No surprises if teachers show the red card to Croke Park II
Despite the mist of anger behind the less than polite behaviour — most particularly at the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO) congress on Tuesday and Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) convention a day later — the true colour of the wider teaching community’s mood will only become clear the week after next.
As the countdown to the all-important Apr 17 collective vote of public sector bodies in the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu) nears completion, focus will come on the INTO result of its ballot on Croke Park II the day before. An ASTI result will be known in just over a week’s time, but nobody will be surprised if its membership strongly rejects the deal, with its pay cuts for higher-earning teachers and loss of payment for supervision duties prompting the union executive and this week’s convention strongly recommending a no vote.
That would mirror the result issued last week of the Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) ballot, which even caused some surprise to its leaders at the strength of opposition, from four of every five members who voted.
Education Minister Ruairi Quinn and his backroom team have been at pains to avoid saying anything this week other than the Government’s stated position that it backs the Labour Relations Commission proposals to save €1bn in the public service pay bill over three years.
Aside from the anger, the mistrust and the dissolution with Government — and not just a Labour Party that took a hammering in last week’s Meath East by-election — wider education issues still infused the last four days of debate at the union gatherings.
Changes to how junior cycle students are assessed and by whom, new self-evaluation measures for schools, and efforts to hand the probation of new teachers from school inspectors to more experienced members of the profession, would always be expected to draw anger, not least because of the natural resistance to system change in any body of workers.
But the impact on students and learning was as central in the input of practically all teachers to debate on these topics as was their self-interest. And the effects on families and children of ongoing cuts in areas like special needs and perceived threats to small rural schools were equally evident.
More than any other round of conferences of recent years, however, most anger was over pay and conditions and the about-turn by the Coalition on a commitment — albeit by its predecessor — in the original Croke Park deal that there would be no further hit to public service pay before next year.
Five references to trusting in teachers in the script of the minister’s Tuesday morning speech to the INTO was reduced to just one mention that evening at the ASTI convention and again the next day at the TUI congress. It was one of the sources of most heckling at the first conference, as teachers are incensed on what they see as the broken promises regarding their pay, as well as the withdrawal of other education resources.
A more silent majority in the INTO may yet give the deal their approval, preferring the unpalatable cuts and the part-reversal of previous cuts to younger teachers’ pay to the alternative of threatened unilateral imposition of pay cuts by Government.
The TUI and ASTI insisted this week — despite being reminded by some members they did not do so in the past — that they will take industrial action rather than have any cuts imposed on them either by wider acceptance of Croke Park II or by legislation.
But if the INTO does vote against the deal the entire public service, and not just the country’s 65,000 teachers, may be behind them.
