Crucial education stance in balance as leaders differ

THE crucial views of teacher union members on the public service pay deal will emerge today after a week in which their leaders have voiced clear differences.

Primary teachers opposing the deal reached by public service unions and the Government last week made their views known to fellow delegates at the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO) annual congress in Galway yesterday afternoon.

They claim that acceptance would mean a complete rewriting of the teaching contract, an extra hour’s work per week and inferior pension arrangements for new teachers.

A motion from INTO’s Dublin north-east and Dublin north-west branches asking the 750 delegates to recommend that the union’s 32,000 members reject the deal in an upcoming ballot, is expected to generate heated debate this morning.

However, following the INTO executive’s decision last week to recommend acceptance of the deal, the union’s president yesterday said it offers a way forward, even though she cannot pretend to like it.

“These proposals, while unacceptable in many ways, hold out the hope that public services can be protected and that some certainty can be delivered on pay, jobs and pensions with the prospect of restoring pay cuts over time if savings can be generated,” Máire Ní Chuinneagáin said.

The vagueness of the planned teacher contract review at all education levels is emerging as a key worry among members in all four teacher unions, including the Irish Federation of University Teachers whose executive will consider the deal tomorrow week.

Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) general secretary John White said yesterday he would be surprised if the 180-member central executive council did not recommend rejection of the deal. It will meet on Friday after the ASTI annual convention which begins today in Galway.

“With second-level teachers, there’s a feeling that there are so many imprecise elements to it. For example, it speaks of a comprehensive revision of the contract and teachers are extremely worried as to what that might mean in a context where they have taken a 15% pay cut.”

The executive of the Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI), which represents second and third-level teachers, is already recommending rejection of the deal by its 14,500 members, but a decision on whether a full ballot will be taken is to be made by delegates at its annual congress beginning in Ennis today.

TUI general secretary Peter MacMenamin said his union would not be bound by an overall decision in favour of acceptance if the deal is backed by the wider public service union movement.

“The members are prepared to consider alternatives to negotiation. That obviously means a form of industrial action. They have to consider an escalation of industrial action,” he said.

“That is something my members are perfectly prepared to take on board rather than see their pay packets slashed further with no particular guarantees into the future and the cuts in the resources for education,” said Mr MacMenamin.

While insisting he did not wish to intervene in discussions around a deal negotiated on behalf of public service workers only, Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) general secretary David Begg said he has not heard an alternative proposal that could be described as better.

“It seems to me to offer the best potential solution to these problems, but I respect anybody who takes a different point of view. The only thing is, they’ll have to present an alternative narrative about what to do,” he said.