AN attempt to stop a strike by lecturers in public universities continuing in Kenya failed on Monday, after a university employers organisation failed to turn up for an arbitration meeting.
The Kenyan Labour ministry had called the meeting to try and break an impasse over payment of the first part of 7.8 billion Shillings offered by the government last September in a return-to-work formula after a two-week strike.
The Inter-Public Universities Council Consultative Forum (IPUCCF), however, did not turn up and the lecturers’ strike, which started that day, carried on.
At the centre of the controversy is the insistence by IPUCCF that it released Sh3.9 billion for salaries and house allowances for the period July 1, 2012 to June 30, 2013.
University managers claim the money was released after a computation error that resulted in a 36-month deficit was corrected.
IPUCCF secretary, Prof James Tuitoet, said last week: ‘The universities agreed to utilise the funds by implementing payment of the newly computed salaries and house allowances. This has been implemented by all universities and constituent colleges.’
However, the University Academic Staff Union (Uasu) and Universities Non-Teaching Staff Union (Untesu) said lecturers and non-teaching staff had not been paid.
‘We have not received a cent, and that is why we have called a strike,’ said Uasu general-secretary Muga K’olale on Monday.
Prof K’olale accused IPUCCF of diverting the money and ‘stashing’ it in fixed deposit accounts.
He disputed that there ever was an error in the computation of the full tranche.
He said the management of one of the universities, Masinde Muliro, had agreed to pay the amount as stipulated in the September return-to-work formula.
‘Where would the university get the money to pay if their claims are true?’ he asked.
Prof K’olale said the strike would continue ‘until the money owed is paid in full’.
Untesu secretary-general Charles Mukwaya said the union had decided to suspend the strike after a court order on January 17.
‘We were issued with a court order restraining us from industrial action and have decided to take the fight to court,’ he said.
However it decided to carry on with the strike when managers failed to turn up to the meeting with lecturers unions
• Meanwhile, a strike by City Council of Nairobi workers over delays in effecting a salary increase negotiated two years ago spread to other local authorities on Monday, paralysing services.
Nairobi City Hall workers stopped working last Thursday, abandoning services like rubbish collection.
Revenue collection was also hit as traffic wardens were not available to bill motorists.
In other parts of the country, services remained paralysed after council workers in the
Kenya Local Government Workers Union (KLGWU) took strike action.
In Mombasa, work completely stopped after more than 2,000 workers downed tools over the fact that workers who were supposed to have a pay rise did not get the increased salaries they were promised.
The workers are demanding implementation of a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) signed between them and the Association of Local Government Employers on October 12, last year which raised their pay.
The agreement if implemented would see the lowest-paid workers receive a 36 per cent pay increase while higher-paid workers would have a 30 per cent pay raise.
The workers are also demanding a uniform Sh5,000 raise in house allowance.
Festus Ngari, Nairobi branch secretary of the Kenya Local Government Workers Union said: ‘The strike is on until the minister approves the CBA, which we negotiated with the Federation of Kenya Employers.
He said talks between the workers Nairobi branch union and the Local Government minister Paul Otuoma collapsed on Monday after he failed to invite a representative from the Ministry of Labour.
Kenyan law requires that the Ministry of Labour arbitrates where the employer and employee is locked up in a dispute.
On Monday, Local Government minister permanent secretary Karega Mutahi said the ministry was not in a position to act until the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) advised on the CBA.
‘It is not possible for the minister to act until the SRC gives advice. I appeal to the union to safeguard revenue collections by avoiding disruptions,’ Mutahi said.
He said local authorities were operating under serious financial constraints and may not recover from the revenue losses to pay workers’ salaries for this month.
Ngari said local authorities’ workers were the lowest-paid in the public sector and accused Otuoma of attempting to stall the negotiations by directing that the workers consult the salaries commission.
The City Council of Nairobi is set to lose Sh25 million a day during the strike.
Tom Odongo a worker at the city hall said: ‘We shall continue with this strike.
‘Nairobi residents will not have water, you will not be able to take your dead people to the City Mortuary and Pumwani Hospital will be closed.
‘There will be no work until the Local Government Permanent Secretary Karega Mutahi and the minister realise that we as city council staff are not being paid well.’
According to the clerk, however, the strike is not justified since every effort was made to honour the CBA.
Odongo said that the signed CBA had been forwarded to the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) which has the sole power to approve a salary increment.
Council chiefs also accused striking workers of vandalising council offices and intimidating colleagues who continued to go to work, calling on them to join the strike.
A spokesman for Nairobi City Council said: ‘A strike cannot include vandalising of city council property, forceful eviction of employees from the office, vandalising computers, destroying sensitive documents belonging to the council, littering the streets.
‘Our position is that these are illegal activities.
‘Such action will not be condoned and individuals responsible will be arrested.
‘We will arrest and charge anybody who is involved in this from now on.
‘Any more interfering with our property will result in arrest.
‘You have a right to strike but it does not involve destroying our property.’
Kisumu Town Clerk Christopher Rosanna in the meantime also stated that the local council there is losing Sh3 million per day in uncollected rates as a result of the ongoing strike by the workers.
He indicated that rubbish has remained uncollected for the last four days.
The clerk convened a meeting with the union representatives and implored them to return to work, but they declined.
• Meanwhile, nurses in the Kenyan town of Kisumu have threatened to go back to the streets this week if the Kenyan government fails to resolve their grievances as directed by an industrial court.
Speaking in Kisumu after a meeting at the Jomo Kenyatta Grounds, Kenya National Union of Nurses Kisumu Branch Secretary General Maurice Odhiambo said the government was not committed to addressing their grievances even after the court directed that the issue be resolved amicably.
Odhiambo stated that the government instead continued to issue threats of dismissal to the nurses noting that they will not be cowed by the sack threats.
‘Despite the sack threats by the government, we will not halt the strike as it is within our constitutional rights.’
Odhiambo is also angry at the Kenyan government’s Chief Nursing Officer Chris Rakuom whom he accused of misadvising the government.
He said they will not relent until their union is officially recognised, saying that the Union of Kenya Civil Servants (UKCS) has misled nurses over the strike.
Among their grievances is a push for nurses to have better pensions and a demand for for a call allowance for nurses.
