Demands for equal pay may end ‘outside school gates’
The possibility arises from a motion overwhelmingly passed by delegates at the annual convention of the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI), whose members work at more than half the country’s 730 second-level schools.
Since 2011, cuts to salary scales and withdrawal of allowances for qualifications have placed some newly qualified teachers on annual earnings of €9,000 a year less than counterparts — despite both working full time.
The union’s leaders are now mandated to ballot their almost 18,000 members if the common basic scale that applied to all teachers before 2011 is not restored by the end of August. It will seek the authority to call industrial action, up to and including strikes.
While the issue has been the subject of debate at each ASTI convention since 2011, all those backing each of three motions on the topic said it was time now to make it the union’s main priority.
Richard Terry of ASTI’s Fermoy branch said the convention had asserted the right of new teachers to equal pay for equal work six times in the last six years, with motions “vehemently opposing” cuts, “urgently demanding” reversal, and other such phrases.
“They lacked the threat of industrial action but without such threat, other than out of the goodness of their collective hearts, would the Department of Education change their position?” he asked. “No. It clearly shows how little priority we have placed on this issue.”
Siobhán Peters of the Tipperary branch was undertaking her teaching qualification in 2010 when the government announced a 10% pay cut for those qualifying and starting in the job from September 2011. But, she said, it felt like newly qualified teachers were being left out on their own by other teachers.
“I can’t believe I’m here asking for something to be reversed, five years after it was introduced,” she said. “We know it’s hard to take unpaid strike days, but something needs to be done.”
An added difficulty, she said, is that many more newly qualified teachers would like to have attended the convention in Cork, but union rules prevent anyone who is a member for less than a year from doing so.
ASTI president Máire G Ní Chiarba said the message from the Government has been that the work of newly qualified teachers is not as important or as valued as that of their colleagues. She said that whoever becomes education minister will have to respect and treat all the union’s members as equals, despite the blatant discrimination against newly qualified teachers.
“Anyone who thinks that this situation will be allowed to continue is mistaken,” she said. “The ASTI will do everything possible to right the wrong and to have this shameful situation rectified.”
She stressed that the ASTI was not involved in any way in the cuts to new entrants’ pay, as there were no negotiations or consultation.
“The cuts in 2010 and the withdrawal of qualification allowances in 2012 were nothing short of a betrayal of newly qualified teachers,” said Ms Ní Chiarba.
Bray delegate Yvonne Rossiter said that, four years after her first convention in 2012, the union is still talking about equal pay, and action needs to be taken, up to and including industrial action.
“I don’t want to be here next year and hear the same motions again,” she said. “I said it in 2012 and I’ll say it again, equal pay for equal work, let’s stop this now.”
Mark Walshe, a member of ASTI’s standing committee and the Dublin North East branch, said the next government needs to see clearly that they mean business by being prepared for several days’ strike. But, he said earlier, when the union had tried to vote against the first Croke Park agreement in 2010, they were forced to ballot again.
“In doing so, we endorsed an agreement that protected public servants but did not protect incoming public servants,” he said. “We didn’t do anything at the time the cut in allowances was introduced either.”
His fellow standing committee member, Noelle Moran, said the big difference from the circumstances at past conventions was that the ASTI, having rejected the Lansdowne Road Agreement last autumn, will not be party to a pay agreement after next June.
Editorial: 12
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
