The Teachers Strike October 27, 2016
Posted by irishelectionliterature in Irish Politics.trackback
ASTI are out striking today , so most secondary schools (unless they are purely TUI and Non Union) will be closed. The real issue for schools comes after the mid-term break as “ASTI will withdraw from supervision and substitution from Monday, November 7th”.
The ASTI membership rejected The Haddington Road agreement which contains additional Substitution and Supervision (as well as the pointless Croke Park Hours). However ……
The article goes on to state ….
In relation to the ASTI withdrawal from supervision and substitution duties, the department’s circular states that it is a matter for school managers to decide whether their school can open without health and safety risks while teachers are refusing to carry out those duties.
The circular outlines the arrangements to be made to remove from the payroll all teachers covered by the ASTI directive who have not confirmed that they are available for the full range of duties including supervision and substitution from 7 November.
It states that teachers who wish to remain on the payroll must confirm their availability for the full range of duties – including supervision and substitution – from 7 November onwards by submitting a completed form to the principal as soon as possible.
It confirms that teachers who do not confirm such availability will not be paid for the duration of the closure.
So Teachers who go in to do their normal days work , which is teaching children, will be unpaid as they are refusing to do supervision and substitution which was part of the deal rejected by the teachers.
Now what is crazy about this ,is that ASTI members are not being paid the extra from the Haddington Road agreement anyway as they have rejected it. So they would be doing supervision and substitution unpaid in the first place!
If the dispute isn’t settled then from the 7th of November many schools will have difficulty with supervision and substitution as TUI members will refuse to do supervision and substitution that ASTI members are down for. Indeed my own daughters school sent a note home yesterday stating that they may have difficulty reopening on the 7th after the mid term break. I imagine that there will be quite a number of schools that won’t be able to function from the 7th onwards.
We’ll see how it plays out.
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The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
Worth noting that as well as newly-qualified teachers being entitled to be on the same pay scale as others, the new Junior Cert syllabus is also still an issue, although it’s getting pushed into the background behind pay equality.
Her nibs, who is an ASTI member, maintains that it is so dumbed-down compared to the current one that it’ll leave kids horribly unprepared when they move on to the Leaving Cert syllabus.
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UNITE THE UNION EXPRESSES SOLIDARITY WITH ASTI-Statement from Jimmy Kelly, IRISH GEN SEC
As Bruton Announces Lock-out of teachers prepared to teach
William Martin Murphy Lives
FULL STATEMENT http://wp.me/pKzXa-sM
Jimmy Kelly REg SEC UNITE
“Unions must avoid facilitating Government attempts to divide public sector workers
Unite expresses solidarity with ASTI members ahead of Thursday’s strike action
Unions must unite to demand accelerated unwinding of FEMPI
Trade union Unite today (Tuesday October 25th) warned that the trade union movement as a whole would pay the price if attempts to divide public sector workers ahead of Thursday’s scheduled ASTI strike are successful. Expressing solidarity with teachers taking industrial action to restore equality of treatment between newly-qualified teachers and those with longer service,”
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Eight Times on RTE RICHARD Bruton refused to commit in principle to equalisation of pay scales for recent entrants
Discussion http://wp.me/pKzXa-sM
He also refused to respond to the suggestion that longterm reduction of pay scales for teachers was part of government strategy. Importantly he did not deny this in response to presenter.
It is worth noting that the new single pension scheme for recent entrants to the public service would be illegal in the private sector. There is no effective employer contribution. TRIDENT CONSULTING reported to Teaching Unions that a person would have to live to 95 to get their own money back! Officials told a TUI Congress that you would be better off putting the money in a jar on the mantle piece!!!
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I don’t want to be pedantic, but there’s a slight mistake in your post IEL, that means the situation is even more absurd than you say.
Put todays strike aside for a moment, the real mess relates to the supervision payment, and that is what comes to a head on Nov 7th. For about 15 years this work was done as an optional extra by teachers, and was paid for by the dept. As part of CP2 it was proposed that it would be absorbed into the core work of a teacher without any extra payment. This was rejected and the Haddington Rd deal – which was finally accepted – was that we would do the work unpaid for two years, and then there would be a salary rise spread over two years to compensate for that.
So we agreed to do the work unpaid for two years, and we have kept that deal. When we refused to sign up to the LRA, I thought it was inevitable that we would lose the 1k payrise this year that was part of that agreement. Fair enough: a bit of a hit to the pocket, but hopefully it would help secure a better deal in the future.
What is extraordinary is that the govt have said that not only will they not pay the rises due under LRA, they will also refuse to pay the monies due under the HRA, which was accepted by teachers and which has been honoured in full by us.
This happened over the summer. It was always inevitable that we would withdraw form this work. the Dept has had 3 months to plan for that withdrawal. the fact that they failed to do so would suggest they actually want to close the schools and force a confrontation.
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Thanks, you put it far better than I could. My wife is in ASTI so its all very close to home.
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6 to 5 is exactly right
That is why the Bruton threat to stop paying ASTI members for teaching duties if they refuse to do S&S unpaid is a threat of a lock-out.
Discussion http://wp.me/pKzXa-sM
It is the minister who is in breach of the only general industrial relations agreement between Department of ED and ASTI
The reason the Minister is doing this is in an attempt to coerce ASTI into a new agreement desired by the employer only
This is a breach of the right to free trade unions
The imposition of penalties such as increment freezes on new teachers for joining ASTI rather than TUI is a breach of ARTICLE 11 of European Convention on Human Rights which explicitly forbids restrictions on the RIGHT TO FREE ASSOCIATION
My wife is a former TUI rep in a “dual Union” community
school -I am well advised also!!!!
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Just back from picket duty. Strong support from passers-by. Even a few cups of coffee.
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Gave the thumbs up to the strikers outside Loreto, Stephens’ Green this morning. Hadn’t the guts to tell them I’m an IMPACT member whose non-involvement in union activity for many years has assisted in enabling the complete conquest of the union by right-wing bureaucrats.
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I’m sure they would have understood, Joe.
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Her nibs couldn’t remember such strong support from the public compared to any previous time they’ve been picketing. Not just motorists beeping and giving them the thumbs-up – the wee coffee shop over the road sent over trays of tea (and the owner is a parent of kids in the school) and the local Butlers Pantry brought them over coffee and buns and got them all to pose for selfies.
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Ditto my better half, they were brought Coffee and buns by a local as they picketed and I gather this happened regularly throughout the various rosters.
Another encouraging thing was a number of their recently retired colleagues also joined the picket today.
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Don’T Forget TUI/INTO DEMO for Pay Equalisation at Dail at 4.30 pm to-day
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There’s an Asti member in this house, too, who shares Mrs Nightdub’s feelings about the Junior Cycle syllabus, and now has parents haranguing teachers about their children losing 10% of their English mark, thanks to more provocative remarks by Minister Bruton. It’s not just Bruton of course. We read plenty about a supposed hard line group in the Asti that’s calling the policy shots, but little about an equally hard line cabal in the DES that is hell bent on pushing through Junior Cycle ‘reform’ and rabidly anti-Asti. Where the interests of this group and our polical leaders coincide is in their shared wish to turn teachers into a class-two profession, powerless facilitators of a curriculum imposed by themselves, with massive accompanying doses of ‘accountability’, ‘feedback’, CPD and all the other management science crap.
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The media are having trouble dealing with a dispute that would see little material benefit to the vast majority of participants: ‘holding the country to ransom’, ‘ selfish’ etc don’t really apply. Pat Kenny was reduced to calling poor old mad Ed Walsh this morning.
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Watched Prime Time last night and thought the ASTI chap did well, however they still need to explain the Supervision and Substitution part of the dispute better. Seems to be a lot of schools saying that they won’t be reopening on the 7th of November.
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Yeah, I can agree with you about that performance. However, I watched the ASTI President on RTE 6pm news last night. Incredibly, he said he was“flying a kite” in suggesting that there might be a “temporary proposal” to enable union members to work supervision duties in return for a concession on job security for young teachers. It’s utter nonsense to effectively say ‘We surrender’ on the first day of industrial action. Who the hell gave him the mandate for that! Once something is put on the table, it’s highly unlikely to get it taken back. I’d hate to be right, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they knuckle down to securing a piecemeal and warped package following intensive discussions next week.
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IMPACT’S HARBOR BACKS GOVERNMENT’S FALSE CLAIM OF MONEY SHORTAGE TO ATTACK STRIKING TEACHERS AND GARDAI THOUGH GOVERNMENT GAVE HUGE BENEFITS TO THE RICH IN THE LAST TWO BUDGETS IN DOING SO, HE IS JUSTIFYING CONTINUED CUTS TO PAY AND INCREASED HOURS FOR IMPACT MEMBERS AND ALL PUBLIC SERVANTS
Full Article and Discussion HOW ICTU IS FAILING US http://wp.me/pKzXa-gw
HARBOR says “What is less understandable – and unacceptable – is the notion that some groups of public servants should be favoured with accelerated pay increases at the expense of the rest.” -IRISH TIMES Anti-Trade-Union LAW FEMPI is not even mentioned in his article!!!- In fact there are huge amounts of untaxed personal wealth in Ireland. But instead of taxing it, the government is gave huge benefits to the top 5% of income recipients on an average of 186,000Euro per year in the last two budgets.
In backing the government’s false claim of money shortage, Harbor is justifying the continued pay reductions and increased hours imposed on IMPACT members and other public servants. He is creating division among public service trade unionists.
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