JobBridge is exploitative and should be abolished

As a member of the INTO I was delighted to see our general secretary, Sheila Nunan, quoted in your paper (22/8) describing the JobBridge scheme as ‘exploitative’ and urging young teachers not to be pressured into taking up a JobBridge placement.

INTO members have successfully opposed JobBridge since it was first introduced.

At successive annual Congresses, members have by huge margins voiced their opposition to its use and the union has instructed members not to participate in it.

And this has been endorsed in their actions by the vast majority of schools, principals and boards of management of primary schools.

Less than 1% of primary schools have advertised teaching positions via JobBridge and only approximately 6% have advertised for non-teaching positions.

While even one is one too many it is a great credit to the vast majority of principals and teachers across the country that they have resisted the temptation to try to fill some of the many funding and resourcing gaps in our schools through the use of exploitative labour.

To the schools who have used or are intending to use JobBridge, and to the principals and teachers working in them – how is it possible to reconcile an ethos of respect, equality and fairness (which I am sure they all try to inculcate in your pupils) with the use of a scheme that pays people €4.30 per hour?

Please reconsider your actions. If you yourself would not be willing to work for such paltry wages why should you expect someone else to do so?

To members of other unions – look at the success that INTO has had in preventing JobBridge becoming an established route into teaching, when are you going to take a similar stance and protect the working conditions of your existing and future members?

To the government, and to Minister Joan Burton in particular – JobBridge is clearly an exploitative make-work scheme being used to manipulate the jobless figures.

Its existence contributes to downward pressure on wages and conditions and an ‘expectation’ that working for virtually free for 6 or 9 months is the only route into a job.

It doesn’t need yet another review to tell you that JobBridge should be abolished immediately.

Get rid of it now.

Gregor Kerr

Smyths Villas

Dun Laoghaire

Co. Dublin