Knut has accused the Teachers Service Commission of plans to cripple the trade union through a diversionary tactic in payment of salaries.
Trans Nzoia officials speaking in Kitale said creation of two separate payrolls by TSC is a calculated move to entice teachers to bolt out of the union.
“We are rejecting plans by TSC to use the divide and rule formula to ground the union. Teachers will not be cowed by this dirty trick aimed at stopping their pursuit of their rights,” Kitale Knut secretary Dickson Okema said.
TSC has excluded senior teachers who are Knut members from the pay rise awarded to all other teachers in the July as per the 2016 collective bargaining agreement.
A statement from the commission said such members, who include headteachers and other teachers who hold Knut posts, will have to return all allowances paid out to them since July 2017 because they were not justified.
County Knut chairman George Wanjala accused TSC of contempt of court, saying the employer failed to honour a directive requiring the two parties to consider reviewing the prevailing schemes of service to align them with the CBA structure without breaching the Code of Regulations for Teachers.
“TSC cannot come up with its own guidelines without operating within the legal framework and the spirit of consultation. We are not going to chicken out no matter the tricks,” Wanjala said.
TSC declined to collect and remit more than Sh135 million on behalf of Knut in July, a duty it has always fulfilled even in its bitterest feuds with the union since establishment in 1957.
