Inequity on public pay: Solidarity or ...

THE annual teachers’ conferences are about to open and many issues, including educational reform and pay, will be discussed. 

Already the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO) has called on the next minister for education to make pay equalisation for new teachers a priority. This is an entirely laudable and reasonable objective. Apart at all from the inequity of a two-tier system it seems impossible to live what might be regarded as a normal life on the pay rates offered to newly recruited teachers — and to gardaí and many more young public employees who have been asked to carry a disproportionate weight of our economic implosion.

Just this weekend a survey warned of hour-long commutes twice a day for many people on ordinary wages but in jobs that once supported a family. This is unsustainable and will make those vital jobs even more unattractive.

Would it be too much to hope that teachers, and all public servants enjoying a proportion of pre-crisis pay rates, might forego any pay rises until their junior colleagues have caught up with them? Or do they want to widen the gap still further?