KENYA SOCIALIST DEMOCRATIC ALLIANCE (KSDA)

3rd February 2004

STRIKE BY UNIVERSITY LECTURERS AND THE SITUATION OF WORKERS IN KENYA

 

“When it comes to strikes by workers and the question of salaries, KSDA’s position is that there is need for a minimum living wage commensurate with the rate of inflation for all workers in Kenya. While KSDA will continue to support worker’s strike actions and demands for higher salaries, the campaign could become much more effective if workers began to bargain collectively by organizing themselves into a political Party and pitting candidates who represent their interests in elections”.

---------------------------------------------------------------

By Okoth Osewe

 

KSDA takes this opportunity to congratulate the University lecturers for their impending victory following a strike action they initiated more than three months ago. Naturally, the strike has been rout with attempts to compromise leaders representing the lecturers, threats with the sack by the government, derailment through the formation of an alternative Committee/Task force to help compromise the strike leaders and a freeze on the salaries of striking dons. Throughout the strike, the lecturers have maintained their stand and now, the government has given in to their demands. The big question now is not whether salaries of the dons will be hiked but by how much.

 

This is a significant victory, given that the government is taking orders from IMF and World Bank, institutions that are bent on promoting retrenchment of civil servants and freezing salary increments of public servants. The impending victory confirms what KSDA has repeated time and time again – that when it comes to the improvement of the economic and social conditions of workers, the ruling class understands no other language apart from the language of strikes, occupations, sit-ins, protests in the streets and other revolutionary measures.

 

It is notable that throughout the strike, there is not a single political party in Kenya that came out publicly to support the striking lecturers. This was not accidental. The explanation is that there is no political party in Kenya today armed with working class politics that can enable them to address the issues the workers are raising and even come up with a solution. Likewise, a Workers’ Party, which could understand the plight of workers and support actions that could help in improving the economic conditions of  workers does not exist in Kenya. The consequence is that workers have had to organize independent strike actions without political support.

 

Even in the absence of a workers’ Party, Trade Unions could intervene on behalf of workers to support working class actions in Kenya. But the main limitation of Trade Unions in Kenya is that their leaderships have been compromised through hefty salaries, political favors and other benefits that have tied their hands. The situation of workers struggling in isolation through independent strike actions will not change until a Workers’ Party/organization emerges to struggle for the interests of the working class and the oppressed in Kenya.  

 

The case of the lecturers is a lesson to other workers that there is no short cut to victory against starvation wages as the ruling class continues to live on a million salaries a month. The absent ingredient in the strike by the lecturers is a Workers Party, not just to support and give impetus to the strike but to expand the demands to include the right to go on strike, to campaign for a minimum living wage for all workers, to advocate for the right to employment security, to oppose privatizations that have led to retrenchment of thousands of workers in Kenya and to put a strong case for independent and fighting Trade Unions which can represent the political and economic interests of workers in Kenya.

 

The impending victory has already inspired the leadership of the giant Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT) which has stated that they are seeking to re-negotiate the terms for the implementation of the teacher’s salary allowances. Last year, the 240,000 teachers threatened to down their tools to demand that the allowances that had been negotiated in 1997 be implemented. The action forced the government to accept to spread the implementation of the increments over a period of six years, time when the current government may have lost power. When KNUT gave the government a strike notice last year, KSDA argued against KNUT’s acceptance of long term implementation programs. We wrote:

 

“We hope that KNUT officials will not be compromised by the State in any negotiation before the strike. Previous strike actions by teachers have been defeated after KNUT’s top officials were compromised into accepting bogus long-term implementation programs of the Teacher’s pay package. KNUT officials should not accept any negotiations which falls short of immediate and full implementation of the pay package because after five years of patience, teachers can no longer wait. Narc made an election pledge which it should honor”.  – 27th April 2003.

 

On Saturday January 31st, Mr. Francis Nganga, KNUT’s Secretary General, said that the Union “cannot wait for the salary awards negotiated in 1997 to be implemented over the next six year period”. KNUT’s dithering and lack of a clear direction in handling the contentious teacher’s salary allowance is linked to a bureaucratic leadership sitting on top of  the Union and which uses the Union for personal aggrandizement. Last year, the Union retreated on the strike even without consulting the teachers who were preparing to down their tools to force the government to act.

 

What KNUT’s Secretary General is demanding today could have been demanded last year because on the basis of their numerical advantage, victory was on the side of the teachers. The government could not threaten the teachers with the sack because of the impossibility of sacking 240,000 teachers. As hopes are rekindled that a new confrontation between teachers and the government may be on the offing, there is no guarantee that KNUT leadership is not using strike threats to do business with to government.

 

KNUT leadership has also re-awakened to understand that they need a new negotiation with the government at a time when a cross section of Civil servants have raised concerns regarding their salaries after workers in the police force were awarded hefty pay hikes. In a move that will send panic signals to the Narc government, District Officers (DOs)  have said that their juniors serving in the Administration Police (APs) are now earning higher salaries after the government increased salaries of the police. Realizing that the government has money to selectively increase salaries of other workers, KNUT now thinks that it is time to reopen the case of the teachers after Union leaders accepted (on at least two separate occasions) lengthy implementation periods of the teacher’s salary increments.

 

When it comes to strikes by workers and the question of salaries, KSDA’s position is that there is need for a minimum living wage commensurate with the rate of inflation for all workers in Kenya. While KSDA will continue to support worker’s strike actions and demands for higher salaries, the campaign could become much more effective if workers began to bargain collectively by organizing themselves into a political Party and pitting candidates who represent their interests in elections. With over six million workers in Kenya, a Workers’ Party could quickly become a major political factor in Kenya to threaten the authority of the capitalist ruling class to its foundations. Strike actions require organized political support and this will not happen without a Workers’ Party because it is against the interest of the capitalist parties to support striking workers. This is because the ideology of capitalism is designed to side with the bosses and not the workers.

 

Published by Kenya Socialist Democratic Alliance (KSDA)
email: harakatips@hotmail.com

Home