Teachers cry foul over cuts

PAY, pensions, and other conditions are common themes in the motions for debate by all three teacher unions this week.

The Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) has a number of motions directing its leaders to work to protect pay allowances in the opening session of its annual congress in Wexford tomorrow afternoon.

A motion at the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO) congress calls for a ballot for industrial action if the Government breaches the Croke Park Agreement or its guarantees on pay. If agreed by the 750 primary teachers in Killarney, Co Kerry, it would mirror stipulations already put in place by the leadership of the two second-level teachers’ unions.

A potential legal challenge, on equality grounds, to reduced pay and pension entitlements since last year for new entrants to the profession, might be taken if a motion before the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) convention in Cork is passed.

The question of how allowances should be treated under the Croke Park deal will be a key issue in the coming months, not just for teachers but all public service unions.

An ongoing review of allowances and other payments to public servants is likely to end up on the desk of Attorney General Máire Whelan for advice on whether they are protected under Croke Park.

Brendan Howlin’s Department of Public Expenditure and Reform — which is carrying out the cross-departmental review — has said the focus is on payments to new public servants. But the suspension of any new allowances being paid to existing workers who would otherwise qualify for them has caused anger.

For example, many people allowed to fill middle management vacancies after the departure of thousands of public servants at the end of February will not be entitled to the related pay increase until Mr Howlin’s review is complete, or possibly beyond that. School managers argue that boards cannot fill these posts when the teachers taking them on cannot be paid for the additional work.

Already, the moratorium on filling assistant principal and other middle management jobs has had a big effect on the pastoral care abilities of schools.

However, the effect has also been evident in the Department of Education budget, helping to save €34m in allowances paid for posts of responsibility between 2009 and 2011, almost €20m of that saving being made at secondary level, where the bill for management allowances has fallen to €70.1m from €90m in 2009.

Qualifications allowances cost about €275m in 2011, but unions say they are an integral part of salary and pensions, and that other payments are made for work needed to keep schools running.

INTO president Noreen Flynn said both salaries and allowances are protected by Croke Park and she condemned the decision to review this aspect of teachers’ pay without consulting unions.

“The move is particularly discriminatory against new teachers who have already seen severe pay cuts. The starting salary of a new teacher was previously reduced by 14%, in addition to the 14% reduction imposed on all teachers.”

The INTO says starting pay for a typical new entrant to primary teaching has fallen from up to €40,730 in Sept 2009 to €27,814 for somebody starting in the profession today. This has happened through a combination of the pay cuts for all public servants in 2010, a reduced salary scale for all new entrants to the public service since last year, and non-payment of allowances to anyone who becomes eligible for them since last month, at least until completion of Mr Howlin’s review.

Included in the review is likely to be the payment of almost €1,800 a year to about 41,500 teachers who are available for an hour a week for supervision duties that were previously carried out voluntarily. Introduced almost a decade ago, and helping at the time to end the divisive ASTI pay strike, the supervision and substitution scheme cost almost €90m last year.

The minister’s hands will remain tied in terms of frontline services as long as staffing costs dominate his budget, a problem made all the more difficult by the fact that the baby boom will continue to mean more children in our schools.

TUI president Bernie Ruane said yesterday that an extra 3,000 second-level teachers would be needed in the next 12 years just to keep pace with the estimated 18% rise in student numbers by 2025. The Department of Education projects there will be 383,000 second-level enrolments then, 58,000 more than today.

However, the TUI says the Government must not use the potential cost increase as an excuse to further increase pupil-teacher ratios and impede the educational aspirations of future students.

“This need for additional teachers will also provide a window of opportunity for those young teachers currently struggling to obtain enough teaching hours to earn a living. And it should also offer hope to those young people currently studying to join the profession,” said Ms Ruane.

Not alone will the population boom set the need for more teachers — as long as pupil-teacher ratios are not increased — but it is posing a major draw on Mr Quinn’s capital budget as building works have to be concentrated in areas of the biggest population growth.

The building unit at his department was headed until recently by Seán Ó Foghlú, who took over as secretary general in February.

While the minister will be the public face of the department at the teacher conferences over the coming days, Mr Ó Foghlú and his officials will be trying over the coming months and years to find the fairest solutions to the budgetary crux facing the department.

The measures chosen so far have done little or nothing to attract favourable comment from teachers, parents or students since last December’s two-day budget.

Cuts and restrictions are continuing to resources for pupils with special needs, reduced staffing is on the horizon for dozens of small and mostly rural primary schools (rising to over 200 schools by 2014), and there will be an effective increase in pupil-teacher ratios at second level in the autumn. This leaves secondary schools in the unenviable position of choosing whether to cut the availability of counselling, to drop subjects from their timetables or — as an ASTI survey last week suggested most would probably do — a combination of both.

The teachers are rightfully crying foul over many of these measures and will do so throughout the week.

Despite much public criticism about what is being given in return for their protected pay, the Dáil Public Accounts Committee heard last month that public servants are living up to their side of the deal with a range of productivity reforms.

The message was delivered by PJ Fitzpatrick, who chairs the body overseeing the Croke Park deal’s implementation. Its last full-year report on the benefits accruing to taxpayers showed that €289m was cut from the Government’s pay bill and more than €300m in non-pay savings were achieved.

With public service staff numbers down 23,500 since 2008, Mr Fitzpatrick estimates that the 2011 €480m reduction in public pay costs will be replicated this year.

However, like many aspects of the Croke Park deal, the continuation of current staffing and pay levels without further dramatic cuts to frontline services appears, sadly but realistically, unsustainable.

The Government’s challenge is how to weigh up the two against each other. For public servants, the question is fairly much the same.

We should have a fair idea later this week how the teacher unions propose to answer it.