Industrial action on cards if pay is cut, warn teachers

Teachers have sent the Government a clear message that it faces industrial unrest in schools and colleges if it tries to cut their pay.

At all three teacher union conferences, the understanding was spelled out that allowances were intrinsic to pay. It was also made clear that their 65,000-plus members will walk away from the Croke Park deal if Education Minister Ruairi Quinn tries to cut or withdraw the payments.

The minister has indicated he recognises the various allowances, totalling €600m of the annual €3.6bn annual teachers’ pay bill, are different from extra pay given to some public servants.

However, union leaders were nonetheless unequivocal in their position on the matter.

“We will not stand for another pay cut. Our allowances are part of our pay. They are for the work we do. They are not extras,” TUI president Bernie Ruane told her annual congress in Wexford.

Earlier, Irish National Teachers’ Organisation delegates passed a motion to vote for possible industrial action if the Government breached the guarantees not to cut pay under Croke Park.

INTO general secretary Sheila Nunan reprimanded Mr Quinn for suggesting to primary teachers they have not grasped the scale of the economic crisis. She said they are seeing the evidence of its effects in their classrooms every day.

The minister faced a dignified protest during his speech to the INTO congress in Killarney from teachers concerned about staffing cuts and fears of closure to small rural schools. The conference later passed a motion seeking a reversal of those cuts, which will hit more than 70 primary schools next autumn and up to 250 by 2014.

Mr Quinn repeated his message about the financial constraints on his budget at the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland convention in Cork. The ASTI also reiterated plans to ballot members for industrial action in the event of any cut to salaries or allowances.

ASTI president Brendan Broderick said the Croke Park deal was accepted only because it was seen as the least-worst option, but teachers expected the official side to honour its commitments.

Delegates backed a motion seeking reversal of changes to guidance allocations, which will see most schools drop subjects, reduce counselling provision, or both.

Mr Quinn today faces the TUI conference, where the Government’s spend of €100m on teacher salaries in fee-paying schools was yesterday described by the union’s John MacGabhann as unconscionable when cutbacks were hitting marginalised students.