| | In November 1993, the faculty of Kenya's four public universities went on a strike that was not officially called off until September 1994, in protest against the government's decision not to register their proposed union, the University Academic Staff Union (UASU). Despite many precedents from a number of other African countries, the Moi government has treated the idea of an academic union as an anathema to Kenya's body politic. Even after a long paralysing strike he has refused to submit to internal and external calls coming from the strikers, the opposition and several academic and non-academic unions from other parts of the world, urging him to register UASU. If this unprecedented strike in the history of Kenya's academia showed the extent to which academics had underestimated the government's capacity to withstand the pressure of their collective action (academics had no contingency plans in case the government decided to stop their salaries or evict them from government houses), it also demonstrated the government's resolve to prevent academics from organising themselves into a trade union. |
