Teachers' view: ‘I’d have more disposable income on social welfare’

The issues on the picket line at schools around the country yesterday were the same — equal pay for recently-hired teachers and meaningful restoration of pay for others.

At Douglas Community School in Cork, nearly two-thirds of a staff of around 40 are members of the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI), the rest being in the Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI).

One of the ASTI members striking yesterday was Brid O’Dwyer, from near Cahir, Co Tipperary, a teacher of English and history. She started her career in 2013 after completing a three-year degree and a two-year teaching qualification.

Brid began a one-year contract this term, but commutes every day because she cannot afford to rent in Cork due to the lower pay than what she might earn if her teaching career began before 2011.

“My net pay is €390 a week. But I know of someone who qualified just a few years before me who is coming out with nearly €200 more than that,” she said.

Like many teachers without a permanent contract, she is helping out with more extra-curricular activities to put herself in a favourable position if a more secure job comes available. She does not get home until 7pm some evenings, after leaving before 6am to beat the traffic.

“Between the various costs, including the price of diesel, I worked out recently that I’d have more disposable income on social welfare. I’m considering getting a weekend job so I could maybe afford to rent in Cork and not have to commute,” said Brid.

The possibility of ASTI members who do not have a permanent job being given quicker access to contracts of indefinite duration (CIDs) — effective permanency with minimum guaranteed weekly hours — was yesterday floated as something the Department of Education might use to encourage the union to suspend further industrial action after the mid-term break. ASTI president Ed Byrne said this might be considered if that CID entitlement were offered to his members in non-permanent posts after two years instead of four, the same reduced timescale now available to TUI members in light of their recent deal with the department that also partly bridges the gap between teachers hired before or after 2011.

However, rather than a formal proposal, he was surmising that this might be something the union would put forward next week if any ongoing talks have failed to find resolution. Those talks are scheduled to resume today, but no progress has been reported by either side in several rounds of negotiation over the past week.

The ASTI’s 17,500 members are due to stop doing supervision and substitution duties at over 500 schools from Monday, November 7. The action threatens to close nearly 400 of them indefinitely because managers have not looked for temporary staff, saying principals are not being allowed by ASTI to deploy or manage those hired. More than 100 dual-union schools are hoping to get in replacement supervisors in time to restrict closures to the first few days after the mid-term.

But Kerry-based teacher Ann Piggott, who represents a number of Cork branches on the ASTI’s standing committee, said principals and deputy principals do not want to be exempted from the directive on supervision and substitution because of what happened during a previous ASTI pay dispute 14 years ago.

“They don’t want to be caught up in the middle of this. It led to bad feeling and tension in schools before,” she said on the picket line in Douglas, before joining colleagues at Pobalscoil Inbhear Scéine in Kenmare.

While Mr Bruton has warned it could be early December before staff are Garda-vetted and trained for work at schools that have advertised for supervisors, Ms Piggott said there was plenty warning of the potential industrial action.

“And as I understand it, there’s a shorter vetting process [than the minister suggests], so that’s not a valid excuse,” she said.

“We’re being locked out on Monday week when we should be coming back after the mid-term. We won’t be on strike, we’re available for work, we’re just not going to supervise on that day seeing as we’re not being paid for it,” Ms Piggott said.

The department followed through on Wednesday with the arrangements Mr Bruton spoke about last week, as it plans to dock pay from teachers whose refusal to make themselves available for supervision leads to their school’s closing.

While the ASTI has said they are no longer being paid for supervision, strictly speaking neither are their counterparts in the TUI or Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO). Although the figure of almost €1,600 being added to the salaries of members of those unions in two phases up to September 2017 equate to the previous payment for that work, it has been incorporated into their core pay rather than being explicitly for supervision.

Douglas Community School business teacher Ted O’Sullivan was one of a minority nationally who did not previously do the 37 hours of supervision and substitution annually for which that payment used to be made. As a result, he and thousands of others lost over €1,700 from their pay at the same time that those who continued doing the work were no longer paid for it.

“I did do it at first and got paid, but it’s very stressful to teach all day and then stand up and eat your lunch in a yard,” he said.

A teacher at the school since 1994, Ted said there was not a single word in the Lansdowne Road Agreement about the pay of recently-qualified teachers, despite Government insistence that the deal covered the issue.

“The only reason that a deal was done to give something back to younger teachers in the TUI and INTO was because my union has taken our stance, and we’re the only public sector union standing up [for lower-paid colleagues],” he said.

That deal with TUI and the INTO was finalised last month, just as ASTI members were about to ballot on industrial action.

Mr O’Sullivan said nobody is happy to be out picketing when they could be teaching and preparing students for their exams.

“I have students who are worried, obviously, and we don’t want to do this. But what else can we do?

“We’re not talking about a pay rise, we’re talking about getting back some of the pay we lost. What was on offer under the LRA was 1.5% by 2018, out of the 16% I’ve lost,” he said.