The Kenya Universities Staff Union (KUSU) has declared that they will not relent on their ongoing strike to push for better pay.
Speaking after meeting staff at the Moi University and the University of Eldoret on Wednesday, KUSU officials led by the national secretary general Charles Mukhwaya and the Organizing secretary Ernest Wayaya accused the government of failing to resolve the strike yet they have the ability.
The two KUSU officials further hit out at the university vice-chancellors for blocking the implementation of the 2017-2021 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).
“We’ve been on strike for the second month now and nobody has come with a counterproposal, we don’t know why but because we have no offer on the table we want to declare here that the strike has just begun and will continue until the government puts their counterproposal on the table,” said Mukhwaya.
The officials, however, said they are not happy with the fact that students are not learning and expressed concerns that they are now at risk of engaging in unproductive activities like drug abuse.
“It’s true when strikes like these ones happen students suffer a lot and we are sorry but they need to know that we are not the course of it but the government,” noted Wayaya.
“We are aware that during this period, students are at a higher risk of drugs, pregnancies among others but as university staff union officials we also want the students to clear their education on time only that we are pushing the government to do what they need to, for us” he added.
University lecturers, as well as other non-teaching staff, have been on strike for over four weeks now paralyzing learning in all public universities across the country.
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