Education in Ireland is at a tipping point, with persistent departmental overspends (evidently in the wrong areas), perpetual recruitment and retention issues in urban areas, a crisis in school avoidance, and the dark, looming shadow Artificial Intelligence casts over the fundamental purpose of education.
As the ink dries on Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers’s appointment to Cabinet, his inexperience at the top table has left him standing to gain valuable insights from the political leverage and formidable influence of the teacher unions of Ireland in delivering their desired outcomes.
Time continues to run out for the government, as it is forecast on Wednesday, the 14th of October, that Ireland’s three teacher unions: the Irish National Teachers Organisation (INTO), the Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI), and the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI), will participate in all-out strike action, the first of its kind seen in a generation. Unions overwhelmingly voted in favour of strike action, with 99.5% of INTO members voting in favour of strike action. Wednesday’s industrial action follows a work-to-rule that has been in effect for some unions since Monday, the 5th of October. The unions, as outlined above, are a powerful lobby with a combined membership of over 92,000 teachers across the country.
The industrial action, which has been taken and further scheduled by the teacher unions, is in direct response to delays by the Department of Finance and Public Expenditure in agreeing on a new public sector pay deal for teachers. At the beginning of this year, the current stage of the pay deal allocated a 1.5% pay increase for teachers, despite inflation running at 3.4% at the time. Inflation is currently increasing at a rate of 3.9%. The previous public sector pay deal expired at the end of June. The timeline above, from June to now, early October, highlights a systemic recurring issue of government inactivity, with little to no light work being done across the summer months, only for the government to later grapple with the consequences of the long-festering come the winter. In a way, the disruption is the cost of the cabinet’s complacency.
Minister Chambers promoted Budget 27 as having significant allocations for public sector workers. However, his comments describing the industrial action as “disruption (that) is completely unnecessary” may have a similar effect to fanning the flames of a wildfire. In a post-Budget 27 interview on Newstalk, former teacher himself, An Taoiseach Míchéal Martin stated, “people want industrial action irrespective of what happens”. Both Cabinet members underscore Sinn Féin’s mantra of a government that seems to be “out of touch” with the current difficult economic climate faced by public sector workers, of whom the government are the primary employer.
The ASTI-mandated work-to-rule has particularly impacted modern-day practices in post-primary teaching, with the cancellation of meetings outside of school hours and non-cooperation with email, phone, and other online platform communications. All public sector unions currently engaged in strike action have stated that unless there are clear pay commitments at the start of talks, there will be no credible basis for negotiations. A €400 income tax cut set out in Budget 27, days after the teacher unions declared their intention to engage in industrial action, although welcomed by unions, was described as “not going to cut it” by the General Secretary of the INTO, John Boyle.
Having been a schoolchild during the lengthy 2000-2001 ASTI school closures and industrial standoff with then Minister of Education Michael Woods, Minister Chambers has tried to dictate the early days of this industrial dispute on his own terms, by calling the unions to the table; however, the ball is very much in the teachers’ court. In April of this year, an unorganised group of fuel protesters brought the country’s main arteries to a halt. An organised union-mandated teacher walkout threatens widespread disruption for working families across the country to a similar, if not greater, effect.
The Croke Park Agreements of 2010-2014 have changed the landscape for entrants to the teaching profession on or after 2011, with a two-tiered system of pay for entrants pre-2011 and post-2011, increased productivity assigned to teachers, and pension slashes, in an educational context which faces continual dynamic changes to the job and practice. Education in Ireland is at a tipping point, with persistent departmental overspends (evidently in the wrong areas), perpetual recruitment and retention issues in urban areas, a crisis in school avoidance, and the dark looming shadow Artificial Intelligence casts over the fundamental purpose of education. One would wonder why the typically vocal teacher unions have not taken to strike action sooner. A revolution looms, industrial peace has been disrupted, and its restoration date remains uncertain.
With Wednesday’s walkouts firmly pencilled into the diary, unions have already doubled down, with another all-out strike scheduled for the 21st of October, escalating the industrial crisis before the first walkout gets underway.
What will all of this mean for UCD students?
The strike action’s disruption on Wednesday will translate to lighter traffic on roads across the country. Good news for commuters to UCD on Wednesday! The bad news, however, is that many UCD staff will concurrently engage in an all-out strike on the same day. Classes, tutorials and labs will be cancelled, with campus libraries also shut.
UCD students on placement or internships with government agencies are advised to check how this may affect their hours and/or work on Wednesday.
For many students, therefore, the strike action will mean at least one of the following: an extra mid-week shift in work, a lie-in, scrambling to find a study space in a rammed off-campus café, or a spontaneous night out on Tuesday; expect Coppers and the Fade Street area to be jammers.
What will it mean for teachers in the long run? Well, that remains to be seen.
Seán Óg Mac Seoin – An tEagarthóir Gaeilge