Lecturers have issued a 15-day strike notice, threatening to halt university operations once again due to the government’s failure to honor an agreement regarding delayed salaries.
This move comes just 40 days after the government and the University Academic Staff Union (UASU) signed a return-to-work formula to end a prolonged 24-day strike that had paralyzed all 35 public universities and two constituent colleges.
According to UASU Organising Secretary Onesmus Maluki, the government had promised a pay increase for university lecturers, backdated to October.
In what appeared to be a gesture of goodwill, the Higher Education Principal Secretary, Beatrice Inyangala, issued a circular instructing universities to implement the pay rise.
However, lecturers did not receive the new salaries, including arrears for October and November, in their December paychecks.
“We agreed that the new salaries would be implemented in December, along with the arrears for October and November, but when we went for Christmas, the new salaries were still not paid,” Maluki said, expressing frustration at the failure to meet the agreement.
University heads have cited a lack of funding from the government as the reason for the delay in implementing the pay increase.
The agreement, which was finalized in November, included the implementation of the 2021–2025 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), valued at sh 9.7 billion.
This CBA outlines a phased salary increment for lecturers, with the first installment of sh 4.3 billion scheduled to cover nine months through June 2025, followed by two equal installments of sh 2.7 billion each.
The salary scale is set to increase significantly, with the highest pay for research professors rising from sh 283,087 in 2021-2022 to sh 345,816 by 2024-2025.
The lowest salary is also expected to increase from sh 57,729 to sh 63,647 over the same period.
If the government does not address the salary arrears by January 15, UASU has warned it will instruct members to strike once again, potentially disrupting the reopening of schools, which is set for January 6.
“The government did not honor the return-to-work formula, and we are therefore forced to go back on strike,” Maluki stated, emphasizing the union’s commitment to ensuring lecturers receive their rightful pay.
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