Teachers decide to vote on benchmarking

THE decision of the ASTI teachers union to ballot members on the benchmarking package has been welcomed by Education Minister Noel Dempsey.

The union did not participate in the public service pay review, which resulted in a recommended 13% salary increase for teachers.

However, the ASTI’s 180-member Executive Council yesterday decided the deal should be put out to a full ballot. The council made no recommendation on how members should vote, in a series of ballots between March 31 and April 7.

The voting will follow an important Irish Congress of Trade Unions meeting on March 26. Most of the country’s unions will decide at the meeting whether or not to back the recently-finalised Sustaining Progress national pay deal.

The agreement outlines requirements from teachers, such as more flexible timing of parent teacher meetings and a standardised year, which must be met to qualify for extra payment.

Mr Dempsey said he was delighted at the ASTI decision to ballot members on benchmarking.

“I hope we can resolve all of the issues and move forward to discuss broader education issues. I think we need to do that fairly urgently,” he said.

But he said teachers will only get the benchmarking increases if they accept the deal.

“The requirements are clearly laid out, if they don’t accept that, they don’t get paid the particular increase,” said Mr Dempsey.

The 17,000 member teachers’ union withdrew from Congress at the height of their pay dispute before the benchmarking process began.

A ballot is ongoing on whether to accept the €1,423-a-year supervision and substitution deal on offer from the Department of Education.

The package was backed by the ASTI in a ballot last November but differences emerged with school management on how it would be operated.

Around half the union’s branches have voted and most are reporting slightly higher turnout than in the last ballot, when only 55% of all members took part.

The appearance of more younger teachers would suggest a strong Yes vote, despite union leaders’ recommendations to reject it, but the final result next Friday is likely to be extremely close.

Mr Dempsey has told the ASTI he will take the outcome as their final word on the matter. He said he would create permanent posts for non-teaching staff doing supervision and substitution work in secondary schools