Lecturers offered Sh10 billion to end three-week strike in Kenya

The Government has offered striking lecturers
Sh10 billion hoping they will call off their
three-week boycott.
Inter-Public Universities Councils Consultative
Forum (IPUCCF) made the offer at a meeting
with Universities Academic Staff Union (Uasu)
officials in Nairobi Wednesday.
However, Uasu secretary general Constantine
Wasonga said they will not accept the money
until they know how much each lecturer will
get.
He also declined to call off the strike 'until we
are sure about what we are getting and also
until the 2013-2017 Collective Bargaining
Agreement is negotiated and implemented' warns Prof Bethwel Ogot "It is not just about giving us figures. We are
not interested in the lump sum, what matters
to us is what the offer translates into to an
individual lecturer," said Wasonga.

He added: "As far as we are concerned, the
strike is still on and the negotiations have also
not ended. Sh10 billion may look like a lot of
money until you calculate what an individual
will earn. Some people may actully end up
with nothing. Our technical team is working on
the figures."
"If the money will not be what we want, then
we will reject the offer. If anything, we are not
in a hurry. If the about 300 MPs want to take
home a whole Sh3 billion, how then do you
give 15,000 lecturers Sh10 billion? It's a joke,"
Wasonga said as the talks at a Nairobi hotel
were adjourned to allow for more
consultations.

Uasu demands will see lecturers paid six times
what they are earning now. This will see the highest paid lecturer take home Sh1.2 million monthly and the lowest Sh248,430.

The demands are contained in the contentious
2013-2017 CBA the lecturers' union wants
implemented before they can return to work.
Currently, a professor, the highest paid, earns
Sh211,000.

Wasonga said they want their salaries to match
those of their counterparts in the rest of the civil service.

"Our proposals are not about percentage
increment but harmonization to address the
disparities. We want salaries to be restructured
for lecturers in public universities so that they
are equivalent to what their counterparts in the
civil service and private sector earn," he said.

"We have professors who are more qualified
than the education Cabinet Secretary yet he
earns less than the minister, why?"
In the proposed salary structure seen by The
Standard, the union is proposing that a
professor be paid a minimum basic salary of
Sh999,030 with the maximum being
Sh1,562,625.

An associate professor should earn between
Sh740,020 and Sh1,157,466 while a senior
lecturer between Sh548,163 and Sh857,384.