Croke Park Deal Given Red Card by INTO Teachers

national | worker & community struggles and protests | news report Monday May 10, 2010 22:53 by INTO Vote NO

“Show Croke Park deal the Red Card” say campaigners

Members of the ‘INTO Vote No’ Campaign gathered outside Croke Park today ) to call on members of their union, the Irish National Teachers Organisation, and other public sector unions to reject the Croke Park deal in the ballot currently underway.

INTO members give the Croke park Deal the Red card!

Yep some of the INTO teachers held placards with the slogans ‘SHOW THIS DEAL THE RED CARD’ and ‘KICK THIS DEAL INTO TOUCH’ the campaigners launched ’10 Reasons to Vote No’.

“The INTO leadership last week launched a poster entitled ‘10 things to consider before you vote’. This was an attempt by them to counter the strong ‘No’ viewpoint that they had met at Information Meetings throughout the country,” said Niall Smyth, spokesperson for ‘INTO Vote No’. “But it is a very unconvincing document, and our response answers each of their claims in turn”

“Likewise the so-called clarification issued last week answers none of the arguments against the deal,” Mr. Smyth continued. “In particular the attempts to muddy the water in relation to the government’s get-out clause will fool no-one. The document itself clearly states that its implementation is subject to no currently unforeseen budgetary deterioration. If this is passed, there’s no reason why the government won’t get the new contract and new pension in place, and then declare an ‘unforeseen budgetary deterioration’ and cut our pay. It’ll be a bit too late for the union side to ‘cease to be bound by the terms of the Agreement’ then. The document offers no guarantees on pay. INTO members and all public sector workers should vote No.” Mr. Smyth concluded.

The ‘INTO Vote No - 10 Reasons to Vote No’ document is below:

INTO Vote No
Public Sector Deal - 10 Reasons to Vote No

1. The Government plans to cut the Budget deficit by €3 billion next December (2010) and another €3 billion in December 2011. Failure to make any effort to deal with the crisis through reform of the taxation system and through making the wealthy pay their share means that workers in general and Public Sector workers in particular will be the seen by them as the soft touch yet again.

2. The “transformation agenda” will make savings across the Public Service by tearing up workers’ terms and conditions and getting rid of promoted posts and allowances.

3. The Agreement offers no guarantees on pay. It allows the Government to cut pay yet again if they decide that there’s been an “unforeseen budgetary deterioration”. No doubt if they’re going to do this they’ll make sure they have the contract and pension changes in place first.

4. The department side says that the “primary focus” of the contract review will be on the integrity of a 183 teaching day school year. This means that all staff meetings, parent-teacher meetings, planning meetings and in-service training etc. will have to be done outside of the 183 days. So they cannot claim that the contract review will not lengthen our working time.

5. Primary teachers will be required to work an additional hour per week which must be cost-saving. This can only happen if we do work we’re not currently doing (e.g. supervision before and after school) or do work currently paid for otherwise (e.g. the work which was previously done by promoted posts which have now been suppressed)

6. Performance management has already been agreed under previous deals but this deal specifically states that “promotion and incremental progression [will be] linked in all cases to performance”. This can potentially lead to a situation where principals will have to verify individual teachers’ ‘performance’ for them to get their increments.

7. The Agreement paves the way for the Government to introduce a new pension scheme for new entrants to the profession by January 2011. The INTO and other public sector unions will be “consulted” but will have no influence over the final decision.

8. Clauses about industrial action, and budgetary variation, have been implicitly or explicitly part of all recent agreements. But everyone knows that there will certainly be “unforeseen budgetary deterioration” during the lifetime of this agreement. The agreement paves the way for the government to cut our pay again after they have already got our contract and pension changes in place.

9. With this agreement there will be a disimprovement in conditions of service, promoted posts and pensions. And there will remain a real threat that the government will cut our pay again.

10. If the deal is voted in, the INTO will be powerless to defend our conditions of service and pensions.

Protect your Future - Vote No

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