Second-level teachers are to demand that future pay rises are in line with inflation.
However, at the final day of the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) annual conference in Wexford, delegates voted to defer a motion calling on the union to undertake escalating industrial action in September to pursue a 6 per cent pay rise to counter a fall in purchasing power of members since 2015.
This proposal will be reconsidered following forthcoming overall talks between unions and the Government on a new public service pay agreement.
Proposing that the ASTI demand wage rises to match cost-of-living increases, delegate Ann Piggott of the Cork South branch said cars, in general, cost 35 times more than they did in 1972; houses cost 63 times more than in that year; and a packet of crisps cost 80 times as much. However, she said, wages were generally only 27 times what they were in 1972.
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Meanwhile, at the annual conference of the Teachers Union of Ireland (TUI) in Kilkenny on Thursday, delegates demanded the Government pay a 1 per cent increase agreed in return for co-operation with Leaving Cert reforms.
Delegates instructed the union’s leadership that if this payment was not made immediately, and backdated to last September, there would be a ballot of relevant members for a mandate to suspend co-operation with new additional assessment components at senior cycle level and all associated work.
TUI president Anthony Quinn said the union regarded the failure of the Department of Education to pay the 1 per cent due from September as a breach of a collective agreement.
“That failure is not good, not wise, not a technicality. That is a major question of credibility.”
He said too often teachers were asked “to front-load the good faith and the delivery while the system backloads, or offloads, the resourcing and the payment”.
[ Why is it a big week for unions in Ireland?Opens in new window ]
The ASTI conference also demanded the abolition, as part of the next public service agreement, of what are commonly known as the Croke Park hours. This refers to a requirement for teachers to work an additional 33 hours per year outside of normal classes to attend planning, staff or parent meetings.
The conference was told the Croke Park hours were generally disliked by staff and referred to as “detention for teachers”.
Siobhán O’Donovan of the union’s Desmond branch said: “We were told they would improve schools. But we all know that is not what happens.”
“I often hear anecdotally of what I can only describe as disgruntled or unhappy principals, exerting some kind of weird punishment on their staff by insisting that everyone remains [at the after-school meeting] even when the agenda has been met and has been completed.
“It doesn’t happen in my own school where, when we’re finished early, we go home. But I have heard in other schools, staff remaining and sitting until the meeting time has elapsed. It’s just ridiculous.”
[ Teachers must receive substantial pay rise, ‘no ifs or buts’, says ASTIOpens in new window ]
She told the conference of instances where a staff member may be asked to make a presentation just to fill in a final half hour.
“The scenario is, they are giving a presentation they don’t want to give to members of staff who don’t want to hear it. People down the back are googling or they’re shopping online or they are correcting copy books.”
