For the first time in recent years, teachers are likely to troop to polling booths in 2022 and leave empty-handed. This is also the only election year when teachers are deeply divided and appear powerless and at the mercy of the government on remuneration.
A week before the 2017 elections, they had received a Sh17.3 billion pay rise in their accounts. This was the first of five instalments totalling Sh54 billion under a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) between teachers’ unions and the government.
The CBA was not presented on a silver platter but after a 36-day strike the previous year. It followed a pattern where the unions took advantage of their immense numbers and influence as opinion leaders in the community to squeeze out deals for their members just before elections.
This year, the National Treasury has also not factored in any funds for a pay rise for teachers in the budget that will be presented before Parliament on April 7, four months before the polls.
Whereas over the years, teachers’ unions negotiated better payment terms with the government, last year, uncharacteristically, they signed a non-monetary agreement that they are now trying to renegotiate.
In the third school term of 1997, Ambrose Adongo, the then bullish secretary-general of the Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut), sensed a golden chance to squeeze something out of the government.
At the time, President Daniel Arap Moi was a man under siege. The opposition was pressuring him to reform the Electoral Commission of Kenya just before the elections. The Inter-Parliamentary Parties Group deal was also under negotiation and the President had to cede ground when he otherwise would not have given even an inch.
Teachers staged a 12-day strike that paralysed learning in all public schools. They demanded a hefty 300 per cent pay rise. President Moi protested when he infamously thundered during his address to the nation on Kenyatta Day.
Well, days passed and the teachers had not resumed work. He buckled and agreed to the demands, but with a caveat: The raise would be implemented over five years. This became the source of a long-running conflict, as teachers only received the first phase of the agreement.
“Being an election year, we had very little choice, so we gave a first down payment of 34 per cent. After the elections, things did not go smoothly, because there was no money to pay,” Joseph Kamotho, the then minister for Education, would later reveal.
Before the next General Election in 2002, Knut staged another strike to force the government’s hand to pay the remaining phases. With Francis Ng’ang’a as secretary-general, teachers downed tools ahead of the administration of national examinations. Cornered, President Moi ordered civil servants from other departments to supervise the exams.
Sensing an opportunity, Mwai Kibaki, the National Rainbow Coalition (Narc) presidential candidate, hammered out a deal with Knut, promising that if they campaigned and voted for him, he would pay them the remaining phases.
Mr Kibaki’s tenure witnessed the fewest conflicts with teachers’ unions. He honoured the deal. After his re-election, all teachers also received a 10 per cent pay rise in 2008.
“Knut was deep in the government’s corner. Francis Ng’ang’a was widely perceived as giving the government a pass even where the union should have demanded better treatment for its members,” Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet) secretary-general Akelo Misori writes in his book Teachers, Unions and Labour Relations in Kenya.
Ahead of the 2013 elections, teachers received Sh3 billion in commuter allowance paid in two phases, but after Knut secretary-general Wilson Sossion and chair Mudzo Dzili were committed to a one-month jail sentence for contempt of court. But they were released.
In the run-up to the 2017 General Election, Mr Sossion rooted for the opposition whereas Mr Dzili supported the Jubilee administration.
“In salary negotiations, the only language that governments have proven to understand is strikes and pressure, but if a union decides to stay cool, they cannot get anything,” Mr Sossion told the Nation yesterday.
“As we speak, teachers have no guarantee of a salary increment because their three unions signed a binding agreement that doesn’t allow them to receive any increment for the next five years.”
ODM nominated Mr Sossion to the National Assembly. This also happened to be the source of his many troubles with the TSC that resulted in his resignation last year.
However, 2022 appears to be different. Instead of pressuring the government to give teachers a raise, the Knut strategy is collaboration.
“Knut will forever work with the government of the day. It is not a secret. The President of Kenya now is Uhuru Kenyatta,” Knut Secretary General Collins Oyuu said on Monday.
“I have to toe the line as requested by my team, the national executive council. Knut must work with the government of the day so that we can succeed.
“What we want from the government, we cannot get it by opposing the government. As Knut, we are in Azimio la Umoja.”
Whereas Kuppet has not declared such a stand, the presence of Mr Misori at the unveiling of Raila Odinga as the Azimio la Umoja presidential candidate was telling.
Speaking to the Nation yesterday, Mr Misori said the union is still pushing for a salary rise and will not relent on its demands.
“As you will recall, top government officials asked the union to let national exams conclude in a free and conducive industrial atmosphere. The exams are soon coming to an end and we hope for nothing but favourable feedback on our demands,” he said.
He added that the union does not focus their negotiations on national elections but is guided by the negotiation principles.
“We received a communication from the TSC informing us that they are still consulting with the government. We are patiently waiting to be invited to negotiations, but those negotiations have nothing to do with the upcoming elections,” he said.
Among the demands that Kuppet is pushing are a salary rise of between 30 percent and 70 per cent of the basic salary and harmonisation of house allowances across all grades, with a township allowance awarded to teachers in urban areas, and higher commuter allowances.
They also want the introduction of overtime allowances for teachers working in boarding schools, and post-graduate allowances for teachers with master’s and doctoral degrees.
As President Kenyatta campaigned for re-election in 2017, civil servants got a Sh100 billion.
The government also set aside funds to recruit an additional 10,000 police officers and 5,000 teachers.
President Kenyatta was following a strategy by his three predecessors to dangle a carrot to key voter constituencies during elections.
A World Bank report published in 2003 highlighted the case of President Moi who was seeking re-election for a final term in the 1998 General Election.
The huge salary increment President Moi committed to was unsustainable, the report said.
“The salary increases were ultimately not affordable, and in spite of industrial action, the government could not meet the demands of the union. Notwithstanding, the salary increases extracted raised the teachers’ salaries to levels well above comparable levels in other sectors, and the unions maintained the pressure,” noted the report.
But this year, President Kenyatta’s government that is under budget pressures has not offered any pay rise for civil servants and teachers in the budget for the financial year 2022/23 ahead of the elections.
The president is not seeking re-election but he has a stake in the election having publicly endorsed ODM Azimio la Umoja flagbearer Raila Odinga.
His administration is facing tough choices on how to balance spending plans with a tight resources envelope.
On one hand, the National Treasury wants MPs to adopt its 2022 Budget Policy Statement (BPS) approving a Sh3.33 trillion budget, but MPs have stuck to their guns and want Treasury to instead reduce its spending to prevent breaching fiscal thresholds.
The Budget and Appropriations Committee in its report on the BPS has asked Treasury to cut its budget by instituting austerity measures that will reduce the budget deficit from Sh846 billion to Sh400 billion to ensure that it does not breach the Sh9 trillion debt ceiling.
Instead of bumper pay rise to government employees awarded in the run-up to the previous election, President Kenyatta is prioritising election-related spending, including security.
