School secretaries, caretakers to ballot for industrial action

School secretaries and caretakers represented by the trade union Fórsa are to ballot for industrial action when schools reopen following the summer break in a dispute over pay.

The union said the move followed a refusal by the Department of Education on Monday to discuss proposals to overcome a two-tier pay system between those employed by the State and those who work for boards of management in schools.

The union said that this left “most staff on the statutory minimum wage”. Forsa maintained there was now likely to be industrial action in the next school term.

Fórsa said its officials who attended negotiations on Monday had expected to discuss the substance of the union’s claim for pay equalisation .

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“Instead, departmental officials announced their intention to postpone talks while they spent the next four months doing further work on costing the claim – despite having presented detailed cost estimates to an Oireachtas committee last month,” the union said, adding cost studies had also been carried out in 2010, 2014 and 2018.

The union said more than 12,000 people had signed its petition calling for fair pay and conditions for school secretaries and caretakers.

It said the petition called on Minister for Education and Skills Joe McHugh to end the long-standing two-tier pay system for school secretaries and caretakers by placing those employed directly by school management boards on public service pay scales.

Fórsa said most school secretaries were very poorly paid and had irregular, short-term contracts that forced them to sign on during the summer holidays.

“This is because of an antiquated and discriminatory employment status, which was foisted upon school secretaries in 1978. It means that the few directly-employed by the education department have public service status, while the majority are employed by school management boards, which determine their pay and conditions”, the union said.

Andy Pike, head of Fórsa’s education division, said industrial action looked inevitable so long as the education department refused to discuss the substance of the claim.

“School secretaries have done everything short of industrial action in their campaign for fair pay. They welcome the public support expressed in our petition, and the pledges of solidarity from politicians of all colours.”

“But this is totally disconnected from the reality of the department’s position, which is to constantly stall and disengage. It beggars belief that officials want to waste another four months on number-crunching, before spending an undisclosed period ‘considering’ the outcome,” he said.

“This when it presented its cost estimates to the Oireachtas less than two months ago”,

School secretary Kathleen O’Doherty said: “Around 90 per cent of our school secretaries are locked out of the regularised pay system. They have no holiday pay, no sick pay, no real job security, certainly no occupational pensions, and no access to public service salary scales.

“Most of them earn just above - or in some cases below - the legal minimum wage. It’s time this antiquated and discriminatory employment arrangement was scrapped, and replaced with a model that reflects the vast range of responsibilities and tasks school secretaries perform.”