Public university lecturers have issued several demands, among them harmonised salaries, uniform medical cover and mass recruitment to end the shortage being experienced in the institutions.
Universities’ Academic Staff Union (Uasu) secretary general Constantine Wasonga, at a press briefing in Nairobi yesterday, said public universities are perennially underfunded.
He said over the years, universities have not been implementing collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) fully and have not been remitting non-statutory deductions. “We call upon the government to expedite the full implementation of the current CBA to enable dons to get their salaries as enshrined,” said Dr Wasonga.
Uasu also demanded the release of full salaries for Egerton members and threatened to issue a seven-day strike notice on Monday should the university fail to act. “As a union, we have resolved that we are not going to sit back and watch our colleagues from Egerton University continue to earn 57 per cent of their salaries,” said Dr Wasonga.
He called on all Uasu chapters to join the union in launching a strike from October 17 to demand the release of the salaries.
The union said it will not allow universities to have a two-tier CBA implementation in payment of allowances of the academic staff.
“We are not going to allow a situation where some universities have negotiated the 2017-21 CBA, while others are still negotiating the 2013-17 CBA,” he said, adding they have written to the Salaries and Remuneration Commission, faulting it for encouraging internal and external inequalities in the payment of allowances.
He said the 2021-25 CBA will be negotiated at the national level and Uasu will not allow separate talks at the institutional level.
Dr Wasonga questioned why some universities offer medical schemes to their academic staff, while other do not. “We want a uniform medical scheme in public universities as it happens in the public Service.”
He said the government must also allocate more funds for mass recruitment of lecturers just as it plans to hire over 58,000 teachers for public primary and secondary schools this financial year.
“The government came up with a 100 per cent policy from primary to secondary and the students are about to transition to university, yet the institutions are relying on part-time lecturers.”
“I want to send a warning to our part-time lecturers, don’t engage universities if they are not paying you,” he said.
He also called on universities to pay tutorial fellows and graduate assistants well. He further warned the employers against reducing pension contributions, noting that Egerton and Kisii have already notified their staff of a planned reduction. Uasu also warned against scrapping of courses without its input.
