The Employment and Labour Relations Court has struck out a petition by junior school teachers seeking to form their own trade union outside the Kenya Union of Post-Primary Education Teachers (Kuppet) and the Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut), ruling that the teachers took the wrong legal route.

Justice Monica Mbaru found that the teachers should have appealed the Registrar of Trade Unions' decision under the Labour Relations Act instead of filing a constitutional petition, the Daily Nation reported. The judgment, listed in court records as Odhiambo & 25 others v Registrar of Trade Unions & 3 others, was delivered on October 15.

A union for a new cadre

The petitioners, 26 teachers led by James Odhiambo, joined the system during the shift to the competency-based curriculum, which created junior schools as a distinct tier. On June 6, 2026, they applied to the Registrar for a certificate to promote and register the proposed Kenya Junior School Teachers Union (KEJUSTU), which they said would represent more than 100,000 teachers across the country.

The Registrar turned the application down on July 1. According to the Nation, the office argued that Kuppet and Knut already represented junior school teachers and warned that "registration of new unions will lead to a disruption in the sector due to inter-union rivalry and scramble for members."

The teachers went to court arguing that the Registrar had not properly assessed whether the existing unions served their interests. They said the refusal violated their constitutional right to join a union of their choice and discriminated against them, since other cadres in the education sector have their own unions.

Unions push back

Both established unions opposed the case. Kuppet, through Secretary-General Akelo Misori, told the court that the dispute should have been brought as an appeal, that the teachers had not exhausted the statutory process, and that the union amended its constitution in 2024 to create reserved positions for junior school teachers at branch and national levels. It said it has 131 officials across those levels and noted that only 26 teachers were party to the suit, while the application to the Registrar had been signed by 54.

Knut, through Secretary-General Collins Oyuu, said it represents both primary and post-primary teachers, has negotiated collective bargaining agreements on their behalf and has never shut junior school teachers out.

"The court is not properly moved"

Justice Mbaru agreed that the petition was procedurally flawed. She held that Section 30 of the Labour Relations Act provides a clear appeal mechanism against the Registrar's decisions and that the teachers had not shown why that route was inadequate or what exceptional circumstances justified a constitutional petition.

"The court is not properly moved," the judge said, according to the Nation, adding that constitutional provisions could not be attached to an ordinary labour dispute to sidestep the procedure set by Parliament.

The court also noted that junior school teachers already have elected representatives within Kuppet. Citing Section 31(2) of the Act, which bars a person from being an official of more than one trade union, the judge found that a separate union could not be created to cover interests already represented by an existing one, and that a new union could not be used to remedy losses suffered in union elections.

The wider tug-of-war

The ruling settles the petition but not the broader debate over who should speak for junior school teachers, a fast-growing group that both Kuppet and Knut have courted since the new tier was created. The same court has separately been handling a dispute between the two unions over agency fees deducted from junior school teachers' salaries, in which it issued interim directions to the Teachers Service Commission in September.

Because the petition was struck out on procedural grounds rather than dismissed on the merits of the registration question, the teachers could still pursue the statutory appeal route. It was not immediately clear whether they intend to do so.

Photos: Junior school teachers demonstrate for autonomy in Kwale (Nation Media Group, file); the Judiciary building in Nairobi (Wing / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0).