250,000 students unsure of schools return due to teachers' strike

Nearly 250,000 students have started their mid-term break unsure when classes will resume in at least 400 second-level schools, with no easing of the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) industrial action plans.

The union’s standing committee made no changes to its planned industrial action after a long meeting yesterday.

While officials updated the committee’s other members on their discussions with the Department of Education over the past week, a spokesperson said the union’s position on the issues in dispute remains the same.

With further talks arranged with Education Minister Richard Bruton’s officials for Tuesday and possibly other days next week, the union is holding firm despite pressure to take steps that would avoid severe disruption to schools and students.

ASTI leaders had expected some concessions by now from the Department of Education, meaning the prospect of further school closures would be much less likely by the time schools closed for mid-term.

But, under pressure from Cabinet colleagues to avoid ceding pay claims that might prompt a raft of related claims from other public service unions, Mr Bruton is holding the Government line.

He repeated yesterday that there were options in a deal already agreed with other teacher unions to increase pay by 15% to 22% for teachers qualified since 2011, and that ASTI can still benefit from other increases under the Lansdowne Road Agreement (LRA) which its members rejected last year.

The union yesterday urged members not to sign forms circulated in second-level schools, which asked them if they are available for supervision and substitution when schools are due to re-open on Monday week, November 7.

These were issued by the department to school managers on Wednesday, the day before the first of seven one-day strikes it announced a fortnight ago, to ensure that ASTI members whose schools close due to their refusal to do supervision and substitution will not be paid.

The second strike is set for November 8, the day after second-level schools return, but it is unclear how many will be scheduled to open anyway in the absence of a resolution next week.

ASTI’s 17,500 members are due to refuse to supervise students before or between classes, or to provide substitution cover for colleagues, a separate action prompted by the department withholding extra pay being given to counterparts who are in the Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI).

The money has not been paid to ASTI members since they were told by their leadership to no longer work the extra 33 hours a year for school planning and other activities from September.

The ASTI says the obligation to do the work ended with a predecessor pay deal to the LRA.

The first strike closed 507 of the country’s 735 second-level schools on Thursday, 374 of them in the voluntary secondary sector — schools run by or for religious orders — which are almost entirely staffed by ASTI members.

But more than 130 others where ASTI and TUI members work alongside each other also closed — 91 community and comprehensive schools, and 42 community colleges run by education and training boards (ETBs).

The voluntary secondary schools will not be able to open unless the ASTI moderates or suspends its industrial action from Monday, November 7, as they have not even advertised for temporary staff to cover supervision duties which members of the union will no longer do from that date.