Members of a major Irish teachers union have rejected the latest Public Service pay agreement by a substantial margin.
A ballot of members of the Association of Secondary Teachers in Ireland (ASTI) resulted in the deal being rejected by 79 per cent to 21 per cent.
The main sticking point was the failure to restore full pay equality for staff recruited since 2011.
The two-year successor to the Public Service Stability Agreement covers around 350,000 Public Servants and will add around €900 million ($A1,400 million) per year to the Government’s wage bill when fully implemented.
The ASTI was the first Public Service union to deliver a ballot result on the deal, and while it is a rejection, the deal is expected to be carried on an aggregate basis because other unions representing Public Servants were largely voting in favour.
Public Service employees belonging to the Unite and Connect trade unions voted to accept the agreement by a margin of three to one.
Members of the Prison Officers Association also overwhelmingly endorsed the agreement with 95 per cent voting in favour.
However, medical laboratory scientists, who carry out COVID-19 testing, voted to reject the proposal.
The Medical Laboratory Scientists Association said 96 per cent of its members voted against the proposed deal in a ballot, the turnout was 71 per cent.
The agreement guarantees one per cent pay rises in October of 2021 and 2022, along with potentially a further one per cent through a process of sectoral bargaining.
There is also to be a process leading to the rolling back of unpopular additional unpaid hours imposed on State employees in the 2013 Haddington Road Agreement, and the restoration of pre-austerity rates of overtime and premium payments.
However, despite those benefits, the ASTI membership has voted to reject the deal on the basis that so-called ‘new entrants’ are still suffering pay disadvantage.
Some have now been working for more than 10 years on pay scales 10 per cent lower than their pre-2011 colleagues, imposed as part of an austerity deal in the wake of the Global Financial Crisis.
President of the ASTI, Ann Piggott (pictured) said it was up to the members what happened next.
Dublin, 11 February 2021
