TSC orders teachers to verify union membership

The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has issued three month notice to more than 288,060 teachers across the country to confirm their union memberships.

TSC Chief Executive Officer Nancy Macharia said the validation exercise will run until February 28 next year and the commission will deactivate any unvalidated data with effect from March 1, 2016.

Mrs Macharia said the decision to carry out validation had been arrived at following complaints from both teachers and the unions - Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) and Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet), over membership poaching and other irregularities.

The directive is contained in a circular dated November 24, 2015 and addressed to all TSC county directors and all stakeholders in the education sector, among them the teachers unions.

However, the unions are reading mischief in the move saying that it is aimed at destabilizing them.

Mrs Macharia said the validation is only for teachers who were having unions due deducted on their payslip on or before August 2015.

“Teachers wishing to change their membership from one union to another should observe the provisions of the Labour Relations Act 2007 and complete union membership forms as required and resign from the union they are in and submit the complete forms to the commission,” said the Chief executive officer.

Mrs Macharia observed the commission has been dealing with complaints raised by individual teachers on the authenticity of their union membership.

“The concerns raised by the teachers are that they have never signed for any union membership yet the commission has effected recovery of union dues from their salaries. They enlisted their membership to a particular union yet their membership dues is being remitted to a different unions,” said Mrs Macharia.

FORGING SIGNATURES
She added that on the other hand, unions have also complained that there are members who have been recruited to other unions by use of forged signatures, while members moving from one union have not resigned officially

“To address this concern in the interest of the teachers and the unions, the commission has decided to allow teachers to validate their membership online, at http://payslip.tsc.go.ke, to enable the commission cleanse its payroll and allow teachers to pay union dues to union of their choice,” said Mrs Macharia.

TSC currently has more than 10,000 cases of forged membership by both unions.

The commission said it had settled on online validation since manual on could have taken long.

However, Kuppet Secretary-General Akelo Misori said the TSC does not have the responsibility of recruiting members for unions.

“TSC should validate forms and not membership as that is not their work,” said Mr Misori, insisting that union membership is known.

He said the commission should have consulted the unions on the best way to handle the situation since they are the one responsible for recruitment.

Knut Secretary-General Wilson Sossion said the timing of the commission asking teachers to confirm membership is suspect.

“The circular asking teachers to confirm their union membership is illegal and confirms our worst fears,” said Mr Sossion.

He said complaints have a way of being addressed adding that membership is a legal process that goes with supporting documents.

The two unions get membership fees of more than Sh2billion annually.

HUGE INCOME
Knut collects about Sh1.6billion per year, with Sh135million being collected monthly from 206,000 primary schools teachers, while Kuppet, with 34,000 teachers, rakes in about Sh35 million per month and Sh425 million per year.

Statistics from the TSC indicate that about 48,060 teachers, mostly schools heads, do not belong to any union because they are not required to.

Meanwhile, TSC Head of Communication Kamotho Kihumba said the Commission did not deduct union dues in the months of September, October and November saying the reasons are well known to the unions.

“It is therefore, insincere for anybody to claim that TSC is withholding any money due to Knut or any other union as none was deducted in the first place,” said Mr Kihumba in a statement.

He said union dues amounting to Sh130 million deducted from the teachers’ August pay were released to Knut.

He said: “It is already in the public domain that TSC and teachers union have started talks to resolve several industrial issues, including union membership and dues. It is expected that all other parties involved will play their rightful role in addressing the issues,” said Mr Kihumba.

The two unions are set to hold their Annual delegates conference in December.