The university staff unions have given the government one week to increase their pay or they will join a nation-wide strike. The university unions, Universities Academic Staff Union and Kenya Universities Staff Union accused the government of failing to act on a return-to-work agreement signed on 26th September 2024 over resolving pay grievances.
UASU Secretary-General, Constantine Wasonga said, “Implement the return-to-work formula or we go back to the streets.” He asked members of the union to start preparing for industrial action, saying: “Start jogging, the streets are calling.”
The agreement was part of the 2021 to 2025 Collective Bargaining Agreement that provided for seven to 10 percent increment of university staff salaries effective October 2024 calculated at four percent of the basic salary effective July 1, 2023. The unions however say the government has not implemented the pay rise as was agreed upon by Wasonga.
“Our members expect the new salaries next week. We are not going to shy away from calling another strike. Don’t try us. If the CBA is not honoured by Tuesday, we will be on the streets,” Wasonga warned, instructing universities not to issue salaries without incorporating the agreed increments.
The failure to implement the CBA has risen tension among university staff and threatened industrial peace. The unions, which first called off strike following the September agreement with the government, had been pushing for salary adjustments for different categories of staff, with graduate assistants expected to take home between Sh63,647 and Sh97,988, assistant lecturers earning between Sh107,872 and Sh166,072, and professors earning no less than Sh224,631 and no more than Sh345,816.
“We don’t eat promises or promissory notes,” Wasonga said. “If it takes years, we don’t care, so long as our members’ concerns are addressed.”
The government had already formed an inter-ministerial negotiating team to address the unions’ grievances, but talks remain deadlocked and the unions have renewed their threat of strike.
