Members will now be balloted on industrial action up to and including strike action over new teachers’ pay.
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Mr Bruton said he sees no reason why the ASTI, the country’s largest second-level teaching union which has a number of grievances with the Government, should go on strike.
The first ballot will relate to the union’s campaign to have pay equality restored across the…
Separately, the ASTI is seeking members’ support for a withdrawal from supervision and substitution duties – which would force schools to close because of lack of cover.
Meeting in Dublin today, its Central Executive Committee agreed to hold ballots for industrial action over two separate issues.
The dispute centres on pay for teachers who were recruited in recent years, and allowances for supervision and substitution duties carried out by teachers in secondary schools.
The union’s rejection of the LRA means its members are not benefiting from partial restoration of pay cuts introduced in the austerity era, which has triggered the ballot on supervision and substitution.
ASTI General Secretary Kieran Christie said: “New and recently qualified teachers are not only faced with years of casual short-term contracts, but an inferior rate of pay for doing the exact same work as their colleagues”.
Minister Bruton says the union made a decision to withdrawn from the Lansdowne Road Agreement, and will therefore not get the benefits of it.
The results of the ballot will be known on 14 October. The results are due in mid-October; any move to take action requires seven days’ notice.
Their union, the ASTI, says their colleagues hired after 2010 are being paid less for the same work.
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“We had an arrangement with the Government that we would provide (supervision and substitution) for three years free of charge and they would then put the money back in two moities”, he told the Pat Kenny Show. Ballot on Lansdowne Road Agreement/measures taken against ASTI members:ASTI members rejected the Lansdowne Road Agreement in 2015.
