Striking nurses got deal, we should too, says head of ASTI
Agreement needs adjustments
TEACHERS are to seek pay rises on the back of the deal the Government offered to striking nurses, secondary school union the ASTI has confirmed.
General secretary Kieran Christie said it is now time to return to the table, indicating his union will seek additional pay benefits following the agreement reached with nurses, which he said ‘stretches and strains’ the public pay sector deal.
He said it was now time to reopen the agreement, to ensure a fair distribution of benefits across the public service.
‘It’s very clear that the agreement that has been thrashed out with the nurses, and we’re very supportive of that, stretches and strains the terms of the public services stability that we’re all encompassed by,’ he said.
‘As such it needs to be reopened and its terms looked at to see that the benefits are ‘Let’s talk’: Kieran Christie distributed equally across the public sector, not just with teachers but across all public servants.’
He added: ‘Paschal Donohoe put a cost of €10-15 million this year on their [nurses] deal and indeed €35million next year. We may as well accept that the boundary has been pushed out and there needs to be a discussion around that.’
The Government reached the agreement with the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation following recommendations from the Labour Court to end strike action.
One Government source told the Mail ‘it appears that chickens are coming home to roost’, with the Department of Public Expenditure having repeatedly warned that giving in to nurses demands would lead to knockon claims from other public sector workers, that are unsustainable for the public purse.
Put to him on RTÉ’s Today With Seán O’Rourke that public pay claims were made difficult by the inevitability of ‘piggybacking’ from other sectors, Mr Christie said: ‘We wouldn’t accept that agreements are set in stone because there’s an extent to which things cannot be predicted during the duration of an agreement.
‘The goalposts have changed within the context of this agreement and we need adjustments.’
The union is also seeking redress from the Government over penalties imposed on its members after they engaged in industrial action two years ago.
Teachers lost pay and were hit with further penalties after taking industrial action and withdrawing from the public pay deal in 2016 and 2017.
Similar penalties were not imposed on nurses who went on strike earlier this year.
A spokesperson for the Department of Education confirmed that the ASTI had requested a meeting on the issue and had said it had ‘indicated its willingness to meet the union on this matter’.
Mr Christie also said the issue of pay equality ‘remains top of the agenda’ for the ASTI. ‘It is entirely unacceptable in this year of 2019 that two workers working side-byside are paid different rates,’ he said. ‘That is unacceptable and the ASTI will not stop until that is addressed.’
A two-tier pay system was introduced during the recession in 2011, created a lower pay rate for teachers entering the profession after that point.
The INMO is still balloting its members on whether to accept the terms of the deal they were offered, and the Department of Public Expenditure has said it cannot comment while that ballot is ongoing.