The ASTI bet on a busted flush — then lost heavily
Union officials showed no foresight or realism by leading their members into a school strike, writes Colm O’Rourke ‘Politicians are getting a rise of over €100 a week — while young teachers are trying to survive on a take-home wage of less than €500...’
THE ASTI marched the troops up the hill, as on so many occasions in the past, and then marched them down again. Otherwise they were jumping off the cliff into oblivion.
Calling off industrial action is another abject surrender by the ASTI leadership who promised something it could never deliver and had absolutely no strategy to achieve anything when it came down to it.
If gardai had to be appeased, then the exact opposite applied to teachers. Holding the line against them was very easy by the department and the Government.
The ASTI bet on a busted flush and lost heavily, though I am sure the loony left still think they did a great job by provoking a showdown.
The reasons why the ASTI had to get off its own hook were obvious to anyone with a bit of sense — but in the rush to confrontation, the ASTI backed itself into a corner. The Workplace Relations Committee helped save some face, but the reality is this leadership has no idea what it is doing.
The reasons why the ASTI had to back off quickly were twofold. The talk of contingency arrangements to open schools was an absolute non-runner from the moment it was mentioned, and was purely down to a decision by the ASTI itself not to allow principals of schools, who were ASTI members, have anything to do with the scheme.
It immediately meant that those applying for jobs as supervisors could not even be interviewed by the principals of most schools, and would not be monitored by those same principals if they were allowed into schools. So that scheme could never fly.
The second thing is that there were insurance issues involved if schools opened without adequate cover — and in those circumstances no school management would decide to open.
It meant a doomsday scenario of schools not opening indefinitely and teachers not getting paid. Did the ASTI expect that having shut the schools, teachers would still be paid? Murphy’s dog could have told them otherwise.
It just went to show the absolute lack of any foresight or realism by the ASTI’s top officials in the planning of this campaign.
Partial openings was not going to guarantee teacher payment either — even if there were plenty of teachers who would have made the noble gesture and turned up for work without getting paid. Better than looking in through locked gates. Teachers who came in to only teach exam classes still deserve to be paid — and it is a bit peevish by the department to do otherwise.
Then on top of that, the department circulated teachers, giving them the option of signing up for supervision and substitution, which would have meant schools opening and them getting paid.
This concentrated the minds of those in the ASTI as they saw some members of their own union sign up to do the supervision and substitution — directly in opposition to union policy. (The sanction I presume would have been dismissal from the ASTI.)
If it went on another few days members of the ASTI would have left in droves in order to get back to work and get paid. Somebody in the ASTI obviously begged the Workplace Relations Committee to get involved, in order to get it out of the big hole it had dug for itself.
In the past I warned that the ASTI leadership was pursuing a policy of left-wing confrontation which was not in keeping with the membership. Of course it will argue that the membership voted for it — but it’s one thing having a campaign of industrial action, and another starting something which only humiliates members.
It was demeaning and demoralising having teachers standing outside locked gates last week, for something the public probably does not fully understand.
I felt acutely sorry for the teachers in my school who have been out of work for three days.
They are not greedy, uncaring people. In fact they’re quite the opposite: they are dedicated to their work and go above and beyond to help students in every way. But their own union treated them like dirt.
Teachers in general are caring, hard-working people. Of course there are some who are not up to it, but that is no different to any job.
Nor do young people go into it for the money. They are poorly paid, and career advancement is completely limited by recent cutbacks. It is impossible to get teachers in Maths, French, Irish or Spanish. There are much better jobs elsewhere for these graduates.
Cutbacks in education have created a crisis the public knows nothing about, and the ASTI has now managed to give an impression of teachers which is neither fair or accurate.
The ASTI did strike for equal pay for younger teachers. A noble cause — but the ASTI has come very late to this party (and of course it was a great way to get young teach- ers into the union — naked opportunism).
At the same time the TUI and INTO went off and quietly negotiated for their members. The net result for them has been a substantial increase in pay for their members with further talks for complete restoration coming up. That’s the difference between negotiation and confrontation.
The Department of Education could have moved quicker too. Minister Richard Bruton is a Meath man and it has never been our policy to kick somebody when they are down. Yet in this case he could not resist the temptation to put the boot into the ASTI.
What was wrong with saying pay restoration was an objective and would come in time? He did not even have to say when.
Perhaps he is completely fed up with dealing with an extremist union that tries to block every bit of progress in education. (Remember the ASTI will not cooperate with the new Junior Cycle either — another thing they might want to strike over.)
Yet it does appear a bit rich that the same politicians are getting a rise of over €100 a week while young teachers are trying to survive on a takehome wage of less than €500 a week. This after spending six years in college and funding a master’s degree in education, after their primary degree, which will have cost them more than €10,000.
Now the good news. The ASTI won`t try this on again — no matter what the Workplace Relations Committee comes up with. It also will be faced with plenty of teachers jumping ship. It is more difficult for older members who are in salary protection schemes administered through the union, though it is hardly outside the bounds of possibility that another union would take these on.
When I heard a full-time union official on radio being asked what a young teacher earned and not being able to answer (only to be told by a journalist!), I realised that the most decent, hardest working people in teaching were in big trouble and deserved better leadership.
Unfortunately teachers have been pawns in the ASTI left-wing agenda and their reputations have been damaged. This is part of the bigger breakdown in the social cohesion of the last few years.
The big issues of educational reform have not even made the agenda as a result of the ASTI’s destructive opposition to everything.
Junior and Leaving Cert reform are the important topics — and the union should be negotiating on the best way forward, not what has been going on.
Teachers are flexible, innovative and willing to compromise. Unfortunately the ASTI gives the opposite impression.