Local teachers unite as one for national strike
LOCAL SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS at Creagh College, Coláiste Bhríde Carnew, Coláiste An Átha, Kilmuckridge and Gorey Community School missed a day of school last week due to a national Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) strike.
Early pickets began from 9 a.m. outside schools which included TUI members as well as their ASTI colleagues, united in solidarity.
In the run up to the strike, there had been concern expressed about interruptions to mock exams, but schools locally managed to reschedule.
Although Gorey Community School is not a traditional TUI school, Principal Michael Finn said that about 50% of staff are TUI members and so the Board of Management took the decision to close the school.
‘Although it would have been impossible for the school to open with the disruption to classes as well as concerns for heath and safety, we thought if you did open, you couldn’t create a situation where colleagues were passing the pickets. People have to work together going forward’.
Michael said that it is difficult to justify why different teachers are on different pay scales.
‘I can certainly see what the TUI they are trying to do, the ASTI have gone down a similar route before. It is difficult to justify in a staff room in a school likes ours when you have two teachers teaching side by side on different pay scales’.
Principal of Creagh College Paul Glynn, who is TUI member himself, said the strike required a minor adjustment to mock exams.
‘Our mock exams started but they didn’t get into full swing until Thursday, so the main impact was the loss of a school day.
‘The pay gap is an injustice. We have a lot of young teachers who are adversely affected, and the decision taken by the WWETB was about addressing that for them. I would be supportive of the campaign.
‘It’s increasingly difficult for us to recruit teachers, as young teachers are paid less.
It is not the only factor but it is definitely one factor’.
The message of the strike nationally ‘equal pay for equal work’, and the action was about making clear to all political parties and general election candidates that its campaign would continue until pay discrimination was eliminated.
Spokespeople for Coláiste Bhríde Carnew, Coláiste An Átha, Kilmuckridge said that although the strike was mandated, all teachers were on strike in solidarity with the campaign.
In a statement, the TUI said it had exhausted every avenue open to it to bring the issue of unequal pay to resolution, and that an overwhelming mandate came from members to engage in industrial action.
TUI President Seamus Lahart said that the union’s campaign would continue ‘until the two-tier pay system, unilaterally imposed in 2011, is finally abolished’.
A TUI spokesperson said last week that the union would consider further action, depending on what transpires after the election.