The Labour Court has rejected a bid by the Teachers Union of Ireland (TUI) to have the pay of some senior staff at the new technological universities linked to their Dublin-based counterparts.
The union says only a small number of staff are directly impacted, but that the dispute has implications for the 4,600 lecturers and academic managers and its campaign for pay parity across the wider sector.
The Labour Court process followed a vote for industrial action by a group of TUI members at Munster Technological University (MTU) and a failure by the parties to resolve the dispute at the Workplace Relations Commission.
The union claimed a lack of consultation in late 2023, by the Department of Further and Higher Education (DFHE) on the rates of pay assigned to a number of senior grades at MTU, was in breach of a 2017 agreement. It says the 2017 agreement was intended to provide a framework for dealing with issues around the establishment of the new technological universities.
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The appointments were to be of five vice-presidents and five deans. The current rates listed for those positions on the MTU website are €168,137 and €156,381 respectively. The union, however, argued that pay scales at the new universities outside of Dublin should be the same as at TU Dublin, where both of those roles command a salary of €182,426.
The department said it intended to apply three different rates to roles in different institutions. The union said this was in breach of the 2017 deal.
The two sides engaged and the court suggests progress was being made. The DFHE is said to have made a business case to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform for the payment of TUD rates to senior staff at the Atlantic Technological University (ATU). It is understood the business case was made on the basis of student numbers and wider scale.
However, the court notes that in January of last year, on his last day in office, then-Minister Patrick O’Donovan showed “complete disregard for the process the parties were engaged in”. He did this, it went on, by setting “out his approval for the filling of senior management posts in four of the technological universities at a rate lower than similar posts in Technological University Dublin”.
The Department of Public Expenditure subsequently indicated that, based on empirical evidence, it did not feel the higher rates should be applied at ATU.
The DFHE, the court indicates, said that while the process of rolling out the scales might have been handled better, there had been no breach of the 2017 agreement. It said having different rates of pay was fair and justifiable.
The TUI disagreed and asked the Labour Court to refer the issue to the body established by the Government to review higher remuneration.
In its recommendation, however, the court said there was no mechanism for it to do so. TUI said it will consider the outcome next week.
