Teachers ready for ‘lockout’ scenario

Teachers are preparing to present themselves as being in a ‘lockout’ situation next week, as talks to avert the closure of over 500 second-level schools have still not found a resolution to their pay dispute.

Some schools have already written to parents advising them not to send children to school next week due to the health and safety implications of opening without adequate cover for supervision work. But others have advised families to stay in touch with the unfolding situation through the media, as they still hope to be able to re-open after this week’s mid-term.

This week’s second day of talks between Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) and Department of Education officials broke up at teatime yesterday, and they will reconvene at the department today. More than 370 schools where ASTI members work will close indefinitely if they go ahead with a decision to stop doing supervision and substitution work from Monday, while over 100 others are still in the process of hiring temporary supervisors but may not have them in place for several weeks.

The union is expected to publicise the situation as a ‘lockout’ if the closures go ahead next week. “Where access to premises is denied, ASTI would encourage members to take appropriate photographs and email them to ASTI,” says an information notice posted on its website this week.

The members are being advised to turn up in time for their first timetabled class of the day and sign an attendance form being organised by union stewards to show that they were available for teaching duties.

As yesterday’s talks continued, the Oireachtas Education Committee cancelled its scheduled meetings today with the ASTI and Department of Education officials. However, rather than any sign that the parties are making progress, one source said, they felt that it would be inappropriate for either side to air their positions while talks are ongoing.

The all-party meeting was also to have heard from representatives of the school sectors being hardest hit by the industrial action this afternoon, as part of a three-hour session set aside to deal with the teachers’ dispute.

Should the removal of supervision and substitution by ASTI members be called off or suspended, the union’s 17,500 members are scheduled to picket over 500 schools again next Tuesday in their campaign for equal pay for those who started in the profession from 2011.

The Department of Education estimates that an extra €65m to €70m a year would be needed to put over 6,200 new teachers employed in that time on the same pay as longer-serving colleagues.

However, it clarified to the Irish Examiner

yesterday that this is in addition to the €20m cost of increased pay for new entrants in its recent deal with the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO) and Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI). Mr Bruton says the deal is also available to ASTI members if they end their industrial action, offering increases between 15% and 22% to some new entrants by the start of 2018.