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Post by mwalimumkuu on Sept 28, 2015 18:45:13 GMT 3
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Post by jakaswanga on Sept 28, 2015 19:03:54 GMT 3
Yes I have heard of when two elephants fight, the grass wails unheard! Jakaswanga Ever heard of the statement about elephants fighting and the grass being the one that suffers? I think that is what our good old headmaster was alluding to. On the teachers saga, I think our courts have come out to create more confusion than work to resolve the matter!!! If we were to trace the cases, they all started when the TSC went to court to stop a planned strike by teachers. This should have been a simple and straightforward matter, but the court decided to venture into matters that had not been prayed for by the TSC (applicant), i.e. awarding a salary increase and even determining how it would be paid. And all this before a trade dispute was declared! Then TSC went to the court of appeal where they were allowed to serve the unions with appeal but with no stay of the lower court orders - actually the court ordered that the awarded amounts be paid or the appeal would fail. TSC then went to court to complain that the unions had ordered a strike without due process and the Labour court judge whilst declining to declare the strike illegal, declared that the same strike was unprotected for failing to follow the law. On the other hand, the unions went to court to say that the TSC was in contempt of court for not paying the salaries as ordered. In the meantime the TSC went to the Supreme Court to appeal the order to make payments by the Appeal Court and the Supreme Court failed to grant any orders on the basis that there was no active appeal in the Court of Appeal (any one can suggest how there was no appeal yet the Appeal Court had made orders being appealed!!) So when the judge made a ruling on friday, it was on the contempt proceedings previously filed by the Unions. The judge went ahead and made rulings on matters not prayed for and which technically lie in an appeal. By directing the teachers to abandon their strike or even the unions and TSC to meet and resolve the matter within 90 days, he adjudicated on matters I do not believe were before him. When he ordered TSC not to victimise any teachers, he inferred that their salaries should not be withheld in punishment for taking part in an unprotected strike. One surely must wonder what salary TSC is supposed to pay as there are issues still in court. With the orders of the lower court suggesting a way out of the mess, there is an appeal matter later this week where the TSC, SRC and GOK have still to make their case to stall the additional payments in the Court of Appeal and it is not even clear what the ruling will be. The judiciary has, in my view, failed to show leadership where the political and executive arms of government have failed. I hold the view that we have a bad constitution as it has led to this confusion!What should happen when all this has settled, is legislative action to guarantee the employees right to strike and picket, but also regulate how that right is exercised to ensure that we do not have a similar incident where strikes have a direct human impact on Kenyans as well as protect the rights of employers in trade relations. In the UK, the aftermath of the Coalminers' strike helped re-write the labour relations law and this is much better in the Uk where unions and employers relate in a more responsible manner. FOOTNOTE: in defence of articles of principles against public prejudice and religious bias and bigotry!The American constitution had this clause: ALL MEN ARE BORN/CREATED EQUAL, AND SHALL BE HANDLED SO BEFORE LAW AND ALL ELSE LIKE GOD! Every thinker knew this was a bomb. Every citizen instinctively knew this was a bomb. America was a slave-holding society. If this was its declaration of independence, then, down the line, she would face herself. -Should it be revised to ALL WHITE MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL? offered some! (Forget women for the moment, black or white, Asian or Latin!) This reserving of rights for only White Men would even be a shorter-fused bomb! What with whitemen a minority in the new world? And the French revolution having ushered in a new battlecry? Egalite, liberte, solidarity --race proof! And so the USA, armed with a state-of-the-civilisation document, sleepwalked to a resolution: civil war. Articles of Principles can be that profound. THE BILL OF RIGHTS IN THE KENYAN CONSTITUTION. -- kill the gays! this is africa! says William Ruto and the clergy!It is a powerful section, for those who have read it. It protects all in principle. Gays are equal to heteros, in principle! it is Contradictory in certain operationalised bills, but still a bomb. For instance, homosexual pairing is protected, and more! But priests of darkness like William Ruto and the primitive pre-enlightenment church hierarchy and clergy think this is Africa and gays are better dead or sentenced to death, as anti-god blasphemes! Renaissance has not yet entered their thick heads. They are like White Men who want the American constitution to read -ONLY WHITEMEN ARE CREATED EQUAL, BLACKS ARE INFERIOR BEFORE LAW AND BEFORE GOD! Ruto and the church and significant public opinion in the world and Africa, misunderstand the case. They think the constitution better go with their petty religious bias and prejudice! Goats! There is a civil war out there on the lurk -an article of principle. I live for *! I eat and screw it. And I don't care for male butt and dick. But as an article of principle when the chips are down, I will kill to protect gays. When the civil war comes to Africa on the articles of equality, I will kill to protect gays and their life. Man is defined in political science as freedom seeker. If God is out to limit freedom, it is God who bites the dust. That is the terror of renaissance. The terror of the bourgeoisie revolution which slapped the world awake from centuries of comatose feudalism! Uhuru Kenyatta told off Obama on homosexuality. We are Africans, right? Wrong, we are man, and we seek freedom! We are slaves in rebellion! Oppressors must prepare for the civil war! Holy warriors and zealot fanatics against free-minded and libertarian secular humanists! --The French civil war. Don't they say farce and tragedy are the realms by which history repeats itself? NEXT: when a nation gets lost in legalistics, and the judiciary and politicians become laughing stock, then a correction must come from without! The courts are not a solution, they are just part of the farce! --now the sagacious judge has diarhea! I once heard of Majanja in pyjamas!
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Post by OtishOtish on Sept 28, 2015 19:55:53 GMT 3
The judiciary has, in my view, failed to show leadership where the political and executive arms of government have failed. I hold the view that we have a bad constitution as it has led to this confusion! This is why a place like Kenya will be stuck in the mud for ages: there seems to be the idea that once "nice" laws are in place, that's it; a magical transformation will immediately occur. There is nothing like a "perfect constitution" or "perfect law"; Nigeria has an amazing constitution, cobbled together from the best of the rest of the world, but look at the place! In practice, there are two basic things that are required: (1) People should respect and obey the law. There is no point in having the finest laws in the world if they are taken to mean shite. (2) People must be prepared to look beyond the letter of the law (i.e. the mere written formulation) and to the spirit of the law (i.e. what it is really intended to achieve). Without that, it is just a word-game. These are especially important when people go to great lengths to enact new laws because they genuinely want significant change---and Kenyans did, after Moi really gave it to them up the [REDACTED] and Kibaki squandered all the goodwill he had (and decided that his "our people" were all that mattered). In any case, it is not for the judiciary to be a ready replacement either the legislature or the executive. And now, this: www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2000177650/kenya-ferry-services-bosses-jailed-over-dock-workers-pay-rise-order
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Post by jakaswanga on Sept 28, 2015 21:38:52 GMT 3
WOULD, UHURU HAD IT IN HIM TO VAPOURISE THE UNIONS! First: FARCE: Consider the law and its adherence. SELECTIVELY CHOOSING WHEN NOT TO OBEY THE LAW! Kamalet,Congratulations to note you have kept abreast with the pandemonium, melee and confusion which has been reigning around the benches of the Kenyan judiciary. The fundamental breakthrough, is that the rulings of the Kenyan courts are not binding. Contempt in principle and in practice is not enforceable for a certain lot. That is also impunity of sorts. So the court award of the KUPPE-KNUT-demanded salary hikes --naturally amounted to nothing, as soon, cabinet secretary for finance and his team, laughed it off. In their wake came out the TSC, and eventually the president himself! -Can't pay, wont pay! Haha Haha! Supreme court ruling my foot! What did the judiciary do? What could the judiciary do?The nucleus of the Judiciary is the JSC! And on Jukwaa we have detailed how rotten this Mutungaroo den of infamy is. Imagine these scumbugs --follow the Gladys Shollei case, sitting and procurement scandals, not to mention the shady likes of Ahmednassir and Ojienda and their Mumias and Kenya Posts scams--- demanding Uhuru Kenyatta obey the law! That would be one of the greatest April fools day jokes around the continent. Leave alone Kiganjo Police college as the African Harvard Business school! So the rulings of Kenyan courts are not binding. You have to be a small man for them to be. The question is how small, or big, are the Teacher's Unions? Are they small enough to obey 'bandia' courts already ignored by the president and one side of the conflict? My bet is they will try to do both, and in the reigning confusion, hope to browbeat sticklers. Basically this conflict has collapsed the judiciary. Has shown its hollow center, pointed at its empty head. That is important. My opinion is: KNUT/KUPPET vs the TSC/GoK is a side-show. But the conflict is a fundamental definer/pointer (in the sense of an articulate symptom) of profound social conflict. 1. It is a side-show because it is an INTER-ELITE warfare over the proceeds of taxpayer expropriation. 2. It is a fundamental definer because it takes the trenchant form of EMPLOYER vs EMPLOYEE, and juxtaposes ORGANISED LABOUR vs INCUMBENT STATE POWER.In labour theory, that antagonism is the motor of human history, master versus slave. Spartacus versus Rome. Capital versus labour. But in current Kenya, this fundamental conflict assumes a subterfuge form, hidden and confusionist: the nobility fighting amongst themselves -over the proceeds of robbery. Consider the salary scales around this round table as proposed by the now on sick-leave judge Abuodha: TSC bosses, KNUT and KUPPET bosses, Treasury officials, Ministry Officials, Jubilee mandarins. You are not talking peanut salaries! This is cream, overflowing cream. Elite. 3. This conflict does not pit manufacturers against inventors; it does not pit value-adders in the production process against the owners of the means of production. There are no creators of patents in this conflict. These are clerical staff. That is the hidden farce. They are far from the tedium of value addition to commodities. A man's toe keeps on bleeding after a puncture. A smart doc can suspect the worst, cancer, and order further tests. This dispute is a running sore. My diagnosis is, it is a front, a mask something darker is wearing. I aint gonna get fooled that easy. Beyond farce and tragedy which, as we have often heard, are the dramatic forms history opts to repeat itself, epochs can produce very clownesk regimes. There is the classic tragi-comedial complication of Kafka's republic of pathologised bureaucracy, but meseems our regimes are too simplistic and transparent to be a Kafkaesque riddle. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Kafka So while fumes emitted by Sossion, Misori, Kaimenyi, Serem, Uhuru, William Singh, Rotich, TSC and the rest of the lot at the top, may be a storm in an elite tea-cup, there still remains the HISTORICAL WILL of an epoch. This will (or push-forward) is independent of the games of the pontificated characters, independent of the whims of those billed as as key players. (This is how multiparty came to pass, regardless of the resistance of Almighty Baba Moi and his Baba-na-Mama Party, aka KANU.) The truth is most governments around the world are making a horrible mess running the place. And there is palpable anxiety, radical fluidity, and increasing extremist resolve. But in Subsahara Africa, with its 400+ million people living on less electricity than in produced in Spain, while her leaders talk Industrialisation, the act of keeping up appearances at progress, rising and going places is increasingly a parody. The bottom realised it already, that is why African youth are fleeing in droves to die at European borders. This anger below decks, this molten rage down below is yet far from hitting the surface, and still has no place in the scenarios set by Kenyan judges in the current labour dispute. That such a force is of no consequence in a national dialogue detailing a crisis, is why I say this long-running strike is a subterfuge form. You got to interpret it. Some say Uhuru must go Thatcher and annihilate the KNUT and KUPPET, like Scargill's miners (NUM) were. One can substitute coal by gas and nuclear energy. Teachers are a hard act to phase out. 2. Most importantly: Margaret Thatcher was out to TRANSFORM, REVOLUTIONISE BRITAIN. Nothing, not even her own party would stand in her way. She was an ideologue. Passionately convinced of her path, truth and righteousness, to be absolved by history. (Looking at Uhuru's war on graft, the s?/o Jomo is a softie all round!) President Uhuru Kenyatta runs a public service wage bill of 60% GDP. That is a moron. There is no other way to put it in a German economic class. 14% GDP public wage-bill is already defined as wild! 20% is insanity! A great greek tragedy! To wipe out Kenyan Unions, first you reduce the public wage bill to 35% in one financial year. I do not see Kennedy School blue-eyed boy Rotich capable of that, nor the Eurobond squanderer Kamau Thugge, nor the Opus Dei fella at CBK! The regime of goats I said! Mwai Kibaki, I was tipped, once explained why he never called cabinet meetings in those days. People thought it was because of the stalemate with Raila. No, I am informed Kibaki said: 'I grew up herding goats. I know them. I wont seat among them as an equal. Stupid bleaters!'Mwai Kibaki, i always did love that aloof mischief in his eye! A herdsboy being amused by a bleating goat! And that is the way I look at the Kenyan Judiciary! And treasury, and parliament!
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Post by kamalet on Sept 29, 2015 14:21:30 GMT 3
"M"-jaka....
I think we need to show the distinction between the president and the TSC. Both are creations of the constitution and in a bid to ensure the president did not control TSC, it was included in a list of what we call (when it is convenient!!) INDEPENDENT COMMISSIONS!!. The court orders were on TSC and not on the "Executive" as represented by the President. Dragging in the President (and it would not matter if it was another charlatan!) in this matter would be to ignore the constitutional independence of the TSC as the commission responsible for the teaching service.
But that is the problem we have with a "bad constitution" - now that Njakip thinks it is a good one - where we define an institution as independent and still not delink it from the people we were separating it from! Parliament makes a direct vote for TSC when allocating money, but leaves the decision on how much and the way it is spent to a functionary in the executive, i.e. the Treasury minister. So this civil servant decides that he does not have money and tells the MPigs as much who then deny the TSC the money because there are political instructions from a party leader (of the MPigs)who happens to be President! If any of the "hactivists" who hastily copied and pasted similar constitutions elsewhere onto our constitution think that they had achieved the independence, then we can all see how miserably they have failed.
But that just shows the problem we have as Kenyans. We much prefer to romanticize the easier options when presented with challenges rather than take the bull by the horn.
There is this arguments that teachers "deserve the pay increase" which I do not agree with! Suggestions that border on the ridiculous have been made on how to resolve this but everyone is taking the easy short term route without thinking of the consequences. There are others stuck on the argument that there is money only that it is stolen or even worse that some people in the public service get more so why not the teachers!!I have this rather stubborn view that if you think your employer is not paying you well, then you must go and get a job with the employer willing to pay you more. Employment is a commercial willing buyer willing seller arrangement of providing and receiving services, and should remain as such. Taking resources away from services and projects that some people think are less important than the teacher salaries assumes that the services have no value to the rest of Kenyans. We also need to consider the bigger picture of the effects of the salary increase on other public servants. I pay loads of taxes and I would not want to be loaded with more to pay wages for public servants that do not deliver anything to me! Sorry this sounds harsh or elitist, but I work in a commercial world where labour is remunerated commensurate with production - and that is the least I would expect of the public service!
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Post by mwalimumkuu on Sept 29, 2015 17:29:39 GMT 3
"M"-jaka.... I think we need to show the distinction between the president and the TSC. Both are creations of the constitution and in a bid to ensure the president did not control TSC, it was included in a list of what we call (when it is convenient!!) INDEPENDENT COMMISSIONS!!. The court orders were on TSC and not on the "Executive" as represented by the President. Dragging in the President (and it would not matter if it was another charlatan!) in this matter would be to ignore the constitutional independence of the TSC as the commission responsible for the teaching service. But that is the problem we have with a "bad constitution" - now that Njakip thinks it is a good one - where we define an institution as independent and still not delink it from the people we were separating it from! Parliament makes a direct vote for TSC when allocating money, but leaves the decision on how much and the way it is spent to a functionary in the executive, i.e. the Treasury minister. So this civil servant decides that he does not have money and tells the MPigs as much who then deny the TSC the money because there are political instructions from a party leader (of the MPigs)who happens to be President! If any of the "hactivists" who hastily copied and pasted similar constitutions elsewhere onto our constitution think that they had achieved the independence, then we can all see how miserably they have failed. But that just shows the problem we have as Kenyans. We much prefer to romanticize the easier options when presented with challenges rather than take the bull by the horn. There is this arguments that teachers "deserve the pay increase" which I do not agree with! Suggestions that border on the ridiculous have been made on how to resolve this but everyone is taking the easy short term route without thinking of the consequences. There are others stuck on the argument that there is money only that it is stolen or even worse that some people in the public service get more so why not the teachers!!I have this rather stubborn view that if you think your employer is not paying you well, then you must go and get a job with the employer willing to pay you more. Employment is a commercial willing buyer willing seller arrangement of providing and receiving services, and should remain as such. Taking resources away from services and projects that some people think are less important than the teacher salaries assumes that the services have no value to the rest of Kenyans. We also need to consider the bigger picture of the effects of the salary increase on other public servants. I pay loads of taxes and I would not want to be loaded with more to pay wages for public servants that do not deliver anything to me! Sorry this sounds harsh or elitist, but I work in a commercial world where labour is remunerated commensurate with production - and that is the least I would expect of the public service! Kamele: Very well said. The irony in the arguments of those pushing for a higher pay for teachers is the proposal that some programs and functions within government be scrapped in order to raise money to pay teachers. It is as though all families in Kenya rely on teachers for ugali and sukuma wiki matters. As you rightly put it, teachers just like other employees are free to join those other enterprises such as NYS that they think pay better than what they are earning now. We cannot as a country afford pampering one set of employees at the expense of the entire economy and everyone else. many countries including Greece and Ghana that have given in to salary demands such the ones we are witnessing from teachers, have lived to regret there after. I do not think we would forgive UhuRuto is they allowed us to go that route. ~~ Mwalimumkuu @nyumbakubwa ~~
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Post by jakaswanga on Sept 29, 2015 19:54:29 GMT 3
MMkuu,
A secondary principal earns ksh. 150K; a Mpig earns 2M, and an MCA 500K plus a a 3M car loan. All transports paid.
Teachers can go become Mpigs you say, if they are paid low!?
Why dont police complain about their salaries? Because they stop you at gun-point on the road. your car is good, but you still pay!
What you guys are not seeing, is the collapse of the rational economy. Everyone starts to do something else than is their official brief. It is also called rot, sociologically speaking.
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Post by kamalet on Sept 30, 2015 12:05:17 GMT 3
MMkuu, A secondary principal earns ksh. 150K; a Mpig earns 2M, and an MCA 500K plus a a 3M car loan. All transports paid. Teachers can go become Mpigs you say, if they are paid low!? Why dont police complain about their salaries? Because they stop you at gun-point on the road. your car is good, but you still pay! What you guys are not seeing, is the collapse of the rational economy. Everyone starts to do something else than is their official brief. It is also called rot, sociologically speaking. You are comparing oranges and potatoes!! I do not agree that merely because an Mpig makes a million shillings or 300k for an MCA it makes sense for a teacher to get the proposed raises. Each of these people have a different role in their public service and it may make us unhappy about the disparity but it is still no justification to make the increase awards. A policeman extorting cash in the form of a bribe is a choice Kenyans make to agree to the extortion. Kenyans that pay these bribes cannot then come to complain that teachers need to be remunerated more just because they do not have the gun extort! For now everyone needs to climb down their chairs and agree that there is need to review public service wages including for teachers, but this would need the finalisation of the rationalisation of the public services wages as well as all public servants signing up to performance contracts! We cannot have teachers at Mukiibi's getting the same pay as those of Wahundura Boys when the performance of the students is widely different yet they earn the same pay!
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Post by jakaswanga on Sept 30, 2015 19:21:58 GMT 3
This disparity, Kamalet, is the key to understanding Kenya. Remuneration is, in the rule, a reasonable reward for productivity. This productivity, arrived at by labour expended, is measurable, and comparative around the economy as a whole, otherwise the whole infrastructure of pricing -both labour, services and commodities in the market, would collapse in arbitrariness.
Everybody knows no Mpig expends labour worth ksh. 2M (and the bonus accessory perks) per month. Those who understand economics will recognize, that a 40+M population generating a paltry $50 billion GDP (after a statistical pimping-up exercise called rebase), is cheating herself paying her useless captains world competitive salaries! Yes, running a scam. A pyramid scheme. Kanzelarin Angela Merkel thus earns about ksh. 2.5M. That is less than fin-sec Rotich. And far below Uhuru Kenyatta. (and her travels costs the German taxpayer less than a half of Anne Waiguru's bill!)
Us have no idea how to value labour. We in Kenya confuse power for productive labour. We reward power for power's sake. And that is a mistake that must have tragic consequences in a national history. Robbery and plunder never ends well for a state elite On to your mark, get set, go! for the borrowing binge!
Rotich is a loan junkie!
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Post by kamalet on Oct 1, 2015 9:38:09 GMT 3
This disparity, Kamalet, is the key to understanding Kenya. Remuneration is, in the rule, a reasonable reward for productivity. This productivity, arrived at by labour expended, is measurable, and comparative around the economy as a whole, otherwise the whole infrastructure of pricing -both labour, services and commodities in the market, would collapse in arbitrariness. Everybody knows no Mpig expends labour worth ksh. 2M (and the bonus accessory perks) per month. Those who understand economics will recognize, that a 40+M population generating a paltry $50 billion GDP (after a statistical pimping-up exercise called rebase), is cheating herself paying her useless captains world competitive salaries! Yes, running a scam. A pyramid scheme. Kanzelarin Angela Merkel thus earns about ksh. 2.5M. That is less than fin-sec Rotich. And far below Uhuru Kenyatta. (and her travels costs the German taxpayer less than a half of Anne Waiguru's bill!) Us have no idea how to value labour. We in Kenya confuse power for productive labour. We reward power for power's sake. And that is a mistake that must have tragic consequences in a national history. Robbery and plunder never ends well for a state elite On to your mark, get set, go! for the borrowing binge! Rotich is a loan junkie! Jakaswanga I stopped having a grudge against our political thievery through ridiculous salaries by our leaders. We are entirely to blame for the disparity between the politician and the worker. We elect the charlatans so why should we complain when we cheer these thieves when they are dishing out our own cash in harambees and campaigns? Take the case of our "beloved president" whose only fault is being young as he would have qualified to be the "father of the nation" like his late dad. He does not need the monthly stipend parliament has appropriated for him hence his ability to dish out a million shillings to Gor Mahia to go frolic in Dar es Salaam and would probably happily take a salary cut to that of a teacher and he still would not struggle like our good Mwalimu from Mukiibi's. So let us not compare these guys and deal with the elephant in the house! The teachers' pay and that of the public service...they are a lot more than state officers.
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Post by mwalimumkuu on Oct 1, 2015 17:35:49 GMT 3
MMkuu, A secondary principal earns ksh. 150K; a Mpig earns 2M, and an MCA 500K plus a a 3M car loan. All transports paid. Teachers can go become Mpigs you say, if they are paid low!? Why dont police complain about their salaries? Because they stop you at gun-point on the road. your car is good, but you still pay! What you guys are not seeing, is the collapse of the rational economy. Everyone starts to do something else than is their official brief. It is also called rot, sociologically speaking. Jakaswanga:When I joined KU a decade or so ago, I met some very old but brilliant minds (they called themselves crunks), it was a gang of three Sifuna, Bennaars (now late) and Otiende. They told me and others in my class that we had chosen a profession they referred to as 'noble'. That, we shall be expected to serve the society out of good will, help further humanity out of self-sacrifice and not because we wanted to compete with the powerful and wealthy aristocrats of our times. Fast forward to Sossion and KNUT, all this seem to have escaped them. They are busy turning and reducing the noble profession to a commercial venture. They no longer care about the type of learners we are pushing through the system. Quality to them is a no go, they don't give a hoot to whether the parent and the nation are happy with what they children are going through in school. All they care about is the teacher competing with the next MP or MCA on the type of car they can drive, the kind of house they can own and the number of wives they can marry. This to me is taking away the color and respect the teaching profession has had over the years. Not long from now, we shall start viewing the teacher as we view the MP and MCA; not of any value, but necessary devils. I do not want to be labeled as such sir, I want to be a mwalimu of old. ~~ Mwalimumkuu @nyumbakubwa ~~
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Post by podp on Oct 1, 2015 17:56:57 GMT 3
Fast forward to Sossion and KNUT, all this seem to have escaped them. They are busy turning and reducing the noble profession to a commercial venture. They no longer care about the type of learners we are pushing through the system. Quality to them is a no go, they don't give a hoot to whether the parent and the nation are happy with what they children are going through in school. All they care about is the teacher competing with the next MP or MCA on the type of car they can drive, the kind of house they can own and the number of wives they can marry. This to me is taking away the color and respect the teaching profession has had over the years. Not long from now, we shall start viewing the teacher as we view the MP and MCA; not of any value, but necessary devils. I do not want to be labeled as such sir, I want to be a mwalimu of old. ~~ Mwalimumkuu @nyumbakubwa ~~ 1st and 2nd red high light over two decades Jirongo, Ruto and other Youth for KANU popped up on Kenyan stage with a bang. the largest denomination then was kshs. 500 and very soon it got a nickname. Jirongo. less than a decade later before we started the new millennium the value of a university graduate started deteriorating and it is yet to recover. now we have from our own accreditation body on law drastic action as.... 'Moi University, Catholic University of East Africa, Jaramogi Oginga Odinga University of Science and Technology and two campuses of the University of Nairobi (UoN) have not been accredited.' Read more at: www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2000178155/list-of-kenyan-universities-barred-from-teaching-lawand from our lenders the concern that The report observes that the cost of self-sponsored higher education is prohibitive for most middle- and low-income families, thus limiting the impact that university education could have on economic growth. It adds that enrolment in critical science disciplines such as agriculture, engineering, computer science, ICT, medicine and veterinary science is very low and growing at a very slow pace as a majority of students enrol for humanities, social sciences and arts. www.nation.co.ke/news/World-Bank-raises-concern-over-Kenya-s-graduates/-/1056/2893556/-/14wh4u2z/-/index.htmlthe mantra in our beloved republic is no longer for anyone to aim to belong to the noble profession (read teacher) or go to be a builder (read engineering) or feed the multitudes (read agriculture) or be a healer (read doctor) but to be an mPig and ultimately misfits like the current PORK and deputy PORK both who have no history of working but rather of having lots and lots of money that we attribute to hayati mzee Kenyatta who learned from the colonialists the art of grabbing land and outdid them in not only amassing but killing opponents. Mo1 followed in those footpaths (read Nyayo philosophy) and now that our PORK and deputy learned at Mo1's class they gave rise to Goldenberg, a scandal that never was, but which those of us domiciled in Kenya or able to visit annually have seen no culprits brought to book. whatever was noble, building, healing and other positive virtues have no one to articulate as you try to do. we have a PORK and deputy PORK who probably half if not more of the population know became who they are now not by doing any noble act, or building bridges or healing but the very opposite. and they are adored by all who voted for them who in return experience greater community 'growth' when it comes to what the presidency is able to influence. some vision! some goals!
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Post by jakaswanga on Oct 5, 2015 20:04:44 GMT 3
THE DECISION TO DESTROY THE TEACHERS UNIONS IS MADE!Education secretary Jacob Kaimenyi (centre) with principal secretaries Colleta Suda (left) and Dr. Belio Kipsang. So there was a cabinet --attempt at a-- decision to sack all the striking teachers! This kind of sort of decision would be effected by the TSC. It would mean the TSC were an instrument of the cabinet, a secretariat in the ministry of education, charged with carrying out the orders of the government of the day. Now, Lydia Nzomo and Nancy Macharia -and to some extent prof. M argaret Kobia (chair Public Service Commission) have of late shown high signs of mental fatigue and paralysis, but they are not yet that brain-dead. So they found a way to die a slow death (by evolutionary wilting), instead of an abrupt public harakiri. IE, they came up with a gimmick. 1. Suspend salaries. That is half sacked. 2. Open a general recruitment for new teachers.Teachers service commission Chairperson Lydia Nzomo (left)TSC CEO Nancy Macharia (centre) The legal quagmires generated by those 2 steps are in the open --though with the supreme court judges on a work go-slow, and Willy Mutunga facing a legal attempt to remove him as CJ, we can discount the judiciary as a credible institution -a fate it unfortunately shares with most other public bodies! (For example the Public Service Commission of Prof. Kobia has been unnaturally silent on the sacking of for example Grace Kaindi!) 70 thousand odd teachers with a pittance of a contract is of course a drop in the ocean after one sacks 240 thousand fully-fledged teachers, but of course the purpose was not the salvation of the educational semester, but the intimidation of the strikers. This was a strike-bursting measure. Just like the cabinet proposal to devolve the employment of teachers to the county governments --bringing them under the control of the MCA's! (this automatically dissolves the national body, the TSC, or severely limits its scope! --within the cabinet thinking, Lydia Nzomo is already irrelevant!) Apparently the Jubilee ideological calculation is, if the educational system has to collapse as a collateral damage in the destruction of the Teacher's Unions, so be it. That is an important decision, because it shapes the destiny of a nation. It brutalises organised labour, and smokes out an adventurist pretender union leadership. It breaks Sossion and Misori, or forges further into a mobilised millitance. COTU we can see, has beeen tamed, Atwoli neutralised --compromised by incorporation unto corruption. In that vacuum sprung the Teachers Unions, and the other uncertain Trade Union Congress.This prolonged strike has therefore smoked out a lot of worms from the woodwork. The independence of the TSC which is heralded in the constitution has been shown to be a paragraph of no consequence, just like the integrity clause of the famous chapter six. This sham may not immediately be apparent to all, but, just like the Judicial Service Commission (JSC), which we can now see is moribund, the internal rot at the TSC will eventually be manifest in broad daylight.NB: standardmedia.co.ke/article/2000177703/kenya-supreme-court-judges-issue-strike-threat]Supreme Court Judges[/url] are on half-a-strike; CJ Mutunga is under impeachment from the rogue Mombasa Branch headed by the hot-head Nyongesa, and secretary Amadi of the JSC has lost her tongue. (she is otherwise very fluent and articulate!). And the LSK is in shambles too. so these are the kind of scumbugs who are to preside over the landmark case of the Teachers Unions vs the state and the TSC! This is already a collapsed Judicial system, no wonder the equally limping government accords them no respect, and does not consider their rulings worth sh!t they fart in their corrupt courts! These are the symptoms of a deeper crisis than salary rows!
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Post by mwalimumkuu on Oct 7, 2015 16:37:29 GMT 3
Meanwhile our misguided Secretary General now becomes emotional with teachers' salaries and wades into the mucky politics. He is promising to lead teachers in giving the country direction in 2017. Sossion's latest outbursts have just confirmed what many of us feared and felt. The manner in which he has gone about the just 'concluded' strike pointed to a leadership with an ulterior motive. Will he succeed at hoodwinking other Kenyans as he has almost succeeded at cheating teachers?
~~ Mwalimumkuu @nyumbakubwa ~~
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Post by podp on Oct 7, 2015 17:02:24 GMT 3
Meanwhile our misguided Secretary General now becomes emotional with teachers' salaries and wades into the mucky politics. He is promising to lead teachers in giving the country direction in 2017. Sossion's latest outbursts have just confirmed what many of us feared and felt. The manner in which he has gone about the just 'concluded' strike pointed to a leadership with an ulterior motive. Will he succeed at hoodwinking other Kenyans as he has almost succeeded at cheating teachers? ~~ Mwalimumkuu @nyumbakubwa ~~ nice tea leaves juju. "A central pillar of the bourgeois propaganda system is that it appears to be free and appears to provide a space for vigorous discussion. But in reality, only a vary narrow spectrum of opinion is deemed "acceptable" — the range of opinions commonly held by the bourgeoisie and their intellectual helpers." https://www.reddit.com/r/communism101/comments/1jmydb/what_is_bourgeois_propaganda_and_how_can_it_be/ "I would regard anything in media from arts to news that upholds or pushes bourgeois decadence/values or that serves the capitalist system ( for instance commercials that encourage consumption ) to be the ruling class's propaganda. Propaganda isn't something to be afraid of though, it is simply a tool that is used to push an agenda."
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Post by mwalimumkuu on Oct 7, 2015 23:26:07 GMT 3
Rein in the workers' unions or always be enslaved by strikes
SO FAR, we have listened to all manner of arguments from everyone on the teachers’ strike, but not the parents and the taxpayer, who also have a right to protect their interests. As a parent and a taxpayer, I cannot stand the arrogance of the chief honchos of Knut and Kuppet. The sight of indignant teachers – once the indisputable role models of our society– engaging in street comedy truly defiles my mind. What happened to the respectable lot, mentors who moulded generations with pride, dignity and an unmistakable sense of presence? It is untenable to entertain unions that are run by arrogant leaders and which are oblivious of the cries as their true employers. Time has come to dismantle the unions and dismember the platforms they use to arrogate themselves unfettered and disagreeable power. The crudity with which leaders of the teachers’ unions address the government and indeed the rest of us hapless wananchi is truly obnoxious. But to hold all of us at ransom surely is the height of it all. Commonsense dictates that an economy young as ours cannot afford the kind of economic disruptions teachers want to visit upon Kenyans. Of course, we cannot do away with empty-belly freedoms, such as the right to withhold labour. We need to make it exceptionally expensive for workers’ unions to call for strikes. We can do this by changing the law to give all workers the right to vote on whether to go on strike. This way, we will be sure that sober and realistic workers will save us the pains of unnecessary strikes while this will also reduce the powers wielded by the union bosses. We should borrow a leaf from Britain, which suffered from serious, unrealistic and highly disruptive labour disputes in much of the 1970s. That time, the unions were more about battling the UK government than seeking labour justice for workers. And just like our opportunistic opposition, Labour Party politicians had long been in bed with workers unions and had continued to reap big from the unions’ support. Britain was to learn a bitter lesson from this during the reign of James Callaghan, himself a Labour Party politician. Like our opposition politicians, the Labour Party was in bed with unions until economic difficulties and spiralling inflation forced them to reconsider its stand on appeasing the unions. But though Britain was facing a difficulty inflationary situation, the unions did not care about the average Briton when they called all manner of strikes in late 1970s. First it was the truck drivers whose strike led to the closure of all petrol stations across Britain. The strike bit hardest because the country then relied on road transport to ferry 80 % of the goods. Between January 3 and 11th 1979, the striking drivers picketed their counterparts who had continued to work which so highly disrupted transportation of oil that the British government put the army on standby to drive oil trucks. Then government workers joined in; later it was the railway workers, the miners, hospital staff (who prevented even cancer patients from receiving medicine), ambulance drivers, waste collectors. As termed then, the ‘Winter of Discontent’ had commenced and assumed a macabre proportion when grave diggers went on strike particularly in Liverpool City forcing the Liverpool City Council to hire a private firm to store corpses. Media reports of unburied bodies caused considerable concern among the British public who feared a public health catastrophe were the strike to go on for months. As all the strikes were going on, the Prime Minister, James Callaghan, did not take them seriously. He actually went out of the country in the middle of the drivers’ strike. When he came back on January 10, 1979, Callaghan was attached the media’s stance on the strikers which made many people to believe that he had lost touch with the situation in Britain then. Soon, the Labour government could not handle the situation neither could it prevent the fallout occasioned by Margaret Thatcher’s highly creative campaign dubbed 'Labour isn’t Working'. This led to a decline in Labour’s popularity with Callaghan and he was promptly replaced by Thatcher in the 1979 elections during which the latter won by a landslide. But unlike our politicians, the Iron Lady did not exploit the crisis to gain cheap political capital. Instead, she tackled the unions head on by seeking to limit the power they wielded and making them irrelevant. For one, she made drastic changes to trade union laws, including putting in place a requirement that all unions had to hold a ballot among members before calling strikes. She ended what was called “post-War Consensus” in which Britain sought to resume its post-war international status through a consensus that – among other things – spelt out the acceptance, recognition and encouragement of trade unions with successive British government consulting them regularly on labour relations and economic policy. According to The Guardian, Thatcher’s government charted out a course which undermined striking workers’ will to continue on a lengthy strike by actively demonstrating that the strikes’ effects were minimal. For instance, the government ensured that there were no long interruptions in electricity supply when coal miners went on strike. According to Business Insider, Thatcher also used the army to provide firefighting and ambulance services, waste collection and even car parking services in London. Though she had weaknesses, Thatcher’s major achievement against strikers and unions came in 1985 when she defeated a long-drawn miners’ strike that was staged amidst much bitterness and violence. She also came up with economic policies that stripped unions of their numbers –a source of major strength. According to Forbes magazine, this led to the British economy becoming more flexible, dynamic and competitive while its employment situation became generally stronger than in the US Yes, the striking teachers have a cause. But this is their own cause. We do not necessarily have to subscribe to it, particularly when their unions become so powerful, reckless and arrogant. At our stage of economic development, this is not tenable. We must either join the government in reining in the unions or live in perpetual state of helplessness each time unions take up strikes, either to further a political agenda or to force us to give them what we cannot afford. John Mbaria is a freelance journalist based in Nairobi. Gatumbaria@gmail.com www.the-star.co.ke/news/rein-workers-unions-or-always-be-enslaved-str-ikes#sthash.WptESyP5.dpuf~~ Mwalimumkuu @nyumbakubwa ~~
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Post by kamalet on Oct 8, 2015 8:27:11 GMT 3
Rein in the workers' unions or always be enslaved by strikes
SO FAR, we have listened to all manner of arguments from everyone on the teachers’ strike, but not the parents and the taxpayer, who also have a right to protect their interests. As a parent and a taxpayer, I cannot stand the arrogance of the chief honchos of Knut and Kuppet. The sight of indignant teachers – once the indisputable role models of our society– engaging in street comedy truly defiles my mind. What happened to the respectable lot, mentors who moulded generations with pride, dignity and an unmistakable sense of presence? It is untenable to entertain unions that are run by arrogant leaders and which are oblivious of the cries as their true employers. Time has come to dismantle the unions and dismember the platforms they use to arrogate themselves unfettered and disagreeable power. The crudity with which leaders of the teachers’ unions address the government and indeed the rest of us hapless wananchi is truly obnoxious. But to hold all of us at ransom surely is the height of it all. Commonsense dictates that an economy young as ours cannot afford the kind of economic disruptions teachers want to visit upon Kenyans. Of course, we cannot do away with empty-belly freedoms, such as the right to withhold labour. We need to make it exceptionally expensive for workers’ unions to call for strikes. We can do this by changing the law to give all workers the right to vote on whether to go on strike. This way, we will be sure that sober and realistic workers will save us the pains of unnecessary strikes while this will also reduce the powers wielded by the union bosses. We should borrow a leaf from Britain, which suffered from serious, unrealistic and highly disruptive labour disputes in much of the 1970s. That time, the unions were more about battling the UK government than seeking labour justice for workers. And just like our opportunistic opposition, Labour Party politicians had long been in bed with workers unions and had continued to reap big from the unions’ support. Britain was to learn a bitter lesson from this during the reign of James Callaghan, himself a Labour Party politician. Like our opposition politicians, the Labour Party was in bed with unions until economic difficulties and spiralling inflation forced them to reconsider its stand on appeasing the unions. But though Britain was facing a difficulty inflationary situation, the unions did not care about the average Briton when they called all manner of strikes in late 1970s. First it was the truck drivers whose strike led to the closure of all petrol stations across Britain. The strike bit hardest because the country then relied on road transport to ferry 80 % of the goods. Between January 3 and 11th 1979, the striking drivers picketed their counterparts who had continued to work which so highly disrupted transportation of oil that the British government put the army on standby to drive oil trucks. Then government workers joined in; later it was the railway workers, the miners, hospital staff (who prevented even cancer patients from receiving medicine), ambulance drivers, waste collectors. As termed then, the ‘Winter of Discontent’ had commenced and assumed a macabre proportion when grave diggers went on strike particularly in Liverpool City forcing the Liverpool City Council to hire a private firm to store corpses. Media reports of unburied bodies caused considerable concern among the British public who feared a public health catastrophe were the strike to go on for months. As all the strikes were going on, the Prime Minister, James Callaghan, did not take them seriously. He actually went out of the country in the middle of the drivers’ strike. When he came back on January 10, 1979, Callaghan was attached the media’s stance on the strikers which made many people to believe that he had lost touch with the situation in Britain then. Soon, the Labour government could not handle the situation neither could it prevent the fallout occasioned by Margaret Thatcher’s highly creative campaign dubbed 'Labour isn’t Working'. This led to a decline in Labour’s popularity with Callaghan and he was promptly replaced by Thatcher in the 1979 elections during which the latter won by a landslide. But unlike our politicians, the Iron Lady did not exploit the crisis to gain cheap political capital. Instead, she tackled the unions head on by seeking to limit the power they wielded and making them irrelevant. For one, she made drastic changes to trade union laws, including putting in place a requirement that all unions had to hold a ballot among members before calling strikes. She ended what was called “post-War Consensus” in which Britain sought to resume its post-war international status through a consensus that – among other things – spelt out the acceptance, recognition and encouragement of trade unions with successive British government consulting them regularly on labour relations and economic policy. According to The Guardian, Thatcher’s government charted out a course which undermined striking workers’ will to continue on a lengthy strike by actively demonstrating that the strikes’ effects were minimal. For instance, the government ensured that there were no long interruptions in electricity supply when coal miners went on strike. According to Business Insider, Thatcher also used the army to provide firefighting and ambulance services, waste collection and even car parking services in London. Though she had weaknesses, Thatcher’s major achievement against strikers and unions came in 1985 when she defeated a long-drawn miners’ strike that was staged amidst much bitterness and violence. She also came up with economic policies that stripped unions of their numbers –a source of major strength. According to Forbes magazine, this led to the British economy becoming more flexible, dynamic and competitive while its employment situation became generally stronger than in the US Yes, the striking teachers have a cause. But this is their own cause. We do not necessarily have to subscribe to it, particularly when their unions become so powerful, reckless and arrogant. At our stage of economic development, this is not tenable. We must either join the government in reining in the unions or live in perpetual state of helplessness each time unions take up strikes, either to further a political agenda or to force us to give them what we cannot afford. John Mbaria is a freelance journalist based in Nairobi. Gatumbaria@gmail.com www.the-star.co.ke/news/rein-workers-unions-or-always-be-enslaved-str-ikes#sthash.WptESyP5.dpuf~~ Mwalimumkuu @nyumbakubwa ~~ This actually makes a lot of sense! The requirement that workers must vote for a strike strips Union bosses of the power to make 'political' decisions on when workers can go on strike. Any new law should ensure that the intended benefit of a strike, i.e. disruption of service does not extend to make other sectors of the economy affected if it is long drawn out. I particularly like the strike structures in Britain where these can be timed to run over scattered periods rather than the 5 weeks that we had with the teachers. This ensures that there is no financial ruin for the strikers as is the case now for teachers...going into mid October and they do not have their September salaries! I hope someone tells Sossion not to take his salary for the period too until the teachers get theirs if at all!
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Post by mwalimumkuu on Oct 8, 2015 16:42:58 GMT 3
Kamale:
I agree. Beyond the teachers' personal problems, I am more concerned about the learners. When teachers take to the streets as they are used to doing and stay away from schools for as long as five weeks as it just happened, we effectively punish learners who had nothing at all to do with our dispute with the government. The union should elevate itself to a level where it canvases teachers' issues without necessarily exposing learners to such suffering.
Indeed when it comes to issue of September salary, I am very conflicted here. I know it would make more political sense for the government to pay the teachers, but at the back of mind I know that teachers never really worked, children went home to be with their parents for the entire duration of the strike, and that paying teachers will be rewarding bad behavior and truancy. The government id walking a fine line here, it will be interesting to see just how they deal with it.
~~ Mwalimumkuu @nyumbakubwa ~~
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Post by mwalimumkuu on Nov 10, 2015 20:58:00 GMT 3
Finally, the logical direction we all expected KNUT under @sossionknut to have followed from the get go ( reference). Never too late however. The winners from the Appeals court ruling were no doubt teachers, SRC and above all the constitution of Kenya. ~~ Mwalimumkuu @nyumbakubwa ~~
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Post by jakaswanga on Nov 10, 2015 23:52:44 GMT 3
Finally, the logical direction we all expected KNUT under @sossionknut to have followed from the get go ( reference). Never too late however. The winners from the Appeals court ruling were no doubt teachers, SRC and above all the constitution of Kenya. ~~ Mwalimumkuu @nyumbakubwa ~~ Wewe mwalimu mwenzangu, Ever since you settled at the Big House, your customary wit at Mukibi's often takes too much of a back seat. Never let spindoctors tell you what to say, and definitely not on Jukwaa! Here is a clue to the unravelling of the President. TUC-Ke General Secretary Wilson SossionOuru Kenyatta is no political fool. His instincts of survival are good. So better capitulate on this core to mwalimu Sossion who, reality is harsh, has been forced to recognise the real battle as that between ordinary workers and an oligarch's potentate regime, indisputably corrupt. 340 thousand articulate fellas badmouthing a regime daily in every corner of the republic!? that is risky to many political careers. Good move, son of Jomo. The corrupted courts of Mutunga would sink you on this one! But he may be arrogating himself powers he does not have in DIRECTING TSC to pay. All those stupid reasons the stupid TSC gave for NOT paying! how do they save their stupid faces? And that judge who read a lot of law on why september salaries should not be paid to strikers!? his mental effort is toilet paper stuff!?
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Post by kamalet on Nov 11, 2015 14:37:47 GMT 3
Finally, the logical direction we all expected KNUT under @sossionknut to have followed from the get go ( reference). Never too late however. The winners from the Appeals court ruling were no doubt teachers, SRC and above all the constitution of Kenya. ~~ Mwalimumkuu @nyumbakubwa ~~ Wewe mwalimu mwenzangu, Ever since you settled at the Big House, your customary wit at Mukibi's often takes too much of a back seat. Never let spindoctors tell you what to say, and definitely not on Jukwaa! Here is a clue to the unravelling of the President. TUC-Ke General Secretary Wilson SossionOuru Kenyatta is no political fool. His instincts of survival are good. So better capitulate on this core to mwalimu Sossion who, reality is harsh, has been forced to recognise the real battle as that between ordinary workers and an oligarch's potentate regime, indisputably corrupt. 340 thousand articulate fellas badmouthing a regime daily in every corner of the republic!? that is risky to many political careers. Good move, son of Jomo. The corrupted courts of Mutunga would sink you on this one! But he may be arrogating himself powers he does not have in DIRECTING TSC to pay. All those stupid reasons the stupid TSC gave for NOT paying! how do they save their stupid faces? And that judge who read a lot of law on why september salaries should not be paid to strikers!? his mental effort is toilet paper stuff!? M-Jaka It is true that the son of Jomo has had a master-stroke that wins over teachers whilst neutering KNUT/KUPPET. Even more important he has managed to split Sossion from his Chairman more so after the statement of leading Teachers out of Jubilee which was more political than labour related! Here is the statement by the President on the Teacher dispute where you will notice that the word DIRECT actually does not feature: H.E. PRESIDENT UHURU KENYATTA'S STATEMENT ON TEACHERS’ DISPUTE. Fellow Kenyans, You will recall that there has been a prolonged dispute between our teachers’ unions, and their employer, the Teachers Service Commission. The dispute has persisted for years; indeed there has been a strike every year for the last nine years. It is time, as I have said before, to end it once and for all. Earlier this month, the Court of Appeal gave its judgement on the dispute. Now, following the decision of the court, there is an urgent need to bring all parties together for dialogue. It is time to reconcile, and to return to harmony in the education sector. That is why, today, I called a meeting between the steering committee of KNUT and the Commissioners of the TSC. We needed to reconcile, and we could not reconcile until we unlocked this deadlock. The meeting has been fruitful. Upon discussion, the parties have agreed to proceed as follows: 1. That all parties will withdraw all the cases related to the dispute that remain pending in our courts. 2. That further to today’s agreement all matters pertaining to the dispute will be concluded through negotiation. 3. That immediately after the cases are withdrawn, the TSC and KNUT will meet and begin dialogue. The point of those talks is to come up with a four-year collective bargaining agreement which will, at a minimum, address the following points: 1. Full recognition of the binding advisory by the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) on the salaries and remuneration of teachers. 2. There must also be full recognition of a basic point: equal pay for equal work. We are in public service, and we have a duty to manage public funds equitably and effectively. It is inequitable and ineffective to pay some more than others when both are doing the same work. 3. The necessary first step to ending that inequity and ineffectiveness is a job-evaluation exercise, where we determine the level of performance of public officers. We will then be in a position to see what various employees at various levels should be paid. That includes all of us: myself, the Deputy President, Cabinet Secretaries, Principal Secretaries, MPs and all who earn from monies collected from the taxpayer. This is why it is critical that the SRC be allowed to fast-track and complete its job evaluation for all public servants. Let me make the timeline perfectly clear: within one month of the start of this dialogue, I expect both parties to come up with an acceptable collective bargaining agreement. In the spirit of reconciliation and consideration, I urge the Teachers’ Service Commission to consider paying all the teachers their September 2015 salaries and union dues at the earliest opportunity. Further, we must consider the circumstances of those teachers who reported for duty during September,2015. In consideration of the circumstances under which they worked in September 2015, I urge the Teachers Service Commission to consider paying them appropriate compensation for their extraneous work during that period. Finally, let me take this opportunity to thank the chair and commissioners of the TSC, the executive and members of KNUT, and the employees of TSC, led by their deputy CEO, for their cooperation in ensuring that this meeting takes place. God bless you all. God bless Kenya.As you can see the deliberate use of the word DIRECT by the media has elicited the desired effect by getting you to get into an argument on what the president can or cannot do!
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Post by podp on Nov 12, 2015 17:00:20 GMT 3
Finally, the logical direction we all expected KNUT under @sossionknut to have followed from the get go ( reference). Never too late however. The winners from the Appeals court ruling were no doubt teachers, SRC and above all the constitution of Kenya. ~~ Mwalimumkuu @nyumbakubwa ~~ winning a battle and losing a war or winning a war after losing a battle! which is sweet? President Uhuru Kenyatta has convinced the Kenya Union of Post-Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet) to agree to fresh pay negotiations, a day after a similar deal exposed divisions in another giant teachers’ union. Kuppet officials agreed to return to talks with the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) on a collective bargaining agreement (CBA), just like their counterparts, the Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut). Read more at: www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2000182280/uhuru-s-second-deal-with-teachers-as-knut-split/
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Post by mwalimumkuu on Nov 12, 2015 19:36:11 GMT 3
Finally, the logical direction we all expected KNUT under @sossionknut to have followed from the get go ( reference). Never too late however. The winners from the Appeals court ruling were no doubt teachers, SRC and above all the constitution of Kenya. ~~ Mwalimumkuu @nyumbakubwa ~~ winning a battle and losing a war or winning a war after losing a battle! which is sweet? President Uhuru Kenyatta has convinced the Kenya Union of Post-Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet) to agree to fresh pay negotiations, a day after a similar deal exposed divisions in another giant teachers’ union. Kuppet officials agreed to return to talks with the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) on a collective bargaining agreement (CBA), just like their counterparts, the Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut). Read more at: www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2000182280/uhuru-s-second-deal-with-teachers-as-knut-split/ Professor:Mwalimu matters have never been easy for any government since the inception of KNUT. Even the professor of politics himself found it very hard to deal with. To buy time, past leadership opted to bribing the union while sustaining false hope among the teaching fraternity that they would have better remuneration and improved schemes of work. That never happened. In the meantime, teacher strikes became very rampant with children and parents being the bigger losers. In the meantime, the country moved a step and came up with a new constitution that elevated the role of the TSC and birthed SRC. Teachers and their unions never seemed to have realized this change. When they called the latest strike, the government pointed them to this new reality alongside a clear message that their demands were unrealistic, untenable and not proceedurally canvassed. In his address to the nation, Uhuru made it clear that he would deal with the problem once and for all, meaning, he was prepared to pay the price, but never again should we see teachers running on the streets with suufurias, on their heads, rolling on the streets like Mike Sonko himself while the children they are supposed to be role models for cheer them on. That has brought us where we are now. The rest, as they say, is now history. We are we are and need to move forward. Looking back, has the whole thing hurt Uhuru politically? Of course yes, only a fool can think otherwise. Was it worthy it? Absolutely. This is why: 1. The teachers' demand for 50-60% pay increase was going to leave a very big hole in the national budget and was therefore not just affordable. Even if we squeezed ourselves and managed to pay, it was not going to be a one-off payment, but a lifetime payment including pensions upon retirement, therefore not sustainable. It would also open flood gates for demands by other public sector employees. 2. It would render SRC useless and therefore defeating the very same reason we demanded for such a body. Rendering SRC useless would have taken us back to the era where MPs and other politicians including senior civil servants increased their pay arbitrarily. 3. It will help safeguard employees from overzealous and unscrupulous union officials like Sossion who put their interests ahead of the workers. 4. It will bring order to the labor system with very clear agreements guiding engagement over longer periods of time. Moving forward, Uhuru will need to work very hard and win the confidence and support of teachers. He will need to show that his move was genuine and for the better good of the larger country. This will be achieved by how TSC and SRC handle the negotiations and drafting of the CBAs together with the unions. He has already shown goodwill by not only requesting TSC to consider releasing September salaries but also compensate those teachers like HMs and their deputies who were on duty through the entire period of the strike. ~~ Mwalimumkuu @nyumbakubwa ~~
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Post by jakaswanga on Nov 12, 2015 21:42:26 GMT 3
KENYATTA AND THE UNIONS BACK TO KICKING THE CAN DOWN THE STREET! By the president's count from the release of his press unit, it is 9 years and counting! This conflict between teachers and the state, enacted between the (KNUT and KUPPET) Unions and the so-called independent employing authority, the TSC, on behalf of the treasury. That is the short version which only covers the post-Moi era. It is therefore reasonable to talk about a 'systematic and structural problematic'. It also important to mention as a side point, that president Daniel Arap Moi also had a smart move, trying to pull a quick one on the teachers for nefarious purposes. It was in Baba Moi's time that the original massive (incremental) CBA was agreed upon in a gentlemanly manner. Moi, a state thug, had no intention of implementing this deal. It was merely a gimmick to stave off a rising tide of general social mobilisation, threatening his regime. It was therefore amazing, a decade later to hear David Nzili use the imagery of children to describe teachers on strike: we are just children crying because mummy does not want to suckle us! the union boss confessed! we are not angry with the parent, we are just hungry. Tukipata nyonyo, tutanyamaza kimia!Across the land, teachers gawked at the tv screens! you tell power you are children, you will be treated exactly like that: peremende! or kiboko! and do as you are told! --Anyway, elsewhere, I believe I have delved into the material conditions, or the social roots of the conflict, which fired Adongo's KNUT into total revolt against the old system of remuneration. (The teachers had evolved into a technical and skilled graduate core, but unlike their counterparts in other sectors earning the heavens therewhere, walimu remained peanut operatives in the bushes. They were being treated like a jua-kali labour core. Their social standing increasingly given to ridicule.Stand up! Stand up for your rights! Was the song first years were taught to sing at KU in those days! Because of their ideological similarity to the Moi regime --no surprise there, because they were key tenets in KANU, the succeeding Raila and Kibaki act continued the hostility toward the combative organisations of the workers while paying due lip-service to the structural problems. Charlatans too, they kicked the can down the street. Jubilee came to power and found the can on their front door or, by another imagery, the hot potato in their hands. There has been a series of strikes, until the sets became repetitions of earlier battles --with ritual threatened sackings, ritual salary cuts and other forms of state intimidation. Some will remember how at one time DP Ruto fished out a deal out of his back pocket, but come the next year, there was another strike alert. Things had to come to a head. The stalemate had to be broken, one party be bruised enough to sign for a truce on its knees as --the now ever silent--- dada Nereah was wont to put it when she had tongue. Things seemed to lighten up abit the last round. It was as if Jubilee had enough, and had recognised that piecemeal deals, appeasement for short-term political gains, only served to whet the appetites of the monstrous unions for more blood. Also, it seemed to have dawned on the nation, that these backroom deals for political survival were just that, bandages on an arteriole wound, a bandage turning red in no time soaked. Structural problems need structural solutions, not gimmicks, and some who really had enough, wouldn't mind if the evil unions were destroyed. And it seemed the government had grown ball and determination to do just that. Break the power of the Unions. -Force the teachers to suicide by a no work no pay formula. (earlier on the fwakheds had stupidly tried to confiscate the KNUT building in Nairobi!) But now here we are. The government has lost its nerve. How come!? live to fight another day? opt for attrition, suckling the babies amongst them and splitting their unions!? In any case before we answer that, suffice is to say, Uhuru Kenyatta has decided kicking the can down the street is the best political option. TEMPLATE. When the Mumias sugar factory story blew up and captured the national limelight, and the zonal voter potential was calculated, Luhya Mpigs were ushered into the air-conditioned recesses of state house, allegedly for a Mumia sugary deal. What is the latest on this bail out!? But as Otishotish no doubt would say, the Luhya Mpigs were served a meal and they ate well for the day. And later did service selling the ruse, grinning ear to ear. Even with 10 billion subsidies, it still looks a bottomless hole! But back to teachers -or the union leaders and their comfortably spent afternoon at state house. Why did I not see the secretary for finance David Rotich flanking the president!? I want to watch the body language of the treasurer or paymaster when people talk big money. Uhuru was once finance ministers and the kind of errors he made makes me doubt his math. I don't want to count my chicks before they hatch. Can't pay, wont pay! --Uhuru Kenyatta in october 2015. WORKING FOR THE Split in KNUT! Mike Sonko & KNUT Secretary General Leaked Video
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Post by mwalimumkuu on Nov 16, 2015 18:19:08 GMT 3
Jakaswanga:
I think you misunderstood the president's action on this matter. He did not kick the can down the street. On the contrary, he is firmly on top of things. In his statehouse meeting he reaffirmed his earlier position, this time armed with the CoA ruling which granted government virtually everything they had asked for, and rightly so. KUPPET and some very thoughtful KNUT officials are aware that this is the end of the road really and are willing to regularize things, but Sossion will have none of it. It will be interesting to see where he heads from here. He might be preparing to run for some political office come 2017 and is using teachers for this purpose.
~~ Mwalimumkuu @nyumbakubwa ~~
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