The SUBCONSCIOUS of WILSON SOSSION: KNUT-TUC-ke.

[jakaswanga]

In various ways on many fronts does a nation stir, searching for its destiny.

THE SUBCONSCIOUS OF WILSON SOSSION:

Introduction.

For those who know their classics in history, there is a famous debate on why the organised labour, both skilled and unskilled beasts of England, abandoned their long allegiance to and alliance with the Liberal Party, and found it necessary to found their own Party, simply called the party of labour, or Labour Party (of Britain).
That was a very very long long time ago, geopolitically speaking. But the reasons for this ideological split remain interesting. Turn that around to read Tony Blair and New Labour's dissociation of the party from the Trade Unions was a case of paradise found, paradise lost!

Interesting too, is the split in the international trade union movement. Here is wikipedia on the short of it.

In 1949, early in the Cold War, alleging Communist domination of the WFTU's central institutions, a large number of non-communist national trade union federations (including the U.S. AFL-CIO, the British TUC, the French FO, the Italian CISL and the Spanish UGT) seceded and created the rival ICFTU at a conference in London attended by representatives of nearly 48 million members in 53 countries.

From the 1950s the ICFTU actively recruited new members from the developing regions of first Asia and subsequently Africa. Following the collapse of Communist party government in the Soviet Union and eastern Europe, the Federation's membership has risen steeply from 87 million in 1988 and 100 million in 1992, as trade union federations from former Soviet bloc countries joined the ICFTU.
The ICFTU was formally dissolved on 31 October 2006 when it merged with the World Confederation of Labour (WCL) to form the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC).

like the famous SPERM WARS, IDEOLOGICAL WARS TOO ARE A MESSY AFFAIR. And so

International Confederation of Free Trade Unions

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia

ICFTU

Full name: International Confederation of Free Trade Unions
Founded: 7 December 1949. Date dissolved: 31 October 2006
Merged into ITUC. Members 155 million in 148 countries (2006)
Affiliation: International Office location: Brussels, Belgium


The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) was an international trade union. It came into being on 7 December 1949 following a split within the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), and was dissolved on 31 October 2006 when it merged with the World Confederation of Labour (WCL) to form the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC).
Prior to being dissolved, the ICFTU had a membership of 157 million members in 225 affiliated organisations in 148 countries and territories.

Through all the smog, one must look for ideological reasons in the split of trade unions and or workers movements and welfare organisations. The working class as voting block minded to vote for their interests is a scary force that need must be divided, or the unions smashed, their leaders killed like say, in Bangladesh today, Colombia today, and that is a long list! Even in South Africa, once in power, the legendary apartheid killer known as Cyril Ramaphosa became a mass murderer of workers at a place called Mariakana.

In some countries in the continent, Trade Unions are affliated to, one one side of the ideological divide, Christian parties --those who believe in our God and Lord Jesus (No Allah nor Mohammed here!) and, on the other side, the godless satanists, ie The labour parties. Everybody recognises this force, and must deal with it one way or another.

It is in the background of the international and local struggles of labour, and the ruthless battle to neutralise, control or kill off the organisations of the working class, that I will give a take on the tribulations within the Kenyan trade movement, and, finally, attempt a deconstruction of the subconscious of Wilson Sossion.

NB: Because this is a Kenyan blog, I will struggle and succeed to mention the names of Uhuru and Ruto for a bit of spice , though in the historical scale as I see it, this essay can be completed to point without as much as an acknowledgement of the digital duo in their pathetic cut of the show! In fact as a local spice, we Kenyans being so ethnic obsessed, I will even try to factor in the ethnicity of Wilson Sossion in the light of a full-blown suspicion amongst the Kalenjin that the Gikuyu have no intention of supporting their son, William Singh, to the helm once The Muthamaki Kamwani is done looting.
Here is a resume from the Tom Mboya blog

In early 1953 during the initial days of the state of emergency he (Tom Mboya) became acting treasurer of the K.A.U and organized finance for the legal defence of Mzee Kenyatta and others detained in Kapenguria. He founded the Kenya Local Government workers Union, and after resigning from the city council he was appointed National General Secretary in 1963.

He then joined the Kenya Federation of Registered Trade Unions (a fore runner to the Kenya Federation of Labour). When his KLGCU became an affiliate member the same year, he was soon elected Secretary General.
Soon after this the K.A.U was banned and he concentrated all his efforts to develop the trade union movement under difficult emergency conditions. No meetings were allowed and trade union members were victimized. The KFL (Kenya Federation of Labour) became the only voice of the Kenya people filling the vacuum left by the banning of KAU. Thus it was became a political as well as a trade union organization.

Now, the last sentence again ….. BECAME THE ONLY VOICE OF THE PEOPLE FILLING THE VACUUM!
And behold, the trade union under the dynamic Mboya became so well a worker's thingy as a political party!

O my God! don't know whether I prefer farce or tragedy when confronted with historical sets from the past! But let us look FOR the VACUUM!

With pretenders like Ababu Namwamba neutralised –-can't remember what he achieved as chairman of PAC;
with old soldiers like Raila Odinga become caricatures of their radical selfs –-his Nyanza fiefdom, the so-called Odinga caliphate, is as leaky as any Anne Waiguru in Jubilee Nairobi;
with young dynamic politicians like Kabogo of Kiambu, Waititu of Dagoretti, Kuria of Gatundu, decomposed into pure ethnic retards of xenophobic populism;
with highly-educated, American ivy-league weaned technocrats heading the treasury –--Rotich, Thugge, Njoroge--- metamorphosed into little more than handmaids, spannerboys and midwives for the great pillage of Kenya;
with Prezzo designate William Ruto, the most able of his generation of young petty bourgeoisie politicians, a practically dyed-in-the wool kleptocrat whose matured pathology would outrank Mobutu Sese Seko;
with the Judiciary under a supposed icon of progressives, Willy Dr. Mutunga, morphed into a bastion of rot and insidious skulduggery;
with the graduate and technical core manning Parliament correctly revealed for the immoral hogs they are;
then do I .... he he he he ….
put forward the position that there is a VACUUM to be filled!

A vacuum of what!?

Well, my memory fails me! But reckon, when I have done my homework, I will be back with the sh1t!

First, let us have a drink, it is Saturday afternoon, and I am nor working.

Friday, November 13, 2015
Anxiety as Knut officials meet to discuss pay offer
A showdown is looming in the country’s biggest teachers union ahead of a crucial meeting that will decide whether to approve or reject a deal offered by the government on their salaries.
The National Executive Committee of the Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) will meet on Tuesday to discuss the agreement reached between their leaders and President Uhuru Kenyatta at State House, Nairobi.

In Summary

According to the agreement, teachers will be paid their withheld September salaries in exchange for giving up the battle for the 50-60 per cent pay increase awarded by a Labour Court and reversed by the Court of Appeal.
Those opposed said the Teachers Service Commission was an independent constitutional body and the president had no power to order it around on teachers pay.
In Kisii, Mr Edward Obwocha (Kuppet) and Mr Sam Nyairo (Knut) said there was no need for fresh talks because even the 2013 agreement had not been honoured.

Knut Wars: Sossion now backtracks on resignation threat

ONE-MAN SHOW

However, Mr Nzili insists the secretary-general was called and briefed on the State House meeting.
“Union leadership is not a one-man show. It is about team work,” said Mr Nzili as he played down the rift.
He said he decided to go to State House because of teachers, whom he said were facing tough times due to a delay in payment of their salaries.
However, the State House visit seems to have lifted a lid on long-standing wrangles among the union leaders.

Rivalry between KNUT and KUPPET split over a meeting with the Teachers Service Commission


This is from the KUPPET website

About Kuppet Written by KUPPET. Saturday, 09 August 2008 10:49

Background

Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET) was registered in 1998 to respond to challenges of sectoral representation among teachers. It was launched at a time when both secondary and college tutors were yearning for a forum to voice their concerns.
The birth of KUPPET was a culmination of a long struggle between the post primary teachers and government in regard to a plat form which would truly represent their aspirations, hopes and fears.
The first KUPPET national office established in year 2002 was tasked with the responsibilities of developing structures and membership base across the country. The second Union elections were held in 2006 ushering in the second dispensation of the union. Currently, the Union has had 8 elected national officials operating on full time at the headquarters and sixteen (16) regional representatives forming National Executive Council (NEC).
Between 2007 to mid 2008, there were temporary disruption at the headquarters due to a court order which disoriented the national office for a period of one and half years. However, this was quashed by the high court ruling whose decision restored the status quo as elected in 2006.
At the moment the Union has 30,000 registered Members while other 16,000 teachers have applied for membership. The potential membership is 66,000
Last Updated on Friday, 29 July 2011 16:57

And this from the KNUT website

COLONIAL PERIOD.

Despite the fact that they (teachers) were kept in the dark, they slowly learned the need to form organizations still based on religious sect organized to the highest at provincial level.

However by 1934 Messrs. James Gichuru and Eluid Mathu formed a teacher'€™s organization known as Kenya African Teachers Union (KATU). This Union eventually fizzled away under the pressure of powers of the time. This was because it was very difficult to organize an effective national organization of workers at that time because of communication problems.

It was not until the early fifties, when Makerere and Kagumo Colleges produced a higher caliber of teachers, which teachers'€™ organisations began coming up because these teachers communicated after training and hence learnt of the diversity of their terms and conditions of service.

They began by forming sectional or regional Teachers Organizations based on denominations or Provinces. E.g.:

(i) Nyanza African Teachers Union (NATU);
(ii) Catholic African Teachers Association (CATA) both in Nyanza Province;
(iii) Rift Valley African Teachers Association (RATA);
(iv) Coast African Teachers Union (CATU);
(v) Central Province African Teachers Union called Kikuyu Teachers Union (KTU)

Still, there was no way teachers could correspond with their counterparts in other Provinces.

The fine details of the historical struggle are important to know, that the current epoch be understood in its transient nature.
But here is the forgotten gem I want to hold out like an object of fetish.

In 1955, one of the teacher'€™s leaders from Rift Valley Hon. Daniel T. Moi now the retired President of the Republic of Kenya was elected to the Legislative Council (Leg.co.) now called National Assembly.


He later successfully moved a freelance motion in the house in 1957 that the Government should help the teachers of this country to form one national body.

The Government accepted the motion.

This made the Minister for Education Mr. W.F. Coutts invite all leaders to a meeting in December 1957 at Pumwani D.E.B. School. At this meeting, one teacher's organization called Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) was born. An Interim Central Executive Committee was set up with Mr. Ignatius Mkok as interim President and Mr. Stephen J. Kioni as interim Secretary General.

Daniel Arap Moi was a Unionist. His first political base was the TEACHERS UNION! And Tom Mboya!?

Folow the labour labour labour labour labour! Follow the labour!
Or
Follow the money money money money money! Follow the ma ma mama money!

Wilson Sossion has no money. For money you need to take a hike and follow the Kenyattas, The William Singhs, the Kabogos, the Kibakis, The Mois, the Odingas. Them that loot and have looted Kenya, that is, looted Kenyan labour.

What makes Sossion important and historical, inspite of his own failings that may be, is that he rides an organised, genuine streak of grievance which is neither sectarian in the ethnic sense, nor parochial in the ideological sense. Just by sticking to the issues between employee and employer, the stature of a man arises to that of a messiah!

Kenya: there is a vacuum really! And the race is on!

And I will be back!

[jakaswanga]

NO WORK NO PAY, AMEN: TO HELL WITH THE PRESIDENT'S MEDIATION

I love the level to which the TSC has risen in this simple statement: we are not going to pay for no work done.
The TSC have thus poured cold water on the populist efforts by the ever quixotic don, Uhuru Kenyatta, to have the festering question of the September salaries dealt with, and stuff move on. That stuff is well stuck.

How much work is involved in inheritance? Should we, TSC as leading counsel, tax monetary and capital inheritance to one hundred percent!?
No pay outs for no work done, but that will be a debate for another day. But it shows the radical depths of the TSC position. It is revolutionary in an economic system, like here in Kenya, where people live off rents and overpriced labour. These are in truth, forms of parasitism. Then there is the graft which just like Obama before him the Pope too felt compelled to take a shot at! Graft is parasitism, not that anybody in the TSC is likely to have the capacity for that insight.

Elsewhere, pleas prove to me, O dear econometrists, that the perks and remunerations of the Kenyan parliamentarians reflect real work done!
Mesays bullocks! these beasts get paid for no work done! Mpigs are mere bureaucratic constipation. And Dr. Henry Rotich is a fool driving the nation into debt servitude to uphold the Mpigish parasitic mode. (disputations welcome!)

How come they get away with it?

Because they can very well write their own salaries, and have indeed done so. In addition, they can even do worse. Take a look at this infamy.

New Bill lines up Sh100,000 monthly pay and more benefits for former Kenyan Mps

By Alphonce Shiundu. October 9th 2015

NAIROBI: Kenya's parliamentarians have made curious additions to their retirement package. Not only will they continue living off taxpayers money (Sh100,000) for the rest of their lives in monthly stipends, they want psychiatric services or a counsellor too. And this is to be paid for by the taxpayer.
According to the lawmakers, the emotional turmoil of losing an election makes life "psychologically difficult" for them, hence the need for a soft emotional landing to bring them from their elitist life to that of a commoner.
They described the Parliamentary Society of Kenya Bill as a "rescue" plan to save former MPs from a life of extreme poverty.
But they make no mention of the generous taxpayer-funded perks like monthly salary of close to Sh1 million, Sh20 million mortgage and a free car worth Sh3.3 million they get during their term in office.[i/]

www.standardmedia.co.ke/m/?articleID=2000179068&story_title=kenyans-to-pay-for-mps-care-till-death-do-us-part

No pay for no work done!? The TSC has adopted a profound position whose repercussions they hardly are conscious of. Yet it is a correct position. But this is politics, and political economy, the key word is therefore selectiveness. Examples of selectiveness:

Some countries held democratic elections for centuries where women were banned from voting.
Democratic America tended to be, if you were black and a slave, very democratic on paper.
Apartheid south Africa had free and fair elections: funny, if you brought the majority blacks into the equation.

So the TSC selective application of no pay for no work done leaves enough room for war, even a hot civil war. This too, I am sure, the top dogs at the TSC did not ponder in the philosophical sense.

Not everybody has such luxury (of mental inaptitude) during a general social crisis the kind we have inflicting Africa. This crisis where, symptomatically speaking, African labour is positioned as use and discard, is reminiscent of slave modes, where the exploiter need not even reproduce/sustain/replenish the physical/mental.emotional strength of the labourer. He can work them to death and replace them easily and affordably (in whole) by new slaves. Lo! African labour is abundant and cheap like disposable plastic.
----The hospitals them African workers go to are only called Hospitals for fun, otherwise, like Russia hospital in Kisumu, they are morgue conveyor belts.
;----The estates where they live (bits of makeshift flotillas dancing on a sea of sewage ringing posh city centres) do not make cave-dweller creatures jealous.
The schools their children attend are temples of sealed fates; and the policies their political representatives enact are pillage under debt servitude.

Etc etc.

Now those are the contours of what I call the general social crisis (of labour) across the dark continent. (And for good measure Kenyan teachers are skilled labour!)

Now the dark side of the TSC argument.

The real import of the TSC argument, is a determined government action to terrorise and intimidate the most vocal and troublesome union into submission. That is also where the withholding of the UNION FEES fits in. That is a good thing from the perspective of those whose mode of existence dictate a repressed, oppressed and docile working class, one which, if organised at all, is under a tame and malleable union leadership, wholly owned. A government being a tax-collector and a distributor of favours which itself does not produce, is, by historical definition of its unavoidable parasitism, instinctively pre-programmed to control labour just like private entrepreneurs and industrialists.

At this juncture, let us visit a comment by one of the acknowledged profound thinkers of the historical struggle of the working class, Kar Marx.

Of all the classes that stand face to face with the bourgeoisie today, the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class. The other classes decay and finally disappear in the face of modern industry, the proletariat is its special and essential product.

Now, that revolutionary potential is a clear and present danger. It must be stamped out of their consciousness. But because it issues out of the material conditions of their existence, to stamp it out needs the physical eradication of the proletariat. That being impossible, what remains are selective, targeted measures.

These measures include:
--banning unions; bringing them under control; murdering their radical leaders; bankrupting them and their recalcitrant organisers; terrorising workers by a select means of punishments --like confiscating salaries under some pretext (which the TSC is doing now, with periodic suicides being the collateral damage!)

The unofficial history of labour in the USA and the UK gives us quite an insight into the skulduggery of democratic states unto labour organisations: infiltrate and sabotage, manipulate and malign.

Now, without illusions, we can sketch the context of the current conflict in Kenya involving labour and the state, given we know the state of Kenya is the private entity of a gang of ruthless parasites.

The teachers, just by standing up for what is theirs, and their better deal, without playing any politics, nevertheless enter into a conflict where the reaction of the state is that of a monster attacked in its quarry. That instinctive reaction of the Kenyan state as if its survival is threatened, is historically healthy. I will explain.
I said it before, KNUT and KUPPET are not ethnic juggernauts like the tribal conglomerates going for political parties as in Jubilee and CORD. The Unions hint at a different way of doing things. It is a dangerous example the political elite can not allow to germinate further, for starters. (The politicians would thus love to see KNUT elections botched and a sham and lacking in credibility, just like national political elections, whether primary or General. Electoral processes in Kenya without factional bellows of rigging! A terrible example! Must be sabotaged.

Failure by the Teachers Service Commission to release union fees has thrown the election of officials into jeopardy.

Perhaps Wilson Sossion wrestling with the problematic of Unionism, had a flash of insight like the workers of Europe at the beginning of the Industrial revolution. As single individuals resisting the conditions of their existence, the whole might of society came like a tone of bricks on their heads, crushing them. It was important to organise, in an increasingly wider net, toward a general societal movement, perhaps even reflective of the general popular will.

Perhaps it was this flight of insight that propelled Wilson Sossion to diversify into TUC-ke, apart from KNUT. A logically step really, but not obvious. A critical look at Atwoli in COTU would reveal not just flatulence and constipation, but an organisation that lost its capacity to identify obvious paths of evolution, or take logical steps in its historical path. It is also this stagnation which has continuously propelled the teachers Unions to dominate the public narrative of labour politics.

Atwoli's COTU is like a broken giant, unable to rise, blowing last steams (flatulent!) in a dying position.

Meanwhile on learning the hard way –-when they hyena was hired as the gatekeeper of the sheeplings pen!

WORKING CLASS STORIES

November 27, 2015. Cash hitch threatens Knut national polls

The TSC withheld union fees for the giant Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) when its members staged a strike over better salaries.

Knut Treasurer John Matiangi said the Government is withholding about Sh400 million meant for the union for August, September and October.
On the teachers' November payslips released last week, the Government did not factor in union deductions, raising fears that the 2,000 Knut employees might go without salaries for the fourth month running.

The non-remittance of the cash is paralysing operations at the union’s branches. The TSC has gone against the Labour Relations Act, which states that the cash should be submitted to the unions 10 days after being deducted'; said Mr Matiang'i in a recent interview in Kisumu.

Here is some real comedy

November 28, 2015

Pontiff: Poverty and slums caused by land grabbing

He was critical of those who amass wealth at the expense of others, private developers who deny children playgrounds and leaders who cling to power to protect their ill-gotten wealth.

right there too I might add: Employers who steal worker's deductions and sabotage Union elections!?

These withheld salaries and union dues: at the current interest rates, the CEO's of the TSC are individually loanees,and they will have to pay the interest. This battle is not yet personal, but it is evolving into one.

Consider the urban life of a teacher who has no other way of making ends meet foregoing a monthly income. That is engineering a ruin. When one engineers your personal ruin, that is personal. Rich people like Uhuru and Ruto do not realise this. A tragedy.

[jakaswanga]

KNUT-KUPPET $ THE TSC DEAL:

PERHAPS THIS IS A HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT! The CBA signed under the auspices of the new constitution.

26-10-2016: TSC chairperson Lydia Nzomo noted that for the last nine years, industrial strikes had been the norm in the sector but was quick to note that this would now end. "We want to thank all the Government agencies that made this exercise a success and we expect the agreement to address education standards and syllabus," she said.

Sossion added: "Under the CBA, we shall no longer have the industrial unrest that has been the norm among teachers and we expect the education standards to improve."

The teachers had gone into the meeting demanding a 300 per cent rise in salary.

But 'historical parleys', like political MOU's, tend to run until one side senses a changed power balance in which he or she can squeeze or wring more concessions out of the other, or, outrightly, unilaterally abrogate the running agreement.

There is of course the other interesting case of both parties ready to continue honouring the agreement, but there is a third party footing the bill of their symbiosis who is no longer able to, or, simply, no longer minded to!

But for the moment let us party! Only last year, things were so bad some Walimu's committed suicide in shame when their salaries were held six months by this self-same TSC, and even the ever dutiful mama Mbogas refused to indulge us with a few leaves of sukuma-wiki loan. Sossion himself was betrayed to the police by Jacob Kaimenyi and had his phone confiscated and gleaned for mpango wa kando messages!

Parleys are not signed out of love, nevertheless they are good enough occasions to party! But like in a wild west bar, one hand must keep hovering around either holster! Labour and capital is a touchy relationship!

Teachers sign sweet salary deal

By Augustine Oduor and Anthony Gitonga

October 26th 2016

He thanked President Uhuru Kenyatta for initiating talks on the CBA adding that the term and services for teachers would be improved. "The talks were open and flank and the CBA is historic in the country as it's the first of its kind among teachers," he said.

TSC chairperson Lydia Nzomo noted that for the last nine years, industrial strikes had been the norm in the sector but was quick to note that this would now end. "We want to thank all the Government agencies that made this exercise a success and we expect the agreement to address education standards and syllabus," she said. Sossion added: "Under the CBA, we shall no longer have the industrial unrest that has been the norm among teachers and we expect the education standards to improve."

The teachers had gone into the meeting demanding a 300 per cent rise in salary.

READ MORE Anxiety as teachers resume talks on 300pc pay demand
Teachers' salary talks kick off in Naivasha
TSC to probe candidate’s shocking death in Subukia, Kenya

Reading the resolutions, Macharia said the CBA had recognised the need to upgrade the lowest entry of a P1 teacher. She added that the agreement had also expanded the grading structure of the top cadre of all the teachers.

www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2000221036/teachers-sign-sweet-salary-deal/?pageNo=4

Now we will compare what teachers will earn with what local politicians earn.



Some MCA's earn 300k/month on sitting allowances!

Teachers are set for a major salary rise that will see the lowest paid primary school teacher take home Sh27,195, up from Sh21,756. The lowest paid secondary school teachers will also have their salary increased to Sh34,955, up from thecurrent Sh31,020. The new salary deal signed yesterday, which also overhauled the current grading system, caps the overall salary of the highest paid teacher at Sh157,656.

Currently, the highest paid teacher earns Sh109,089, with a maximum pay of Sh144,928 per month.

Young Turk Ababu Namwamba's party is called The labour party of Kenya. Why does this riddle me with laughter yawa!

[jakaswanga]

A DOUBLE BIND FOR A PROMINENT UNION MAN IN BOMET

Sasa wewe mwalimu mwenzangu Sossion, wacha siasa ya ndururu, bwana. There is work to be done elsewhere.

Consider this report

Bomet Governor Isaac Ruto, rowdy youth storm doctor’s union meeting

Wednesday December 28 2016


Some of the doctors who were roughed up when Governor Isaac Ruto allegedly stormed their meeting in a hotel in Bomet on December 28, 2016 accompanied by rowdy youth.. PHOTO | GEOFFREY RONO | NATION MEDIA GROUP

By GEOFFREY RONO

Bomet Governor Isaac Ruto accompanied by a group of rowdy youths Wednesday stormed a doctor’s union meeting at Fair Hill Hotel and allegedly roughed up the officials bringing the meeting to disarray.
The Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists' Union (KPMDU) officials included the union’s national secretary-general Ouma Oluga, chairman Samuel Oroko, the South Rift branch secretary-general Davji Atela and Bomet County union representatives, all numbering 15.
Two local radio reporters, Hillary Mutai (Kass FM) and Isaiah Kiplangat (Kongasis FM), who had attempted to take photographs at the time, were also roughed up during the melee.
Mr Ruto reportedly had an argument with the union’s officials before all hell broke loose

The governor who only yesterday had his facial bone battered by state goons in the employee of capo Nkaissery, is, on his return from a surgery conducted by exiled Kenyan doctors in South Africa, leading non-state goons to rough up Kenyan doctors in a union meeting, with his bums taking the opportunity to especially concentrate on female doctors.

And what do I hear from the secretary general of the Trade Union Congress of Kenya?
Silence! --Ai yawa!

The Kenya Medical Practitioners, Pharmacists and Dentists' Union KPPMDU, just like the Kenya Union of Domestic Hotels, Education Health Institutions and Allied workers (KUDHEHIA), or the university Academic Staff Union (UASU), or the Kenya University Staff Union (KUSU), may not be fully subscribed members of the TUC-ke, but it is obvious there is a societal need for a workers' front which oversteps petty rivalries –---like we once saw in our own sector when KUPPET and KNUT went to war in a fatricidal conflict which allowed subsequent governments to ignore the great CBA of Ambrose Adongo.
That is the CBA only affected yesterday after decades of struggle, even as Rotich and co do their best to sabotage the thing by collapsing the IFMIS platform.

Remember to have our historic CBA officialised, the struggle claimed the lives of several teachers, like the one in Nyahururu who committed suicide in shame. His salary held for months, his household collapsed in economic disorder; evicted and his pride ruined, he lost face and took his own life. If you ask me, we should remember to project his face and others on the famous KNUT building in Nairobi which, under nuts like Kazungu Kambi, Jubilee wanted to steal to break the Union. We will do them this honour, like Lebanon's Hezbollah does in remembrance of her martyrs to enemy fire, or like Christianity cherishes her earlier knights, singing hymns as emperor Nero threw them before ferocious lions at the Coliseum.

The societal need beggars a general solution, seeing the spate of strikes and the tumultuous labour relations which now seem to come to a head in the electoral year.

But first: this buffoon of Bomet who organised bums to rough-up and disbra young female doctors at a union meeting. Sossion, the Bomet goat Ruto should be publicly roasted. This is far worse than Miguna Miguna's 'Esther's tongue is so hot every man is a stiff c.ock pointing at her lips!' or something like that.



Opportunistic officialdom and NGO-motivated political correctness rained down on Miguna's head, for instance Cecily Kariuki, the billed new Waiguru.

Is Kariuki the new most powerful CS?

Dec. 01, 2015. By OLIVER MATHENGE@NairobiStar

The new Ministry of Public Service, Youth and Gender could be one of the most powerful dockets in President Uhuru Kenyatta's government.
With a woman Cabinet Secretary and two women Principal Secretaries, it could also create the most powerful women in government.
Uhuru has nominated Sicily Kariuki as CS, Lillian Omollo the PS for Youth and Public Service and Zeinab Hussein the PS for the Department of Gender Affairs.

Cecily Kariuki wont condemn the physical mandhandling of female doctors, union officials

The most powerful women in government shut up when female doctors are physically abused in the course of their duties! Of course, sisterhood and feminism in the middle class is a solidarity thinner than the loyalty of a prostitute! The hot chicks Kariuki, Omollo and Zeinab are on the other side, pets, blue-blooded aristocrats or at least consorts of power, while the striking female doctors are farm slaves in mutiny. Fair game for any for any lusty ones with pent up frustrations.

If rape will intimidate rebelling slaves back to work, so be it. That has always been the position of power through the ages of labour exploitation. –--Mwalimu Sossion, koso!?

But when it is an aspirant to join the status quo, it is all sisterhood, and all cheek pecks!

KTN pulls down JKL videos as CS Cecily Kariuki condemns Miguna rape claims against Passaris



“As the Cabinet Secretary in charge of Gender Affairs, I strongly condemn the trivialisation of the crime of rape as depicted on KTN’s Jeff Koinange Live Show and the subsequent comments on social media that sought to normalize this unacceptable and dehumanizing act,” she said.
Ms Kariuki also urged the Media Council of Kenya to pull down the offending content and in future take quick action to protect victims.

SHAMING

Accusing the show of using abusive and derogatory language, she added that it was unfair to allow victim shaming, irrespective of political leaning of those involved.
“The comments online further highlighted how far as a society, we still have to go in changing our attitudes as a nation towards GBV (Gender Based Violence),” she noted.

Yes Sossion, if you do not speak up for the humiliated female workers, organised and struggling for better, you are guilty of a heinous crime, by default. Even if on a regular day they the feminine ones, in their haughty doctoral white overalls, think KNUT is a primary teachers' outfit whose secretary general better keep his long tongue wagging inside their pu-ssy, and not in any other of their business!

Atwoli Francis COTU is too busy crafting a Luhya pathway forward after the pretender to the mantle of Mulembe consciousness, Tawfiq Ababy, was lured away from the errand by peremende from elsewhere. With this being an election year, and Atwoli's favourite making a comeback, the COTU man is too pre-occupied in the Mulembe game to notice much else.

For instance

Universities staff to go on strike Monday after talks collapse

January 7 2017. By JOSEPH OPENDA

The reopening of public universities across the country could be disrupted following the collapse of talks between the government and unions representing lecturers and non-teaching staff
The union representatives vowed to boycott work beginning January 8 after the Inter-Public Universities Councils Consultative Forum (IPUCCF) failed to offer a counter-proposal for their 2013-2017 collective bargaining agreement (CBA).
KUDHEHIA Secretary-General Albert Njeru said the unions have ran out of patience, adding that the government has refused to raise their salaries since 2010.
'PUBLIC-RELATIONS GIMMICKS'
“We are very disappointed with the IPUCCF for doing nothing about the proposal we gave them on December 2012 for the 2013-2017 agreement,” said Mr Njeru.

www.nation.co.ke/news/Universities-staff-to-go-on-strike-after-talks-collapse/1056-3509032-48k16qz/index.html

On his facebook page, the secgen wrote.

Ouma Oluga. 28 December 2016 om 12:56 ·

MAN OF COWARDICE

The Governor of Bomet in the company of 30 goons have stormed a doctors meeting at The Fair Hills, Bomet in which they have slapped the Chairman, other Branch officials and kicked and tore clothes of lady doctors.
The Governor initially had removed his gun pointing at the Doctors to scare and disperse the meeting.
The Governor has resorted to violence on his own doctors after his media propaganda fell flat on the public.
We shall be taking very strong action to have the Governor account for his intolerance and violence.
Intimidation will not implement the CBA. But no amount of intimidation will stop doctors from having the CBA implemented.
Journalists who accompanied us have had their cameras confiscated.
Dr. Ouma Oluga
Secretary General KMPDU

There has been no adequate refute from Bomet officials, so this incident did happen. While we wait for the victims to avail their official reports to the police if at all they did, for formality!

But Bomet Ruto is just a confused, enraged bull discovering the live wire fencing him in. As chairman of the caucus of governors, he was very vocal for other devolution of powers and means. Rightly so, this federalist germ. In deed his own party is called Mashinani, which is anti centralist, read pro further Majimboism. But in his endeavours he forgot the long think.

There must be a concerted effort to institute sophisticated local governmental structures which, for instance, can manage the health sector. This is a complicated business, not least because of the prestige of those involved. You know, from top brain and heart surgeons to clinical assistants at the morgue. When academic hospitals are devolved, administration must evolve, ultimately all the way to heaven! County administrations haven't even a meter. On the contrary, they have retarded, so much so that we can have goons led by a governor tearing the kijukus off female surgeons to break their union staff meeting. (And referral Russia of Kisumu having its water supply cut!)

One is staring at a bankrupt mental framework in state conflict --labour dispute-- resolution. And that is why, following this particularly horrendous Bomet incident at Fair Hill hotel, I call upon you Sossion to call a spade a spade and get to work. A correct diagnosis is to go a long way toward the appropriate therapy. –--medicamental, surgical, psychiatric or holistic.

Ruto of Bomet behaved like a vermin-class atavist. The ape of apes. He must be warned. But more importantly, he abused workers in their right. Sossion, such a man is an enemy of the people. Representatives of labour, owe no loyalty to him. They owe him candidate Ngatia's debt: Guitar wires arround his neck, his walrus weight helping his head out.



the sting in the tale

Go vie in Kisumu, Sossion tells Laboso

5 months ago, By Daniel Maxwell

Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) Secretary General Wilson Sossion has told off National Assembly Deputy Speaker Dr. Joyce Laboso over his quest to vie for the Bomet gubernatorial seat in the next polls.
Speaking at a function in Bomet County, Sossion told Dr. Laboso to keep off the Bomet gubernatorial seat and vie in Kisumu where she is married.
“Someone tell Joyce on my behalf to go and vie for governorship in Kisumu. She is now a daughter of that land because they already paid us bride price,” Sossion said.

Apana cheza na sifa yako, wewe ni mwalimu.

Sossion yawa, you sound like Raila's goats campaigning against Millie Odhiambo Mabona in Homa Bay county. 'Go and vie where you are married, not where you were born in Mbita, Chiedhnieri!'
FOOTNOTE

Q: Why do you call yourself Geza Geza?

A: Geza Geza shows part of my roots. I am half Luo and half Suba. Geza Geza is the Suba me.

Q: Did you have to go all the way to Robert Mugabe’s country to get the love of your life?

A: My heart and God sent me there. He is another special delivery from God. He came at a time I had purposed to block any relationship from my life then he landed from nowhere with a thud into my heart. –--- By ANGELA OKETCH

And so we forced Otieno Kajwang' to go to his patron Raila and tell him, if that statement was ever repeated, Agwambo he be, Mahia he be, Da Ker Madit he be, but still he would be excommunicated and physically banned from a large swathe of Homa Bay county. That would be sanctioning too primitive a mentality!

The KNUT Secretary general has endorsed the current Governor Isaac Ruto for the seat come next year's elections.

I said, wacha siasa ya comprador vermin, wewe Sossion, you can see what toll it takes on your mind already. The goat you endorsed for governor literally hired goons to threaten female doctors with rape in your neighbourhood. And you are the King of labour strikes! aint ya!?
Sasa!?
Talk about Atwoli claimed by a Mulembe bug!
A mea culpa form you or we look for a more progressive candidate to replace you at TUC-ke!?

Sema!

[jakaswanga]

THE UNIONISTS OF KENYA AND THEIR 2017 GE ALLIANCES

Jubilee does not look a labour (activism) friendly club! ---Ask dR. Ouma Oluga and his KPMDU band where they slept he other day when they made a faces at that mercenary, the illiterate Hellen!

2017: NASA

This is significant development. The die is cast. Unionists have concluded a tactical alliance with NASA is the best bet for their interests, for the moment. It beggars the question: CAN NASA, if it gets defeated in August, disintegrate into spores, one of which becomes a genuine labour party (as opposeseD to charlatan Namwamba's LPK), or are the unionists just fellow journeymen led by their stomachs?

I think there is more happening here.

Yes, lots of them unionists, unable to escape their being Kenyans first, could just be stomach young turks, but Mwalimu Wilson Sossion has so fought the teacher's corner, and the workers cause in General, he will get my benefit of doubt. But I will give him a CAT's eye, you know those periodic college scares! upgrading the debate as new facts emerge from reality.

How Knut and TUC-ke boss got nomination slot for House


By Augustine Oduor and Titus Too | Updated Sun, July 2nd 2017
(Knut) Secretary General Wilson Sossion. (Photo: Beverlyne Musili/Standard)

Sometime this year, an umbrella union bringing together civil servants and teachers sent a seven-page document to political parties demanding answers to a number of questions relating to workers. The questionnaire by the Trade Union Congress of Kenya (TUC-K) sought responses from parties on a myriad of issues relating to workers.

TUC-K is an umbrella union that boasts a membership of 500,000 workers. It brings together members of Union of Kenya Civil Servants (UKCS), teachers unions, Kenya’s University Academic Staff Union (Uasu), Kenya University Staff Union (Kusu) and dockworkers.

Key among the questions raised by the labour centre was possible amendments to the Labour Relations Act that each political party would effect towards better protection of workers’ rights. The union also sought to know what parties stood for on contract employment, outsourcing, trainings and importation of casual labour.

NB: protection!? ever heard of security supervisor Cherugony and Fred Maatiang'i in a Nancy Baraza-Kerubo moment?

Fred Matiang’i on receiving end after airport guard sacking

Sunday July 2 2017

There has been scathing criticism by Kenyans of different persuasions questioning the role he played in the sacking of Ms Daisy Cherogony from her post as a security supervisor at Kenya Airports Authority.

that was a by the way. lets continue with the standard story.

TUC-K also sought to interrogate political parties’ stand on the existing Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) frameworks, wage gap reduction, corruption eradication and whether education should be devolved among other issues. Mr Wilson Sossion, who is the General Secretary of the umbrella union, signed a letter forwarding the questionnaire. In his letter, Sossion, also the Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) Secretary General, said the labour centre has a keen interest on what the various political players have for workers. “In respect, we are in the process of monitoring keenly the various party manifestos with a view of taking an informed stand in the coming election,” Sossion wrote.

Taxation issues

ALSO READ: Teachers' call for fresh pay negotiations worrying

The letter lists five key issues: Collaboration on CBAs, wage gap policy, statutory deductions, and the place of special interest groups, taxation issues and the parties’ position on the changing workplace. On wage gap, the union sought to know each party’s position on how they intend to develop a wage gap strategy that will address pay disparities. Under statutory deductions, the union said Kenyan workers remit 52 per cent of gross pay against the global rate of 24 per cent. “What is your party and your future government strategy on moving towards the global average?” the union posed. On taxation, the labour centre wanted the point at which workers start paying income tax raised to Sh30,000.

The union also called for additional tax of about 20 per cent on the wealthy and privileged in the society. What, however, may have earned Sossion the nomination slot is the question the labour centre posed to all the political parties: “What is your position on nomination to Parliament (Senate, National Assembly and County Assemblies) to represent workers interest in legislation process?” Sossion Saturday said only ODM responded. “As a union we engage with everyone and we listen more to those who listen to us,” said Sossion. The Sunday Standard has seen a letter wrote to ODM for consideration. “We herein request for consideration of the following nominees to represent workers in ODM after the August 2017 elections,” reads a letter by Tom Odege, TUC-K chairman.

Odege, who is also the Secretary General of Union of Kenya Civil Servants (UKCS) forwarded names of Kusu Secretary General Charles Mukhwaya and Sossion. “The party picked my name. If I am nominated I will take up the position. I have not been communicated to, but I already submitted my bio data to the party,” Sossion said. Although Knut national office has remained quiet on the matter, the development has elicited mixed reactions. Democratic right In the North Rift, union officials said it may not necessarily sway voting patterns in the region. “While others say it is his democratic right, others say he should have remained neutral. But there is no problem because so many teachers are supporting various politicians including independents,” said Josephat Serem, Knut Executive Secretary, Nandi North.

Mr Serem, who is also the union’s National Executive Council member for Rift Valley, said even his colleague in the council Mr Stanley Kiptis, joined Jubilee Party which saw him nominated to run for Baringo governor seat. Jubilee under President Uhuru Kenyatta and NASA under Raila Odinga will compete for a share of teachers’ support to consolidate their strength in the run up to the August 8 polls. Boniface Tenai, the Knut first national trustee and Executive Secretary Nandi East and Tinderet, said every teacher has a constitutional right to participate in politics. Speaking separately Tenai said Sossion is exercising his democratic right adding the move does not necessarily represent the stand of the union. In an interview with Sunday Standard, Sossion said it is an open secret that his name has been floated for nomination to parliament by ODM.

Asked whether ODM responded because he had been holding brief for the opposition, Sossion said: “It is common knowledge that I have supported Jubilee to deliver and it is also common knowledge that I supported Jubilee in 2013”. He added: “Look at the process, we wrote to all parties. We only got feedback from one party. And therefore those who make such comments are mischievous.”

“I want to tell Kenyans and all workers that political parties are legal entities and they are instruments of citizens to advance their views in terms of governance and development agenda,” he said. He said political parties are funded by taxpayer’s money and should not be viewed as bad. Sossion also denied taking part in drafting the NASA manifesto that speaks to a narrative he has been fronting for many years. He has been calling for the recruitment of 20,000 teachers and redirecting funds meant for the schools laptop project. NASA has pledged to do exactly that.

www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2001245668/how-knut-boss-got-nomination-slot-for-house:

The ball is rolling

[jakaswanga]

MIXED BLESSINGS TEMPTATIONS

Is it a cashing-in period? Elective posts in the political arena are lucrative. Kenyan Mpigs are world's best paid, and MCA's are the new local, overnight milionares, running Ottoman Sultan-like Harems and skyscraper constructions worth of oil-sheikhs!

it is therefore prudent to significantly wonder if the motives of the Unionists are labour interests, or, well, 'ng'ondo rao' instincts. --joining the scavengers melee at the mouth of the treasury!

Huge number of trade unionists eyeing Parliamentary seats

Sunday July 2 2017

By OSCAR OBONYO

Kenya National Union of Teachers secretary-general Wilson Sossion leads the pack of trade unionists eyeing parliamentary seats in this year’s General Election, a move that could usher into the august House the largest number of workers’ advocates since independence.   
Mr Sossion is joined by fellow secretary generals of key unions, Seth Panyako (Kenya National Union of Nurses), Tom Odege (Union of Kenya Civil Servants) and Roba Duba (Kenya County Government Workers) who are sweating it out on the ballot.

NOMINATION TICKETS

The four secretary generals have realistic chances of setting foot in the next parliament after clinching nomination tickets of the Orange Democratic Movement, which is popular in Western and Nyanza regions, where Mr Panyako is seeking a senatorial seat in Kakamega County as Mr Odege tries his luck for Nyatike parliamentary seat in Migori County.
Mr Duba, on the hand, is party leader of newly formed Frontier Alliance Party, which is popular in Marsabit County.

Mr Duba is seeking re-election as MP for Moyale.
And besides Mr Sossion, who is prioritised second in the ODM nomination list for the National Assembly, Central Organization of Trade Unions (Cotu) deputy secretary general Ernest Nadome features on  Kanu nomination list.

PARLIAMENTARY SEATS

The aforementioned are only but the bigwigs within the trade union angling for parliamentary seats, otherwise Cotu officials have confided to the Nation that a huge number of workers’ officials are lined up for elective posts from the county assemblies all the way to Senate.
In the outgoing Parliament, Mr Duba and former Kabete MP the late George Muchai were the high profile unionists.
The Kabete legislator, who was Cotu’s deputy boss, was, however, shot dead in February 2015 in Nairobi under controversial circumstances.

NEW PHENOMENON

The transition of trade unionists to politics is neither a new phenomenon in Kenya nor the rest the world.
The pioneer secretary general of the umbrella body for trade unions in Kenya, then called Kenya Federation of Labour was, for instance, Tom Mboya – the flamboyant politician who became independent Kenya’s first Minister for Justice and Constitutional Affairs.

READ: Duale shock in ODM nomination list

Mboya helped to build the trade union movement in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania and across Africa and also served as the Africa Representative to the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions.
The political bug also caught up with Mboya’s deputy at KFL, Arthur Ochwada, who joined elective politics later in 1969 as MP for Busia Central, the present day Funyula constituency, in Busia county.

SERVED TWO TERMS

Ever since, leaders of the giant umbrella body have followed suit – with every secretary-general of Cotu plunging into politics.      
Clement Lubembe, who succeeded Mboya, became MP for Ikolomani in 1974, as did his successor, Dennis Akumu, who served two terms as Nyakach MP between 1969-1974 and 1992-1997.
Juma Boy, who characteristically wore black leather jackets, was next in line and the gifted speaker too ended up as MP for Matuga.
He is the father of Boy Juma Boy, the Kwale county senator who died early this year. 
Taking charge from Boy, Justus Mulei was, however, not as lucky as his predecessors. He failed to capture the Kitui North parliamentary seat.

SERVES LARGER CONSTITUENCY

But the next Cotu secretary-general, Joseph Jolly Mugalla, made it to parliament as well as MP for Ikolomani in 1997, before being edged out by Benjamin Magwaga.
The current Cotu boss Francis Atwoli, who unsuccessfully contested the Khwisero parliamentary seat in 2007, has since exhibited disinterest in vying for political office maintaining that he serves a larger constituency of Kenyan workers. 
   
READ: Big names in battle for nomination slots

“I am humbled by the gesture of Kenyan workers, who have bestowed on me the responsibility to act as their servant and guardian on labour-related issues.
Together with a host of regional, continental and global responsibilities, I neither wish to be boxed in a specific constituency nor viewed through the prism of a particular outfit,” Mr Atwoli told the Nation, through his spokesman, Adams Barasa.

REPRESENT WORKERS

Instead, Mr Atwoli has over the last decade lobbied for nomination of trade unionists to parliament with a view to represent workers.

Indeed this effort has paid off courtesy of Article 97 (c) of the Constitution which now requires political parties to nominate 12 members to the National Assembly to represent special interests including the youth, persons with disabilities and workers.
Secretary General of Kenya Union of Journalists, Eric Oduor, explains that this time around the electoral body took initiative to meet union and political party officials to ratify an agreeable mode of the nomination listing.

Best lobby remains a worker's own political organisation. But to reach that mature stage, we must go through all the infant and children's ailments. That is the path to adulthood. No shortcuts!

[jakaswanga]

WHAT OUR LITTLE RASCAL PHYLLIS CAN LEARN FROM OUR MEA-CULPA HELLEN



OF OUR DUMB BLONDES HELLENE WASILWA AND PHILIS KANDIE

KNUT Boss Wilson Sossion Kicked Out Of Office for Being Nominated to Parliament

December 13, 2017

KNUT Secretary General Wilson Sossion and KUPPET chairman Omboko Milemba have been directed to vacate their positions as union officials with immediate effect.
In a gazette notice on Wednesday, Labour CS Phyllis Kandie said the two are among trade union officials who must leave office as they are now state officials by way of nomination and election to Parliament respectively.

Sossion was nominated to Parliament by ODM party while Milemba won the Emuhaya MP seat in the August 8 general election.

“This notification to vacate office applies to all trade union officials holding either nominated or elective positions in any county assembly or Parliament,” Kandie said
Article 77 of the constitution restricts full time state officers from holding alternative positions of gainful employment.

The gazette notice also affects Union of Kenya Civil Servants secretary general Tom Odege who was elected MP for Nyatike constituency.
Others are Bungoma woman representative Catherine Wambilianga, Bomet Central MP Ronald Tonui (KUPPET Executive Secretary, Bomet Branch) and Richard Cheserem.

Florence Bore, John Mwamusi, Mulei Mwalowa, Stanley Kiptis and Edward Kahiga have also been ordered to vacate their respective union positions.

On November 13, KNUT chairman Mudzo Nzili defied a directive from Sossion to go on a mandatory six-month leave pending his retirement in May.

Nzili argued that the directive was null and void as Sossion was not an official of the giant teachers’ union owing to his new position as a nominated MP.

Phillis Kandie, Our lady of the dagger!

Labour must be tamed. Organised labour must be defanged. This was the mantra of the colonial government, jolted by a strike by natives at the port of Mombasa in 1900! (Well, in 1900 this area was still a British protectorate –---and Mackinon's company whose private property it was, was rapidly going bust but not yet completely down and out! And Pwani wasn't really Kenya. It was Zanzibari, or Omani, or something like that!


Wilson Sossion! --toward the toady Atwoli or fiery Markan?

It was only in 1920 that Kenya became a crown colony –--and no longer a protectorate (spot the difference in law!). It was essentially a coup by the white settlers. This gave them local power and control (over land and labour), yet full military and budgetary/financial protection of the colonial office in London, on behalf of her majesty's government. They essentially became babies with a large piece of African real estate as their playfield, (but the consequences for Mother England!) May be as close as it gets to paradise in the real world!


KPMDU Ouma Oluga the former jailbird

What is it about Markan Singh which makes him stand out so much, so much as to be referred to as the father of modern trade unionism in Kenya?

Markan Singh blasted the colonial racial hierarchy. He founded a Kenyan then all East African organisational form which obeyed only ones trade. Not race, not place of birth nor station of social origin! No caste system for him!

Now that Kenya is so tribalised, sorry, so enthnicised, sorry, so nationalist obsessed, the methodology of Markan Singh is more imperative than ever. It is the Labour Union thing, the deeper, visionary consciousness thing. The consciousness which goes beyond what current political parties and their heads, and their chief ideologues, profess.

Tribal conglomerates lumbering toward power they are. Jubilee is the house of Mumbi and Kaleos, plus some pastoral orbiting satellites; NASA is the rest of the desperate saliva swallowers!

And then there are the Trade Unions. Even if their leadership is compromised, toady, oligarchic and alienated from the mass of workers, their organising principle is still a concentrated radical departure from the main political consciousness organising mass Kenyan (political) movements.

For the status quo, for the neo-colonial state to function best, the trade union model of organisation must be erased. It is treason, seditious, dangerous.

Wilson Sossion does not owe his rise to the helm of KNUT to his Kalenjin or Kipsigis grassroots! Neither does Omboko Milembe, nor Akelo Misori.

Fred Matiang'i owes his ministry of education(steward)ship to ruthless ethnic calculations of the Jubilee power equation! Matiang''i knows it, we teachers know it, and Jubilee knows it. That is why when he replaced the confused professor Kaimenyi, teachers union leadership were quick to remind him political appointees serve at the leisure of their master. 'KNUT is deep. Bethink thee whether you have been hired to uproot it, because it stands in the way of a visionless political elite. If a mercenary, be a soldier of fortune with self awareness.'

Since then, Fred Matiang'i has not been in the forefront as public pawn to tame the unions –--like Kazungu Kambi once was. Enter our hottie, Use Me Phyllis!


Dear Philis Kandie, Hellen Wasilwa was here!

Far away in a distant continent, I used to hear tell of a particular kind of lady: the dumb blonde.

I will allow myself a eurocentrist look, take a whitewashed glance at Philis Kandie and the original Hellene Wasilwa, and call them our dumb blondes.

What have they done!?

They have been hired by today's settler class to tame labour unions!

And one has already lived to do a Mea Culpa! I can't wait for Phyllis to come in!


NB: EUROCENTRIST is to intone leaders of the biggest trade unions become big men, even leaders of their labour parties, with some rising all the way to premierships when they win the national elections! --we don't want that in Kenya, Eh, Phyllis!

[jakaswanga]

QUICKLY QUICKLY: ITCHY KANDIE SPOTS A TROJAN HORSE --labour union men in parliament!

History records, that only after the second world war, did the colonial government relent, under international pressure, to give trade unions a place of relative honour or recognition in the constitutional or legal framework of the land.

This (post world war II) is an interesting detail. The settler dominated government was essentially too stupid to recognise the international situation post world war 11. If they continued to block every avenue of reasonable labour activity, the situation and unions would radicalise, and with decolonisation inevitable, empire already crumbling in places like India, radicals would take over the organisations of the outrage at colonialism. The risk was, cold war blues, they could yank Kenya off the Western orbit.

The stupid settlers didn't get the finer details of the sh!t they were in! –-and so that bit about EXTERNAL OR INTERNATIONAL PRESSURE! It was mother england doing the running for her silly, spoilt kids abroad like Dalamere.

But, wait for it: No sooner had labour organiser extraordinaire Tom Mboya become a government minister, of labour to boot, than he developed ----lets say adopted, the colonial narrative of labour unions not being allowed to OBSTRUCT development!

He meant unions must operate under the ruling party, under the government, under the employers. Total colonial emasculation masquerading as progress. He would develop a tripartite charter, so-called, but the content, with the clauses written by the party attorney general and government supervision, with unions banned from external affiliation and forced to swear loyalty to the ruling party, KANU, was a straightforward labour in its place. Shut up and absorb the rod, slave!

Before COTU –-the centralisation, there were two rival organisations. More of that episode later. But the point is the competition was so fierce, elections were messy –--like KNUT's Mombasa civil war where chairs flew last week, and which saw a Sossion re-win to the horror of the Jubilee wing --- and an already moribund KANU went morbid in fear.

(so a union charter was commissioned and written by the government, and labour unions brought in, from independence: COTU by decree!)

Until Wilson Sossion with his TUC-ke emerged, to rival the now sleepy and arrived COTU!

The teachers Union had become the leading union in the land, railways and docks were dead, and it was inevitable that KNUT's dynamism and her educated rank and file, would produce a beast beyond COTU's tame chains, or lazy head.

Then there is that other dangerous monster: the 2010 constitution with its clauses.

Some will remember, that one of the most important things (KANU SG AND KANU PRESIDENT) Tom Mboya and Jomo Kenyatta banned, was Trade Unions sponsoring their own candidates to the parliament. This was a heavy argument in the run to independence, and 1962 saw it threaten KANU's set course for a total sweep.

This argument has returned post 2010, AND it is like the Unions found a backdoor to parliament eet al. A Trojan Horse move. This old argument, unfinished, has reared its head in full glory once more, and is the one now consuming Phillis Kandie, Wilson Sossion, Tom Odege, Omboka Mulemba and the whole host of labour union men catapulted to parliament or local legislative assemblies, while still in union office.

The Nyeri governor Mutagi resigned.

Seeing the she-PS is scratching her unders so furiously in public, it is important to unravel the historical serpents or currents crawling inside the pants of Phillis Kandie and her handlers. And this is not a Jubilee-NASA division, much as the press would want to tilt the narrative to fit that canon.

The argument points ahead to its own resolution.

Towards the formation of a UNION'S LABOUR PARTY then.

But, for the laughs, did you know Girl Ababy Namwamba is the head of the LPK!? And that that LPK is the short for Labour party of Kenya!

Yaaye Omwami Namwamba, you have enough intellect to know you are a hot joke, an azzhole asking for a rough-edged round pole to be labouriously hammered up its sheet deeps!

The struggle for the emancipation of labour, see human history, aint the place for jokers, omwami. In Bangladesh for instance, more Union men are liquidated than terrorists.

[jakaswanga]

KNUT says 2017 KCSE results are not credible


KNUT Secretary General Wilson Sossion

So, zzup!?

KNUT asks KNEC to recall 2017 KCSE results for moderation and auditing
KNUT says the results do not meet international standards of measurement and evaluation

The Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) has rejected the just released 2017 KCSE examination results. KNUT Secretary General Wilson Sossion on Thursday wrote to the Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC) demanding a recall of the results for moderating and auditing.

FISCAL DEFICIT AND MASSIVE EXAM FAILURES

First the lines, then between them.

Tight marking deadlines, difficult questions may have led to poor grades

By Moses Michira December 23rd 2017

Former Education Permanent Secretary Prof James ole Kiyiapi, in his assessment of the massive failure among the 600,000 candidates, said the State could be punishing able students.

www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2001263925/tight-marking-deadlines-difficult-questions-may-have-led-to-poor-grades

As it stands, our universities will have un-utilised capacity because only a 10th attained the minimum qualification grades,” he said.

About 70,000 candidates scored C+ and above in the results unveiled on Wednesday by Matiang’i, who also acknowledged the significant drop in performance. Last year, 88,900 attained the minimum university admission grade, and have all been offered places in public universities. Kiyiapi fears that the decision to cut the number of students qualifying to join public universities and enjoy State sponsorship could be a “hidden policy aimed at promoting certain outcomes”.

“You do not have to be so strict as to chop the number of students proceeding to university. It raises more questions than answers,” he said. His concerns are shared by the silent many, especially when grading has previously been standardised to moderate the outcomes in ensuring most candidates score between grades B+ and C-.

There is an easier and obvious explanation escaping professor Kiyapi, as to why the competent capo-duo of Fred Matiang'i and George Magoha would make such a soil of themselves in public, a short year after they became the toss town and country in slaying cheating cartels.

Why would they, M&M, within the year, become cheats themselves, O Fates!? why would the two men swindle many a briliant boy and girl off their college futures?

It is a serious question, with a serious but so-ordinary answer. Budgetary blues.

Yes, it is money. It is a consequence of Fiscal deficits which dictate unorthodox, stealthy and discrete cost-cutting measures.

It is the ruthlessness of economic reality which forces the proud double-M duo to look so clueless and pedestrian all of a sudden.

Sossion? well, he has to defend us teaches and our turf! that is what we pay him for. And he is rather good at it. But well, ther are other deeper things around the society at large.

We will unravel some of it patiently, sans Union politics.

(First, SEE FOOTNOTE, I warn you to remember the recent cagey behaviour of money PS Kamau Thugge during the latest lecturer's strike! First he said the ksh.5bn had been released and the lecturers were refusing to go to work for nothing! Fact was he had in deed SIGNED THE DISBURSE, but the cheque bounced! THERE WAS NO MONEY IN THAT GOVT ACCOUNT! –--Rumour in the commons bar was David Rotich had 'vacuumed' all accounts to pay for the double election!)

Empty accounts are empty accounts, empty pockets empty pockets! Matiang'i or Magoha it aint gonna matter.

Nb: Finding himself a laughing stock for issuing bouncing cheques, Kamau Thugge who apparently cares for his reputation, lost his temper! There is the famous issue of the fake CBA doctors signed in the power vacuum of the 2013 transition. A unionised lecturer told Thugge: EVEN YOU, Thugge, is just such a cheap conman! Thugge the treasury Brutus hit the roof, but still there was no money! he had been tricked into PR game of apportioning the blame to lecturers, while it was his cheque bouncing!! Infantile bureaucratic tempers don't work financial miracles of course. But all is all that ends well. The money came, kind of enough trickle to end the strike!

But the bill gotta be paid elsewhere. Matiang'i and Magoha! Cash crunch is cash crunch.

ALSO READ: KCSE: The figures just don't add up

Isaac Njuguna, the Director of Examinations at KASNEB – the body that administers tests for prospective accountants and public secretaries - said the skew in the Form Four results was shocking. “How do you have almost everyone failing an exam? It is not normal,” said Mr Njuguna.

While standardising of results does not happen in grading the exams set by KASNEB, results always show a normal distribution. He said naturally, there would be a few outstanding scores and a comparable number of candidates who score very poorly. “Most of the candidates’ score is around the half-way mark which is our prescribed pass mark,” said Njuguna.

He cites, as possible causes for the outcome, poor teaching skills in preparation for exams, disconnect between student abilities and the questions set, strict marking and inconsiderate grading. Globally, the results of various academic and professional examinations are reviewed to ensure the normal distribution is attained – meaning everyone does not get to score an A if the exam was easy while not everyone fails if the questions are tough.

Nope. It is a cost-cutting exercise!

That is why there was no 'reviewing' in the traditional sense. But there was reviewing in the cost-cutting sense. Accountants and debt collectors taking charge.

Next: deeper UNDERSTANDING MATIANG'I AND MAGOHA'S WATERLOO

first a FOOTNOTE: WHAT IS UP WITH KAMAU THUGGE?

[jakaswanga]

Dec 24, 2017 10:13:28 GMT 3 jakaswanga said:

KNUT says 2017 KCSE results are not credible

That is why there was no 'reviewing' in the traditional sense, to create a normal distribution curve. But there was reviewing in the cost-cutting sense. Accountants and debt collectors taking charge.

Next: deeper UNDERSTANDING MATIANG'I AND MAGOHA'S WATERLOO

first a FOOTNOTE: WHAT IS UP WITH KAMAU THUGGE?

FOOTNOTE: WHAT IS UP WITH KAMAU THUGGE'S PROUD ARSE?

Remember this

Kamau Thugge approves Sh5.2 billion to pay striking lecturers

November 23 2017

The National Treasury has approved the release of Sh5.2 billion for enhanced salaries and house allowances for lecturers.

They have been on strike for three weeks since November 1, 2017, demanding higher pay.

HIGHER PAY

Principal Secretary Kamau Thugge granted the Ministry of Education approval to use the funds, a move that could signal the end of the strike that had paralysed learning in 31 public universities.
In a letter to Higher Education Principal Secretary Colleta Suda, Mr Thugge said the funds will be included in the supplementary estimates number 2 for 2017/2018 financial year.

It would appear the much reported and celebrated disbursement was merely a media event. A public relations exercise in a propaganda war. –-Ati CBA!? What CBA!?

SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATE MY FOOT!

"UASU secretary general Constantine Wasonga said the pledge is just but a rumour since none of the 31 public universities has received the cash."

Earlier on, on another fudged CBA deal



In any case Thugge was enough embarassed. A few days after the degradation of his secretarial acts to mere pledges, JKUAT seems to have been disbursed or?
According to the star

Lecturers strike: JKUAT resumes learning after 16-day closure

Dec. 02, 2017, 3:00 pm

JKUAT on Saturday announced that it will resume academic activities effective Monday, December 4.
In a memo, registrar Esther Muoria asked the students to report back to campus by Sunday in preparation for classes.

"Students must clear all outstanding fees and sign nominal roll by December 8," Muoria said.
On November 15, JKUAT suspended studies indefinitely over the lecturers strike caused by an unresolved Sh10 billion pay row.

The dons are pushing for higher perks as contained in the 2013-17 CBA drafted by universities, unions and the government.
Lecturers said lack of accountability on the part of the government is the cause of their strikes.

Read: JKUAT suspends activities, KU pushes exams after lecturers strike

Was the money really there in the JKUAT accounts!? and if so, was it really via Colleta Suda from Kamau Thugge!

Eeh, sometimes an administrator is just on their own, and better be creative to manage a crisis! Government can sometimes be far, as far as they used to say of Beijin in the provinces of Imperial China!

THE agreed CBA was tabbed 2013-2017, but Thugge's strike-prompted letter to Suda references a 2017-2018 SUPPLEMENTARY budget!

And he aint illiterate!

so, zzup!?

1. Ouru Kenyatta's swearing in ceremony was a party nearly landed in water coz the treasury did not want to hear anything about money!

That is a hard hint at jusT how bad the situation was.

2. Then there was Jamhuri day 2017 when a emptily yawning Kasarani stared back at Uhuruto. There had been no money to bus-in the crowds. Dealers in rent-a-crowd abound around the country. But the terms, like with our rented, professional mourners of Kisumu, are strictly cash.

The treasury wouldn't hear of the cash to rent crowds to fill Kasarani.

The times are hard. Kenya is going deeper into debt just to service old debt. Now it hits the futures of youth. They just gotta fail en masse. There is no Osumba to pay.

Come to think of it, Raila Odinga's postponed swearing-in, could just be a cash-crunch tale!

I will be back. --Xmas and all!

[jakaswanga]

First, no comment

TSC now removes Sossion, Milemba from teachers roll


By Kamau Muthoni | Published Sun, January 21st 2018

The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has de-registered top officials of the teachers' unions who have joined politics. The Commission this week wrote to the Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) Secretary General Wilson Sossion and Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet) chairman Omboko Milemba, informing them that they are no longer teachers. ALSO READ: President commissions text books to schools “The commission has decided to terminate your services as a teacher with effect from January 15, 2018,” said TSC Chief Executive Officer Nancy Macharia in the letter signed by JM Maundu on Monday written to Mr Sossion. “It has been noted that you were nominated as a Member of Parliament yet the Commission has not received your resignation or retirement letter.”

Regulation 187 (1) and (2) of the Code of Regulations for Teachers dictates that teachers who seek elective positions and hold trade union positions must resign or retire from service. In fact, the deregistration renders them non-eligible for leadership at the teachers unions. This decision puts the relationship between TSC and the unionists in a precarious position as the law requires that you have to be teacher to vie for any position in the unions.

Bomet Central MP Ronald Tunoi has also faced the axe. Sossion is an ODM Nominated MP, while Milemba is Emuhaya MP, a seat he won on the Amani National Congress party ticket. Already, there is another battle before Employment and Labour Relations Court in relation to the same issue - whether Sossion and Milemba among other trade unionists should continue holding their positions and at the same time earn as law makers. Labour Cabinet Secretary Phyllis Kandie gave a notice to all the unionists who had been elected to Parliament to vacate their offices. In the gazette notice, she intended that Milemba, Sossion and Union of Kenya Civil Servants Secretary General Tom Odege would relinquish their positions for a new crop of leaders to take over. But they got a reprieve after Justice Nelson Abuodha temporarily suspended the implementation of the notice. ALSO READ: Confusion as Church locks out new principal TSC first sent termination notices to the three on December 14 last year.

Sossion then replied saying that his nomination by ODM was meant to represent workers in Parliament. “While I acknowledge the fact that I took oath of office as a nominated Member of Parliament, the nomination into the particular office was to represent workers and their interest (sic) in the National Assembly as a specially recognized category,” Sossion wrote on January 9, in response to TSC’s notice of termination. He claimed the notice would only affect those who actively sought elective seats and not nominations.
Read more at: www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2001266666/tsc-now-removes-sossion-milemba-from-teachers-roll ...

THE WAR ON LABOUR, and the most vocal and articulate sector: TEACHERS

The biggest Union in the land, KNUT! As usual, narrow-minded power is freaking out at the evolution of UNION MEN directly into PARLIAMENTARIANS.

Ati you can't be a unionist and serve in active politics!? well, UNIONISM is full-time politics: it is like telling Otieno Kajwang' to stop politics in church and during funerals! ---, WELL, MY A.SS even farts politics when I sleep, Nyakwamba responded!

Kuppet chair: Why would TSC sack me yet I already resigned?

Sunday January 21 2018 | NATION MEDIA GROUP

In Summary

MP Omboko Milemba says he resigned in February 2017 so he could run for Emuhaya MP, but TSC has now written to him a termination letter.

Advertisement
By OUMA WANZALA

Kenya Union of Post Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet) Chairman Omboko Milemba has said he resigned early last year as a public school teacher and wondered why the Teachers Service Commission (TSC) had served him with a termination letter.

“I resigned last year as a teacher in order to seek elective position in Emuhaya Constituency and they acknowledged it. Now the same TSC has written a termination letter to me. This is pure malice,” said Mr Milemba.

ACKNOWLEDGED

In a letter dated April 3, 2017 addressed to Mr Milemba through the Principal of Kilingili Secondary School in Vihiga County – his last working station – TSC accepted his resignation.

“In reference to your letter dated February 1, 2017, which you requested to resign from teaching service, I wish to inform you that your request has been accepted with effect from February 6, 2017,” reads the letter by the Commission’s Chief Executive Nancy Macharia and signed by Mr PK Ayiego on her behalf.

It adds that: “In order to fasten the process of your pension refunds, you are required to submit the following: the attached bank forms duly completed, clearance from TSC county director, earliest and last payslip reflecting pension contributions and clearance from Kenya revenue Authority (KRA).
Related Content

Why TSC has sacked Sossion and other union leaders in Parliament
Court suspends Kandie’s order on unionists
Sossion: Why State wants me out
Atwoli: Why unionists elected as MPs should not quit

“On behalf of TSC, I take this opportunity to thank you for the service rendered to the teaching profession, I wish you all the best in your endeavours.”

SACKED

The commission this month sacked Mr Milemba, Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) Secretary-General Wilson Sossion (ODM nominated MP) and Bomet Central MP Ronald Tonui, who served as Kuppet assistant treasurer. They were fired for joining active politics.

Mr Milemba asked TSC to allow teachers to replace their representatives instead of undermining the unions.

“These theatrics by TSC are not necessary and it should focus on its mandate of serving teachers. Unions are not departments of TSC,” said Mr Milemba who was elected MP for Emuhaya.

Mr Sossion also asked the TSC not to be used to undermine union leaders.

Regulation 187 (1) and (2) of the Code of Regulations for Teachers requires teachers released to trade unions to resign or retire from service once they opt to contest for political office.[i/]

Fired for joining politics!

Kandie, Koros, Macharia! we already have enough silly men in power! God save us from even sillier women! sEE sense some day, like Wasilwa! You are on the wrong side of history, silly power babes!

[kamalet]

Two things on this Jakaswanga. TSC is right to remove them from the register of teachers as you cannot hold two jobs as a State Officers. That is the legal side of things.

Now the political - With Sossion out as a teacher, then he cannot lead a union he is not a member of as KNUT membership us derived from teachers who are licenced by TSC. When he could not go peacefully - he was forced out. He cannot even lead TUC....!! So govt has pulled the rug on ODM who hoped they could score political points with a parliamentarian calling strikes!!

[jakaswanga]

Jan 24, 2018 11:50:52 GMT 3 kamalet said:

Two things on this Jakaswanga. TSC is right to remove them from the register of teachers as you cannot hold two jobs as a State Officers. That is the legal side of things.

Now the political - With Sossion out as a teacher, then he cannot lead a union he is not a member of as KNUT membership us derived from teachers who are licenced by TSC. When he could not go peacefully - he was forced out. He cannot even lead TUC....!! So govt has pulled the rug on ODM who hoped they could score political points with a parliamentarian calling strikes!!

Qatch the big picture here, Kamalet. The battle on, in deed the war against trade Unions, and in this case, the fear of Sossion! he has to be neutralised. The why is interesting. ---This is nothing unique, if you visit what other governments too are doing to the Unions. Even former unionist Ramaphosa, Uhuru's recent host down south, is also known as the Mariakana killer!

Nancy Macharia is a cog being used.

[jakaswanga]

HERE IS THE OTHER HANDSHAKE TO WATCH


KNUT Secretary General Wilson Sossion (left) and COTU Secretary General Francis Atwoli. [Beverlyne Musili/Standard]

KNUT joins Cotu, promises renewed fight for workers’ rights

Protus Onyango Posted on: 25th Jan 2019

After five decades, a giant teachers’ union has rejoined the umbrella body for workers, signalling a strengthening of trade unions at a time they are under siege.

With the Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) rejoining Central Organisation of Trade Unions (Cotu), the new force announced the push for a five per cent pay increment for their members as recently gazetted by President Uhuru Kenyatta.

Knut quit Cotu in 1969 at the instigation of the then government, which rounded its leaders in an attempt to break their unity.

But yesterday at Cotu headquarters in Nairobi, Knut Secretary General Wilson Sossion said the union was rejoining the umbrella workers’ body to enjoy the benefits of a united labour movement.

SEE ALSO :Kenya Tea workers pay dispute heads to UK courts

The teachers’ union has on many occasions taken on the Government with nationwide strikes, but is at times beaten into submission; through strong arm tactics and crippling court orders such as the one in January that blocked the latest push for a strike over pay.

Sossion, also an ODM nominated MP, said teachers were going back to Cotu to redesign their course in bargaining collectively and protect members from exploitative conditions at work.

He said Knut was one of the founding members of Cotu upon the dissolution of Kenya Federation of Labour and African Workers Congress.

He said the Government later forced the union and Kenya Civil Servants Union to leave Cotu, claiming that teaching and civil service were essential services whose staff should not belong to trade unions.

“The Government feared that the enormous size of these unions could create a threat to industrial peace, particularly in the event of a united challenge from Cotu and public service unions,” said Sossion.

SEE ALSO :Atwoli bags fouth term at agency

He declared that Knut was rejoining Cotu after 50 years to assist in shaping relations between employers and workers to spur economic growth.

“Whether through negotiations for better salaries and enhanced terms of employment, court action or strikes, Knut has shaped relations with Teachers Service Commission (TSC). As we partner with Cotu, we will continue pushing workers' agenda through the same course," said Sossion.

With a combined force, he said, Kenyan workers, including teachers, should expect much more. "But I caution that we should avoid rivalry as splinter groups weaken unions.”

Cotu Secretary General Francis Atwoli put employers on notice, saying they must implement the five per cent wage increment as gazetted last week.

“There are employers who fail or delay to implement such increments. They have no choice this time but to do so,” said Atwoli.

SEE ALSO :Tough Knut elections split union
He threatened to lead workers to agitate for the dissolution of Salaries and Remuneration Commission for interfering with the welfare of workers.

He called on employers to renegotiate CBAs after every two years as is the trend worldwide.

“We will meet the President and request him to order TSC to start renegotiating the CBA with teachers. We are now 3.3 million Cotu members. Government must listen to us,” said Atwoli.

It is a significant move.

[jakaswanga]

THE TEACHERS OF KENYA SUCCUMB TO THE CULT OF SELF-DESTRUCTION!

A variety of forces have come to head. And the most historically successful Union in Kenya is in shambles. That is KNUT. In the short term, this is quite a victory for the reactionary politics of the Oligarchs and dynasties who control the state and own Kenya. The organised, alternative ideological opposition is scattered, infiltrated and colonised. We can now go back to the situation immediately after independence when Tom Mboya finished the re-organisation of the trade Unions. That is the purge of the radicals which easiened the domestication of the unions and guaranteed their subservience to the KANU state and party whose SG he (TJ) was.

But in the long run, and now because there is a crisis, this is pyrrhic victory. There is a crisis because all around the land at large, there is a cash crunch which has meant a variety of workers have gone without pay, for months. Primarily then, that is a labour grudge arising not from a rejected demand for higher salaries, but for pay for work already done. Can't pay for routine work already done, is a crisis.

Jan 24, 2018 22:28:27 GMT 3 jakaswanga said:

Jan 24, 2018 11:50:52 GMT 3 kamalet said:

Two things on this Jakaswanga. TSC is right to remove them from the register of teachers as you cannot hold two jobs as a State Officers. That is the legal side of things.

Now the political - With Sossion out as a teacher, then he cannot lead a union he is not a member of as KNUT membership us derived from teachers who are licenced by TSC. When he could not go peacefully - he was forced out. He cannot even lead TUC....!! So govt has pulled the rug on ODM who hoped they could score political points with a parliamentarian calling strikes!!

Qatch the big picture here, Kamalet. The battle on, in deed the war against trade Unions, and in this case, the fear of Sossion! he has to be neutralised. The why is interesting. ---This is nothing unique, if you visit what other governments too are doing to the Unions. Even former unionist Ramaphosa, Uhuru's recent host down south, is also known as the Mariakana killer!

Nancy Macharia is a cog being used.

THE FINALE

How Sossion was sent packing in Knut coup

Saturday August 31 2019


Kenya National Union of Teachers Secretary General Wilson Sossion. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP  

In Summary

The ouster comes at a time when Knut is embroiled in court cases with the teachers’ employer, the Teachers Service Commission (TSC).
The new union boss is Mr Hesbon Otieno, who has been the deputy secretary general.
He will serve in an acting capacity until the Annual Delegates Conference convenes on December 1 in Kakamega.

By DAVID MUCHUNGUH & By FAITH NYAMAI

Embattled Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) boss Wilson Sossion was finally been fired by the union’s top organ on Friday in a culmination of wrangles that have been fought in the courts and the streets and seen thousands of members abandon the union in the last one month.

The new union boss is Mr Hesbon Otieno, who has been the deputy secretary general. He will serve in an acting capacity until the Annual Delegates Conference convenes on December 1 in Kakamega.

CONTEMPT

Mr Sossion on Wednesday called off a special meeting of the National Executive Committee (NEC) that he had summoned at the union headquarters in Nairobi. It was to take place on Thursday. The meeting had been called by members of the NEC opposed to his rule.
Sensing that the members were determined to convene and oust him, Mr Sossion rushed to court on and sought orders to stop the meeting. Justice Byram Ongaya granted him the prayer.
However, the Registrar of Trade Unions in a letter dated August 29 to the Knut secretary-general expunged Mr Sossion’s name from the register of officials.

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Four held as chaos rocks Knut- VIDEO
Why Knut officials want Sossion out – VIDEO

“I wish to inform you that I have registered the Notice of Change of Officers covering the appointments made on August 29,” the letter by the registrar, E N Gicheha, stated.
At a press briefing, Knut national chairman Wycliffe Omucheyi said that the NEC unanimously agreed to replace Mr Sossion.
 But the battle for the leadership of the 62-year-old Knut appears to be far from over. Through his lawyers, J A Guserwa and Company advocates, the litigious former Knut boss has threatened to sue Ms Gicheha and cite her for contempt of court.

DISMISSED

The NEC managed to register the new officials after camping at the Ministry of Labour and Social Services for hours. After being locked out Knut House, 41 members of the NEC and the Steering Committee are said to have met at a city hotel and endorsed the removal of Mr Sossion. The meeting was chaired by the Knut chairman Wycliffe Omucheyi.

“The court order applied to the meeting Mr Sossion had called. We met and made another requisition, held a meeting and made resolutions,” an NEC member told the Saturday Nation.

Reports indicated that 28 members voted to support the removal of Mr Sossion, eight objected while five did not participate in the voting. Only one member did not attend the meeting.
Details were scanty about the exact time the registrar accepted the change, but the new officials kept the information under wraps as they started the process of changing union signatories yesterday morning.

On Friday, Mr Sossion dismissed his removal as inconsequential, saying a meeting held secretly is illegal.
“There is no decision that can be held when a court order is in place,” he said.
The ouster comes at a time when Knut is embroiled in court cases with the teachers’ employer, the Teachers Service Commission (TSC). In July, Justice Ongaya ruled in favour of Knut in a case that TSC had sued the union.

ISOLATED

Knut had called a strike to protest the implementation of career progression guidelines that would have been used to for promotion of teachers. The court ruled that TSC uses the Schemes of Service that were in place before.

In July, TSC deregistered Mr Sossion as a teacher owing to his nomination as a Member of Parliament. TSC rules do not allow teachers to engage in politics. In a move that further isolated him from other officials and members, TSC denied Knut members a payrise in July and has threatened to recover all money paid to Knut members as part of the 2016/21 collective bargaining agreement.
School administrators and senior teachers who belong to the rival Kenya Union for Post Primary Education Teachers (KUPPET) or to no union received the increments. The next phase is due in July next year and will mainly benefit teachers in the lower cadres who form the bulk of the teaching force.
TSC has since June refused to remit the monthly Sh140 million union dues to Knut, starving it of the revenue it uses to run its offices. It then went ahead to mischievously simplify the process of terminating or choosing union membership.

COLLISION

Teachers can now instruct TSC to stop deduction of their union dues (2 per cent of basic salary) by just a click of the button on their portal. The validation option has been made conspicuous and is highlighted in red. The instructions read, “Click on the checkbox to the right of the union transaction and click the “STOP UNION MEMBERSHIP” button to stop your Union membership!(s)

This has seen thousands of teachers flee the union. This week, Kuppet officials said that they had received 18,000 defectors from Knut.

NEC officials blamed Mr Sossion for the woes the union faces and accused him of putting teachers on a collision course with the employer and the government, causing members to suffer. They also accuse him of high-handedness and failure to consult NEC when making decisions that touch on the welfare of teachers.

It is now to be seen if his ouster will lead to better relations with TSC. Kiambu branch secretary Clement Gicharu told the Saturday Nation last week that “it is a mirage that things will normalise” after Mr Sossion is kicked out of the union.
“The secretary general is not the problem. TSC is the problem. It is the only employer that does not support its employees,” he said.

DISHARMONY

Mr Otieno announced that the Knut offices will be opened next week on Monday.
This is not the first time that Mr Sossion, who is also an Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) nominated MP, has been removed from the seat he has occupied since December 2013. In May last year, the top organ voted him out and replaced him with Mr Otieno but he rushed to court to quash the move.

His nomination to parliament has been a sticking point, with union officials saying he should resign to concentrate on politics.

Mr Sossion’s fate in Parliament now hangs in the balance as ODM nominated him to represent the interests of workers. It is yet to be seen whether the party might consider recalling him as he does not belong to a workers’ union now.

Mr Sossion has received support from the Central Organisation of Trade Unions boss Francis Atwoli, who has been calling for Knut not to let internal wrangles cause disharmony. Mr Atwoli has also said that Mr Sossion’s nomination to Parliament is proper and not in contravention of the International Labour Organisation rules.