Secretaries in schools suffer from 'blatant inequalities'

SCHOOL SECRETARIES are subject to blatant inequalities in the workplace, with the majority earning barely above the minimum wage after 10 years of service, the biennial conference of the trade union Impact heard.

Kathleen O’Doherty, a school secretary from Donegal, said most such workers had no access to national pay agreements, pensions, sick leave schemes or promotional opportunities.

She also said that despite the school workplace being a highly unionised environment, it was frowned on for school secretaries to be members of a union or to seek union representation.

Ms O’Doherty told delegates that school secretaries were either paid directly by the Department of Education or by school boards of management, using ancillary grants provided by the State.

She said secretaries paid by the department received just over €13 per hour in the first year, rising to nearly €22 per hour after 12 years of service.

She said secretaries paid by boards of management received €10-€13 per hour after 10 or more years and that these staff had no access to national agreement pay increases, pensions or sick leave arrangements.

Ms O’Doherty said that one secretary in Limerick was earning less than the minimum wage.

“This secretary started work eight years ago, working a 37.5 hour week for a wage of €225 – equivalent to €6 per hour. She still earns that today, nearly €3 below the legal minimum wage,” she said.

Impact assistant general secretary Johnny Fox said the secretary concerned in Limerick had received an abusive phone call in relation to the publicising of her case by the union.

He said that it was hard to believe that in 2008, in schools throughout the country, union members were exposed to inequality and exploitation on such a scale and that school secretaries had to survive in “a cold corner of their workplace which is hostile to their membership of a union”.

School secretaries were an afterthought within the education system, Mr Fox said.

The conference passed a motion seeking for the union to ensure as part of the current national pay talks that all school secretaries and caretakers had access to proper and standardised terms and conditions of employment.

The conference, after a lively debate, rejected calls for the union to start negotiations on the introduction of an additional allowance or “weighting” for staff in State agencies in the Dublin area.