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Around 1,000 school secretaries and caregivers with low wages and no job security are going to “regularize” their employment conditions under a preliminary agreement reached at the Commission on Workplace Relations tonight.
The secretaries and caretakers represented by Fórsa were scheduled to go on strike on October 23, November 2 and November 16, with an indefinite strike that would begin thereafter if their dispute remained unresolved.
However, Fórsa had postponed the strike to allow talks.
The dispute centers on a two-tier payment system for school secretaries and caregivers.
The employees of the Education and Training Boards have the status, terms and conditions of public servants.
However, those directly employed by the governing boards in schools can earn as little as € 12,500 per year, with no sick pay, holidays or increments, and many are forced to enroll in social assistance during school holidays.
Tonight, Fórsa’s education director, Andy Pike, described today’s result as an “enabling agreement” with the Department of Education and Skills and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform to regularize the situation of paid school secretaries and caregivers. through subsidies with respect to their wages. , pensions and employment conditions.
Today Fórsa finally reached an agreement with the Department of Education and the DPER to regularize the salary, conditions and pensions of school secretaries and caregivers with paid subsidy. Detailed talks on implementation will conclude in February. Full details will follow tomorrow morning. #supportoursecretaries
– andy pike (@ apike1) October 27, 2020
He said final costs had not yet been completed and there was a lot of work to be done on the details.
When asked when the staff in question would see an improvement in their salary and conditions, he said that detailed talks on implementation will now begin.
Pike expressed hope that they will be completed in February, but added that it is not a “hard and fast” deadline.
He hoped that staff could be voted on on the outcome before next year’s summer break, and that the implementation date would be the start of the 2021 school year.
A spokesperson for the Department of Education said that, at the invitation of the WRC, representatives of Fórsa and the management met today to discuss the terms and conditions related to the claims of school secretaries and caretakers.
He said it was agreed that further discussions would be held under the auspices of the WRC “with a view to assessing the individual elements that comprise the totality of the union’s claims.”
The spokesperson continued: “It is noted that these WRC discussions are taking place in the context of Dáil’s recent comments on the regularization of wages, employment conditions and the provision of pensions for school secretaries and carers.”
Labor Party education spokesman Aodhán Ó Ríordáin said he congratulated Fórsa and the school secretaries on the successful campaign.
“It should not have taken several days of strikes and campaigns for a few years for the secretaries and caretakers of the schools to receive the salary and conditions they deserve,” he added.
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