Compromise deal: No salary raise for teachers as Knut, Kuppet sign CBA

Teachers in public primary and secondary schools will wait at least a year before they can get any salary raise after unions agreed with their employer on a new worker's deal.

Teachers unions, Knut and Kuppet on Tuesday signed a new workers' deal on condition that the suspension only lasts a year.

The agreement will serve between this July to July 2026.

This a compromise to the hard stance the unions had taken in the initial negotiations that they would take nothing short of a pay rise.

"We understand that the commission is ready to call us back so that we can review the document that we have upended today," Akello Misori the Kuppet secretary-general said.

The teacher's employer declined the push for a salary raise, noting that the Salaries and Remuneration Commission had suspended the review of salaries for all civil servants, teachers included.

SRC in May declared that it would not review basic salary structures, allowances, and benefits for public servants, in the financial year 2021/2022 and 2022/2023 following recommendations from the National Treasury.

Kuppet says that they came to a compromise to bear with the employer for not more than one year to jumpstart salary increment negotiations.

The first round of negotiations did not bear much after the unions turned down the employer noting teachers expected nothing short of salary increment.

Knut, which had previously objected to a CBA without monetary gains as proposed by TSC, termed the negotiations successful.

Secretary-General Collins Oyuu called on the members of Knut to be patient noting "the signing of a CBA is not an event but a process,"

Oyuu said that the salary factor will be reviewed as the economy improves.

Knut and the TSC have been mending their broken relationship since the change of guard in the union. It has dropped all court cases.

The commission invited the unions to the July 13 meeting after TSC on June 29 said it would not engage in money-based CBA negotiations.