Primary teachers say ‘yes’ to pay proposals

Primary teachers have voted by a decisive majority to accept the Haddington Road public sector pay proposals.

In the ballot counted last night, the teachers backed the deal by 63% to 37%, nearly a complete swingaround from their Croke Park II stance.

The executive of the 32,500-member Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO) had recommended acceptance of the deal, saying it was an improvement on the Croke Park II proposals that members rejected in a 70-30 vote in April. It had also advised primary teachers that the pay cuts and extra work involved were better than the alternative.

The outcome follows last week’s ballot result in which 6,000-member Unite rejected the Haddington Road deal by almost three-to-one.

Speaking after the counting of ballots the general secretary of the INTO Sheila Nunan welcomed the outcome and said it was clear that teachers viewed Haddington Road proposals as better than the Government’s alternative proposals.

“Teachers have not so much backed the Haddington Road proposals as rejected the Government’s alternative,” said Ms Nunan.

The INTO vote comes as the leaders of the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) and Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) plan a joint meeting on Friday to discuss their position on the proposals, which they said last month were not sufficiently different to Croke Park II for a second ballot. Both unions had strongly rejected the first set of measures struck at the Labour Relations Commission in February, but ASTI standing committee and the TUI executive decided not to put the latest deal out to ballot. This leaves their combined membership of more than 30,000 second-level and third-level teachers on course for strikes when classes resume in August. Friday’s meeting will consider legal advice on the legislation passed earlier this month giving effect to the deal.

The Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest (FEMPI) Act will see public servants whose unions are not signed up to it lose out on the restoration of increments being temporarily withheld under Haddington Road. They would also lose out on the return of pay being cut from those earning over €65,000, a measure affecting an estimated one-third of teachers.

But any teachers whose unions are not signed up will also miss out on the restoration of pay for supervision and substitution through staggered salary increases, from 2017. The deal also provides for slight increases in pay for new teachers whose pay scales have been cut since 2011, but recently graduated ASTI and TUI members would not benefit based on their current stance.