining agreement.
University Academic Staff Union (UASU) Secretary General Constantine Wasonga says the Inter-Public Universities Council Consultative Forum (IPUCCF) has been taking them in circles since September 4, 2020, when they first submitted their pay proposals for the CBA.
He said they have since then engaged the government representative in 10 conciliatory meetings, but none has thus far borne fruit.
“I convened the National Executive Committee meeting that gave me the authority to issue a strike notice tomorrow (Wednesday) at exactly 10 am. The national strike is going to commence officially on the 18th of September,” Wasonga said.
He spoke during a meeting of NEC officials held at the Masinde Muliro University in Kakamega on Tuesday.
The strike notice comes four weeks after UASU instructed its members to strike on August 6 over the non-implementation of the 2017-21 CBA.
Grievances range from reduced capitation to universities, delayed salaries, and failure to remit statutory and third-party deductions, including loans, pension contributions, insurance premiums, and oppose the newly introduced university funding model.
Wasonga said the latest conciliatory talks held Tuesday collapsed with no recourse to their grievances, thereby necessitating the issuance of a fresh strike notice.
The stike threat comes just a week after continuing students started reporting.
“The reason why we are doing this is because we have realised that IPUCCF and SRC are colluding not to allow us to commence a CBA,” Wasonga said.
The SG claimed that the Salaries and Remuneration Commission has introduced a factor that has never been used in any CBA negotiations since the inception of UASU called percentage.
Wasonga said the commission claimed that it arrived at the decision after conducting a survey.
“When we asked them where they did the survey, who participated in the survey, what the parameters were, they could not answer us,” Wasonga said, further adding that SRC never involved stakeholders after the said survey.
“You cannot come up with a policy that’s going to affect negotiation midstream then you just want us to follow suit. And you cannot give an increment to a section of our members and leave a majority of our members uncompensated,” the SG added.
Wasonga said the strike is going to prevail until all their demands are met in full.
"If they can solve our issues within seven days, we will not go out on strike but if they do not solve them, we will go on strike," he said.