Unintended consequences of labour disputes in varsities

Academic and non-academic staff in public universities kept off work for 49 days. In that period, a lot happened, and more will happen. It was not just about money.

Whom do you appeal to when the government fails to honour its promises, such as the 2017-2021 CBA (Collective Bargaining Agreement)? 

The employees will finally be paid their dues. But any economist will ask if they will be compensated for the loss in purchasing power. The delay and prevailing economic circumstances may not provoke such a question.  

Why the delay in fulfilling the deal? It’s not just about the money. The previous government could have sorted that easily. There have been several supplementary budgets and allocations. 

Plausible reasons include the fact that lecturers (dons) are no longer a significant political constituency compared with, say, teachers, who even had their Commission (TSC) get into the 2010 constitution. The silence of the executive confirms our “political dispensability.” 

Did you notice how little sympathy the lecturers got from the rest of society? Any explanation?

Out of curiosity, why was the money set aside from the 2017-2021 verified again? Why were the figures mutating? 

Clearly, this was a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth.

The number of stakeholders in the negotiations made the compromise hard.

We can’t rule out our ingrained mistrust. In the past, lecturers have been promised pay, which never came through. Let’s not rule out politics. You saw the parliament and trade unions in the negotiations - all elected and hoping for re-election.

The infiltration of trade unions by politics is best illustrated by the Central Organisation of Trade Unions (Cotu), Kenya National Union of Teachers (KNUT), and the Kenya Union of Post-Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet).

Some leaders in these organisations are MPs. Could the next Universities Academic Staff Union (UASU) head be an MP?  Why do we allow that? Politics loves money like moths and light. And there is plenty of it in unions. I pay an equivalent of the housing levy to UASU.

Without growth in the private sector, political posts have gained popularity for perks and money. What are the intended and unintended consequences of this industrial action?

One unintended, though I think it is intended consequence, is lowering the status of academics; portrayed as badly paid and demonstrating on the streets like “others.”  

The academic prestige is further diluted by the rising number of Kenyans holding academic titles like Dr without commensurate intellectual grounding.

It’s, “there is nothing big in being a Dr I too can be a Dr without the academic rigours.”  The public is awed by all the big titles which even religious leaders easily pick. Simply put, strikes and proliferation of honourable doctorates have slowly regressed dons to the mean. 

All this could be part of a long game; subdued academics will not invigorate the intellectual growth of the next generation; after all, strikes leave dons at the lowest level of Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs. That is far from self-actualisation, best demonstrated by groundbreaking research.  There is a very good reason why Google gives free food to its workers. How can hungry innovators innovate?

Publicising lecturers’ low pay will discourage the next generation of highly gifted students from joining academia.

That will attenuate innovation and creativity, which has a ripple effect on the economy. How many lecturers today would encourage their sons and daughters to join academia? I got very curious when some Nobel Prizes were awarded to non-academics. Does that connote brain drain from universities?

It’s more. In the 49 days, private universities were operating normally. Employers might start seeing graduates of public universities as “unbaked.” Remember, most formal jobs are in the private sector. What of jobs abroad?

The strikes will slowly “create” a market for private universities and private schools. No strikes, finishing on time and favourably seen by the market.

Conspiracy theorists

The shift has been ongoing and will simply accelerate. It seems that soon, we shall be like the United States (US), where top universities are private.

Remember, so far, Kenya has no ivies.  Some conspiracy theorists suggest prolonged strikes by dons with delayed deals are calculated to accelerate this shift. The strike is also a boon for foreign universities; their agents were very active during the strike.

One even sent me a message soliciting students and citing the ongoing strike! 

Higher education should be the catalyst of economic growth, changing our perspectives on life, catalysing innovation and national transformation. Labour disputes are blunting that; we shall all pay the price.  My greatest fear is that strikes could “hollow” out our higher education. Are our graduates as confident as they used to be?  Low self-continence in our graduates has political consequences. Citizens without deep intellectual grounding are bad voters.

In the long run, the labour disputes could be felt in politics. What did you make of Riggy G’s comment on the quality of leaders and their nicknames from Wamagui to Wamarori?

Let’s face it, labour disputes are a part of capitalism; after all, labour is one of the key factors of production.

Managing it should not be violent and emotional. We can’t get into a developed country status without managing our key resource, brains.