Ireland’s largest union representing secondary school teachers is to ballot its members on the proposed Public Service agreement with a recommendation that it be rejected.
Public sector workers are set to receive general pay increases of two per cent over the lifetime of the new two-year deal, with the potential of a further one per cent under new sectoral bargaining arrangements.
The agreement would also see a return to 2013 overtime and premium payment rates.
However, General Secretary of the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI), Kieran Christie said the proposed agreement did not achieve equal pay for post-2010 entrants to teaching.
“The proposed agreement includes modest pay increases for teachers; it follows a 12-year period where teachers endured significant cuts to pay and increased work demands,” Mr Christie said.
“In the past 10 months, we have seen an unprecedented display of commitment, flexibility, hard work and agility across a range of Civil and Public Services,” he said.
Mr Christie said that during this time teachers and school leaders had worked tirelessly to support their students and ensure their education continued.
“In this context, it is scandalous to think that a significant proportion of these teachers are experiencing pay discrimination. These teachers have been denied equal pay for up to a decade,” the General Secretary said.
Mr Christie was supported by President of ASTI, Ann Piggott (pictured) who said the union could not accept proposals that involved a continuation of unequal pay for thousands of second-level teachers.
“This injustice is not just felt by those personally affected, but by the entire teaching profession,” Ms Piggott said.
Teachers employed after 2010 are on a lower rate of pay as part of an austerity measure.
Ms Piggott said some of those teachers were now in their 30s and 40s and had substantially reduced career earnings.
Dublin, 11 January 2021
