University lecturers are set to down their tools from midnight on October 2, 2026, after the Universities Academic Staff Union (UASU) said negotiations over their 2025–2029 Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) had stalled.
UASU Secretary General Dr Constantine Wasonga said the nationwide strike follows what the union considers prolonged delays by university councils, the Ministry of Education and the National Treasury to implement agreements reached with academic staff.
Wasonga said the union had exhausted available channels of engagement and could no longer postpone industrial action over the delayed implementation of the 2025–2029 CBA.
He said the union had also rejected a proposed Sh9.76 billion allocation that the government is expected to table during negotiations in Machakos, arguing that the amount was insufficient to finance the demands contained in the four-year agreement.
“The figure of Sh9.76 billion they are proposing in Machakos, the union is going to reject it. A CBA of four years cannot consume Sh9.76 billion,” Wasonga said.
According to the UASU secretary general, the proposed amount is comparable to what was allocated to the previous agreement despite the significant difference in the scope and duration of the two CBAs.
“When we negotiated the 2021–2025 CBA, for two years we consumed Sh9.7 billion, so we cannot imagine a CBA for four years can also consume Sh9.7 billion,” he said.
Wasonga said the 2025–2029 agreement contains several issues that were not covered in the previous negotiations, meaning the financial requirements cannot be assessed solely on the basis of the previous CBA.
He said university lecturers were seeking, among other issues, the harmonisation of allowances as well as provisions relating to car loans and mortgages.
“The 2025–2029 CBA has so many things to be negotiated. Dons want allowances to be harmonised. In the CBA we have car loan and mortgage,” Wasonga said.
He contrasted the demands with the 2021–2025 agreement, which he said was largely focused on basic salaries.
“The one for 2021–2025 was just for basic salaries,” he said.
Wasonga said UASU began engaging the government and other stakeholders on the new CBA in November 2025 and had given the negotiations sufficient time before deciding to issue the strike notice.
“We started engaging in last year November and we have been patient as a union. When you see us issue a strike notice, it means we have exhausted all the channels,” he said.
Wasonga maintained that the union's demands could not be compressed into the Sh9.76 billion figure proposed by the government.
“What is in our proposal cannot be reduced to Sh9.76 billion,” he said.
