Children ‘pawns’ in teachers dispute

A parents’ leader called on the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) to cancel industrial action that could see over 500 schools shut for most of next month.

The union’s announcement last night that its 18,000 members will not do supervision and substitution work after the Halloween mid-term break followed a Department of Education plea not to begin such action until it had time to hire replacement staff.

With at least seven weeks needed by schools to hire people for the duties and complete Garda vetting, it may be four weeks later after the November 7 deadline before staff are in place to avoid schools having to close on safety grounds.

The action over loss of payments linked to the duties was mandated by a 78% vote in a ballot earlier this week. The union also announced seven one-day strikes up to December 7, and beginning on Thursday, October 27, the day before the mid-term begins.

National Parents’ Council Post Primary president Paul Mooney said the actions would only affect children.

“This is using children as pawns in the game. The ASTI say they are very concerned about new teachers’ pay, but they don’t seem too worried about students,” he said.

The strikes mandated by an 80% vote in favour of industrial action are in response to ongoing disparity between the pay of longer-serving teachers and those employed since 2012.

Last night, ASTI president Ed Byrne gave a hint of room for manoeuvre on demands for immediate pay parity, when he referred to a recent deal done by the Department of Education with the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation and Teachers’ Union of Ireland. It partially restored cuts to salary scales for post-2011 entrants to the profession.

“I would suggest that they should use that kind of imaginative thinking again, and maybe say when they intend to realign the [pay] scales so we know exactly when new entrants would be paid the same as their senior colleagues,” he said.