The Minister notes with disappointment the decision taken today by ASTI members.
The Minister has repeatedly expressed his belief that dialogue between his Department and ASTI is in the best interests of schools, parents, students and teachers. He has also expressed his willingness to extend the benefits of the recent agreement reached with TUI and INTO on new entrant pay to ASTI members in the context of the union’s cooperation with the Lansdowne Road Agreement. This agreement is worth €135,000 to a teacher over their career.
Furthermore, the Minister has also repeatedly offered that if ASTI suspend their directive on withdrawal from the Croke Park Hours while talks are taking place, the Department can in return suspend the implementation of measures associated with the union’s repudiation of the Lansdowne Road Agreement.
The issues of concern to ASTI members can only be resolved through dialogue. Following the ballot result today, the Minister hopes that the union can now engage in constructive dialogue with the Department.
Notes to Editor
Lansdowne Road Agreement
In addition to the agreed improvement in pay for new teachers, the following benefits apply to teachers covered by the Lansdowne Road Agreement:
• Avoiding a 2 year increment freeze;
• Addition of the S&S allowance of €1,592 into the teacher pay scale;
• The Ward Report measures and a revised sequence for filling posts which enable fixed-term and part-time teachers to gain permanent, full-time jobs more easily and quickly than before;
• Continued alleviation of the FEMPI Act pay reductions;
• An increase in the quantum of the Croke Park hours that can be worked on other than a whole-school basis;
• A review of the usage of the Croke Park hours; and
• Protection against compulsory redundancy
New Entrant Pay
A recent agreement with TUI and INTO will see a significant pay increase for 2012 new entrant teachers.
This agreement substantially addresses the current difference in pay between those recruited since 2011 and those recruited since 2012. It will result in increases of up to €2,000 per year for new teachers at the start of their careers. The increase varies depending on the point of scale that a teacher is on - the highest increase being €7,700 and the increase at the maximum of the scale being €4,300. It is estimated that over a teacher’s career the value of these increases will be €135,000.
Examples showing the different salary positions between August 2016 and January 2018 for new TUI/INTO teachers covered by the agreement versus new ASTI members outside of the agreement are shown below.
The revised salary arrangement will be implemented in two phases on 1 January 2017 and 1 January 2018.
Reform measures agreed by the union side include simplified appeals processes for posts of responsibility, a review of the criteria for appointment to posts of responsibility with a view to phasing out Seniority/Length of Service as a stand-alone criterion and that the current review of the post of responsibility structure in schools will provide for a distributed leadership model.
This agreement again shows how progress on such issues is possible within the framework of the Lansdowne Road Agreement.
There remains a pay differential between those recruited pre-2011 and those recruited post-2011 as a result of overall pay reductions at that time for new entrants to the public service. This affects all those recruited into the public service since 2011, not just teachers. The Government has committed to establishing a Public Service Pay Commission to examine pay levels across the public service, including entry levels of pay. The Government also supports the gradual, negotiated repeal of the Financial Emergency Measures in the Public Interest Acts, having due regard to the priority to improve public services and in recognition of the essential role played by public servants.
Department’s Efforts to Engage with ASTI and avoid disruption in schools
The Department has held a number of meetings with ASTI since July to discuss the union’s issues of concern. The Department offered that if ASTI suspended their directive on withdrawal from the Croke Park hours while talks between the union and the Department were taking place, the Department would suspend the implementation of measures associated with ASTI’s repudiation of the Lansdowne Road Agreement
This would provide a more constructive context for talks to take place and would avoid disruption in schools. It would also mean that thousands of ASTI teachers would receive the payment for supervision and substitution as well as other benefits and protections under the Lansdowne Road agreement.
Unfortunately, ASTI have refused this offer thus far - but it remains open to them.
The Minister and the Department remain genuinely of the belief that continuing dialogue between the Department and ASTI is in the best interests of schools, parents, students and teachers. In that regard, the Department is making arrangements to continue the ongoing discussions with ASTI in relation to their issues of concern.
Government Position in relation to the Lansdowne Road Agreement
The Government has committed to fully implementing the Lansdowne Road Agreement in accordance with the timelines agreed. The Lansdowne Road Agreement remains the framework for public service pay. It is the only framework available for managing the needs of the public service while implementing the reforms that enable us to deliver better public services in the future.
Value of Croke Park Hours and Flexibility shown by the Minister to date
The Croke Park hours are part of wider productivity measures introduced under the Lansdowne Road Agreement that require all public servants to work additional time for no additional payment.
Across the public services – education, health, local authorities, civil service etc. - the additional time being provided represents about 450,000 additional hours per annum or the equivalent of between 12,000 and 13,000 public service posts. That is a serious productivity benefit for the Exchequer. Replacing those hours would cost hundreds of millions of euro.
In schools, the Croke Park hours are 33 additional hours a year worked by teachers (less than an hour a week). They mean that schools can carry out essential activities such as school planning and parent-teacher meetings outside of timetabled teaching time.
Before the Croke Park hours were introduced, these activities ate into tuition time. This meant that schools closed for full days or half days in order to carry them out, causing interruption to tuition and significant inconvenience for parents, as well as child care costs – particularly for primary parents.
In response to teacher concerns regarding the use of the Croke Park hours, the Department agreed with TUI and INTO to carry out a review of their usage. This review, which also involves the school management bodies, began earlier this month.
The review provides for an up-front increase in the quantum of time allowed for planning and development work on other than a whole-school basis. The original Croke Park Agreement provided that all Croke Park hours (36 for primary and 33 for post-primary annually) would be worked on a whole-school basis. The Haddington Road Agreement provided that up to 5 of the hours could be worked on a less than whole-school basis (e.g. small groups of subject teachers). The recent agreement increases this maximum to 8 hours in September 2016 and 10 hours in September 2017.