Union set to fight for Croke Park terms

The leader of the country’s biggest teachers union last night said it would “fight vigorously” to protect the Croke Park Agreement on public service pay and reform.

Irish National Teachers’ Organisation president Noreen Flynn said teachers were keeping their side of the agreement and expected the Government to meet its commitments. The agreement, if fully implemented, would deliver huge savings for government, she said.

In her address to the opening session of the union’s annual gathering in Killarney, Co Kerry, Ms Flynn said the deal was a huge prize for the country and it was in everybody’s interest to make it work.

“The prize for government is a 20% cost saving by 2015, a greater cost reduction than most private enterprises with significant staff costs have been able to achieve,” she told 750 delegates representing 35,000 primary teachers.

Ms Flynn said much of the commentary on the agreement was “populist and ill-informed” and aimed at creating false divisions between the private and public sectors that did no worker in either sector any good.

“The Croke Park Agreement has delivered so far and teachers are determined to ensure that it continues to deliver. We will fight vigorously to protect the [agreement].”

During the three-day congress, delegates will demand that the Government honour guarantees under the agreement of no further pay cuts and no compulsory redundancies. They will seek a ballot for industrial action up to and including strike in the event of a breach of guarantees.

Ms Flynn said that under the agreement, teachers were working an additional 36 contract hours per year and operating effective redeployment arrangements. Nearly 2,000 teachers were redeployed last year.

Extra work undertaken by teachers did not include the many additional hours teachers gave of their own time for extracurricular activities such as sport, drama, music, and school trips, the conference heard.

She said this work is much appreciated by parents in local communities and recognised in school reports where parental confidence in the work of primary teachers was as high as 95%, a satisfaction rating which, she claimed, was unmatched in other areas of Irish life.

Ms Flynn warned the Government that further cuts in the starting pay of new teachers posed a serious threat to the quality of education. She pointed out that new entrants to the public service, including teachers, were not protected by the Croke Park Agreement and, as a result, had an additional 13% pay cut imposed.

They were to be offered an inferior pension scheme, had fewer promotional opportunities, and could face further cutbacks on allowances which, the union claimed, were part of salary.

“The primary education system has always prided itself in attracting top quality entrants to the profession drawn from the highest quartile of Leaving Cert students,” said Ms Flynn.

“There has always been significant competition for places, a trait recognised as vital in effective education systems.”

However, there has been a steady decline in the number of applicants for teaching.

“The message is clear. Teaching is becoming less competitive because it is less attractive. This Government is risking the quality of the teaching profession, the most important resource any education system can have.”

She said student teachers who started their training three years ago did so with the expectation of a salary comparable with that of graduates of similar qualifications.

However, new teachers are now looking at a salary cut of up to 14% and a 26-point incremental scale, with little or no opportunity for promotion or the rewarding of further qualifications.