The president of the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI), Ed Byrne, has acknowledged that it is “unlikely” the union will secure an agreement in time to avert the indefinite closure of hundreds of schools following the midterm break.
Talks aimed at averting large-scale disruption are due to get under way early next week between the ASTI and the Department of Education.
The ASTI is planning to withdraw supervision and substitution cover from Monday, November 7th, which would force many schools to close on health and safety grounds.
However, there has been little sign of any progress on the union’s key grievances, which include pay rates for new entrants, additional working hours and junior cycle reform.
Department of Education negotiators are understood to be keen to ensure that any agreement with the ASTI will be a comprehensive one which embraces all these issues.
Mr Byrne told The Irish Times: “It’s quite concerning that schools could close by Monday week . . . We would love to have a complete solution to all our problems by then. It’s unlikely that will happen.”.
Several schools, including my own, have began announcing they will be unable to open after the midterm break for Health and Safety reasons as ASTI union members have withdrawn from supervision and subsitution duties (Basically no teacher will watch over students during lunchtime breaks, and if a teacher is unable to go to his/her class or classes, no teacher will cover for her. This is happening because over several years the government does not pay the teachers for their overtime, and now industrial action is being taken), which inevitably puts the health and safety of students at risk, and it would violate the law if schools were to remain open despite this, and thus they will close unless an agreement is met over pay.
ASTI currently plans for 6 additional days of strike, around one a week, after schools are supposed to reopen after the midterms. It has become apparent that, unless an agreement where ASTI suspends action, schools will not reopen after the midterms as they can not guarantee safety of students.
As an student in an Irish secondary school, I honestly think that the ASTI made a huge mistake by taking action now. I support the action and mission of this industrial action, however I doubt the government will meet their demands now. Instead, it would have been much better to take action early next year, like in April/March/May, which would have put the government under enormous pressure as the upcoming Junior Cert and Leaving Cert exams would most certainly be affected (Additional days of school would be added throughout the holidays now to makeup for the lost days), as well as the government already beginning to weaken, which would again make a better case for delayed action in the months leading up to June 2017.
Nonetheless, I doubt any agreement will be made before schools are due to open in just over a weeks time. However while I believe the unions demands will not be met, I do believe the ASTI will inevitably suspend action sometime after the midterms, but I do believe schools will close indefinitely.
So, yeah. My own school has advised students for the moment to not return to school from November 7th on until ASTI members suspend action, so this is escalating quickly. Yesterday most schools were closed on the first of seven ASTI strike days. Teachers will be withdrawing from substitution and supervision duties indefinitely btw, not just for one day.
So, NSG, what do you think? Should the union back down and sign onto an agreement or continue their fight, in turn dashing youth educations, for equal pay for young teachers as well as for hours spent supervising students?
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/educatio ... -1.2857094
Over 400 out of 735 secondary schools are unable to open for the forseeable future due to union action.
