VEC strike action deferred after temporary resolution agreed

MAJOR disruption in the country’s vocational schools has been averted by the deferral of a strike threatened by administration staff next week.

The action threatened by over 700 staff of the country’s Vocational Education Committees would have affected the payment of teachers’ salaries and student allowances, and disrupted preparation for Junior and Leaving Certificate exams.

However, talks between the IMPACT union, the Department of Education and the Irish Vocational Education Association (IVEA) brought about a temporary resolution to the dispute over staffing levels.

The department’s officials have offered to immediately sanction the appointment of half the 150 extra staff promised after an independent review.

They also promised to appoint the remaining additional staff on a staggered basis up to mid-2005. This offer is to be voted on by IMPACT members, with industrial action put off until the result is known in a few weeks.

“We wouldn’t have put anything out to ballot unless it was a reasonable offer so this could be satisfactory to members,” said IMPACT national secretary Al Butler.

The 33 VECs run almost 250 vocational schools and dozens of colleges running post-Leaving Cert and other further education courses.

IVEA general secretary Michael Moriarty said the strike could have been catastrophic for the education sector.

“It is a huge relief that a resolution to this potentially very damaging dispute is in sight. We have secured an offer that should go a long way to meeting their demands in a very difficult economic climate,” he said.

The threatened strike would have involved hundreds of school secretaries leaving their desks, meaning non-payment of salaries to around 8,000 teaching staff.

Allowances to 5,000 second-chance education students and 900 Traveller training participants would also have been stopped, and there were also fears that State exams could have been affected.