Kaimosi university staff strike over CBA implementation
Kaimosi Friends university lecturers demonstrating at the University on Tuesday October 6, 2026
Lecturers and other university staff at Kaimosi Friends University are continuing their strike, demanding the government conclude and fully implement the 2025–2029 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) before they return to work.
The staff are also opposing proposals to have university employees’ salaries paid from student fees, insisting that workers in public universities should be paid through government funding.
Dr Walter Otieno, the Kaimosi Friends University chapter secretary of the Universities Academic Staff Union (UASU), says the strike is being driven by what he describes as the government’s failure to honour commitments made during negotiations following last year’s strike.
“This strike came not because we wanted it, but because the government lacked commitment to fulfil a roundtable negotiation agreement that was initiated last year,” Otieno said.
He said unions and the government have already agreed on several non-monetary issues, but negotiations have stalled over monetary matters, including basic salaries, house allowances and other allowances.
Otieno said that the unions have also approached the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC), but were informed that negotiations could not proceed because the National Treasury had not committed funds for the CBA.
The staff are further rejecting a proposal to pay university employees from students’ fees, arguing that such an arrangement would unfairly shift the responsibility of funding public institutions to learners.
“We feel it will be discriminatory if we, as an institution, a public institution, are paid from students’ fees,” said Otieno, arguing that workers in other public sectors are not directly paid from the money collected from those receiving services.
The dispute is also extending to retirement terms for university academic staff, with the union opposing a Public Service Commission circular that it says could reduce the retirement age for lecturers.
According to the union, retirement provisions had already been negotiated under the 2021–2025 CBA, with professors, lecturers and senior lecturers having a retirement age of 74, while assistant lecturers and graduate assistants have separate provisions.
The staff are also calling for increased government investment in higher education, with the union saying infrastructure development should be matched with adequate funding for universities and better staff welfare.
At the local level, Dr Paul Peter Makokha, chairperson of the UASU Kaimosi Friends University chapter, says the university management has made progress in addressing staff welfare issues, including promotions, but national-level concerns are still keeping the strike going.
“At the national level, there’s a lot that has to be done for things to return to normalcy,” Makokha said.
The strike is involving academic and non-teaching staff, with three unions representing different cadres of workers at the university.
KUSU Kaimosi Friends University branch secretary Dennis Mudoga says staff are ready to resume teaching if the government concludes, registers and implements the CBA.
“I’m telling our students that lecturers and support staff will be on duty as soon as tomorrow,” Mudoga said, adding that the staff are prepared to return once an agreement is reached.
The staff are urging students to remain calm as national-level discussions on the dispute continue, with their return to class depending on progress in the negotiations.
