Sign up for deal or your teachers will lose out

Minister tells principals not to give added hours to ASTI members while they hold out

THE Government’s battle with secondary teachers has escalated after members of the rebel ASTI union have been barred from working extra hours in many schools.

And the new instructions to principals hit younger teachers hardest, as many work part-time and rely on the extra work to earn a decent wage.

The move is part of a battle to get the Association of Secondary Teachers in Ireland to accept the new Junior Cycle and sign-up to the Lansdowne Road deal.

The union, which is organising a strike vote, has rejected the deal – agreed with the Irish Congress of Trades Unions last year – because it first wants to restore the cuts in pay and allowances that have hit its younger members; those who have started teaching from 2012.

Education Minister Richard Bruton is working with Paschal Donohoe’s Public Expenditure Department to ‘get ASTI into line’.

The circular says ASTI members are excluded from the increments available under Lansdowne Road, which members of the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation and the Teachers’ Union of Ireland can get. It says ASTI members can’t get ‘first call’ on part-time work in their own school.

An ASTI spokeswoman this weekend said she understood the circular was only sent to schools with both ASTI and TUI members, who represent secondary school teachers.

The union is seeking clarification on whether it applies to all secondlevel schools and if principals will have to take in part-time members of the TUI, which represents primary school teachers, instead of giving the work to a part-time ASTI teacher in their school.

The department said: ‘The effect of the ASTI’s repudiation of the Lansdowne Road Agreement is that it will take ASTI’s members on fixed-term contracts longer to achieve permanent status, and it will take longer for their part-time members to acquire additional working hours, than would otherwise be the case.’

According to the rival TUI, the circular arises from an agreement reached between it and the department in May and was applicable for the beginning of this school term. It ‘supersedes any selection processes that have not been completed, including processes in respect of positions that have already been advertised’, it said.

The circular says that when filling a permanent teaching job or allocating part-time extra-hours, preference will be given to the non-ASTI teachers. This means that in most comprehensive and community second-level schools the TUI members will pick up any extra work and be first in line for permanent vacancies.

Second-level teachers pay can go from €31,000 to €60,000 over a 25-year span and their ‘qualification allowances, of up to €6,000 a year, have been abolished.

There are 3,000 younger teachers in the ASTI, many of whom may not get more than 15 hours work a week.

Many new members on only 15 hours a week