Union passes motion to stop technological university pay grade changes without negotiation

(Left to right): Delegates Aisling McCullagh, Evan Gorrell and Brendan McNelis at the Teachers Union of Ireland (TUI) conference in Kilkenny today. Picture: Tommy Clancy

A motion to carry out any “appropriate actions”, including balloting for industrial action and or strike action across technological universities (TU), has been passed unanimously.

On Tuesday, delegates of the Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) annual conference voted to take all appropriate measures in the event of “any attempts by government or individual institutions” deciding to introduce new pay grades or alter existing pay grades without any suitable consultation, negotiation and agreement with the union.

It comes as the Government launched a new professorship grade across the five technological universities — including TU Dublin, Munster Technological University (MTU), Technological University of the Shannon (TUS), Atlantic Technological University (ATU) and South East Technological University (SETU).

Further and higher education minister James Lawless in December said up to 50 professorships were approved, which would start with an initial rollout of 25 positions across the system.

The union agreed on the introduction of professorships but said that any new pay grades introduced by management or government would need further union negotiations.

Local bargaining agreement

Meanwhile, the TUI congress also rejected the Department for Public Expenditure's decision not to give a general pay increase regarding a pay structure set to expire in June this year.

The union claimed that it was still awaiting payment from September last year, which was part of a local bargaining agreement which would have given a 3% increase as long as it agreed to a level of productivity.

A unanimous vote was passed for the motion, which included that “all appropriate action” will be taken to “assert that our agreements with our parent departments are not conditional on the approval of other government departments".

Additionally, the conference heard from teachers working in future education about significant challenges they have faced in implementing the “Further Education and Training (FET) College of the Future” without a nationally agreed framework.

One teacher working in Mayo said the implementation has seen teachers working across campuses and Croke Park Agreement hours.

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Schools have expanded from Castlebar to Ballina and to Westport, but timetables in use for several years have been radically adjusted, removing structure breaks, she said.

“This has resulted, in the last two months, there have been a number of teacher resignations and no full-time level four QQ1, in the county, which has had a detrimental effect,” the teacher added.

She added that without support — “no teachers, no terms and conditions" — there will be “no education in our future, in our FET colleges of the future.”