Éirígí For A New Republic Commends School Secretaries And Caretakers
Éirígí For A New Republic commends school secretaries and caretakers for securing what appears to be a significant concession from the Twenty-Six county government. Our activists had planned on attending and supporting strike pickets planned by school secretaries and caretakers for September 14th. However, the industrial action was postponed as the day before it was due to occur, after the Department of Education offered a settlement.
The union involved, Forsa, will now consider this with their members and enter into further negotiations if required. Essentially this strike was due to a two-tier workforce in place amongst secretaries, with some of those not directly employed by the Department of Education having had to endure low pay, insecure contracts and signing on the dole for school holiday periods.
The proposed settlement will see this addressed through the introduction of a civil service clerical officer scale for all school secretaries, with a similar arrangement proposed for caretakers who also suffer from the same working conditions.
School secretaries, supported by their teaching colleagues, have been fighting for equality through the SOS - Support Our Secretaries campaign
Interestingly, this dispute had been on-going for four years for the secretaries, despite repeated commitments by government politicians to address the unfairness.
The recent addition of the caretakers to the dispute seems to have provided the necessary critical mass to force the government to give ground . Without the critical work that secretaries and caretakers carry out on a daily basis the school system simply could not function.
Teacher’s unions, while prevented from going on strike in support by the draconian 1990 Industrial Relations Act, also assisted by instructing their members not to carry out any duties normally done by secretaries or caretakers.
The moral of the story? Industrial muscle and a willingness to go on strike gets results for workers. For the last fifteen years Éirígí has consistently backed workers as they battle for equality, better wages and better conditions. And we’ll continue to do into the future.