Secondary school teachers are set to escalate their campaign of industrial action, and they hope to mobilise more than 5,000 teachers for a march on the Dail early next month.
A weekend meeting of the executive of the Association of Secondary Teachers, Ireland (ASTI) decided to widen the scale of picketing during the next one-day national strike on tomorrow week.
It means picketing will be extended to a further 60 schools - mostly community and comprehensive schools - which were exempted from picketing during the last one-day strike. The decision means more than 620 secondary schools with ASTI members will be picketed, even those schools where most teachers are members of the Teachers Union of Ireland.
The decision to widen picketing is a clear victory for the most militant group within the ASTI. In a significant hardening of its position, ASTI reversed previous policy; it agreed to adopt a recommendation from its strategy committee to end the picketing exemption for schools with fewer than 10 ASTI members.
The weekend meeting also discussed plans to mobilise teachers for a march on the Dail during ASTI's next national strike on December 5th.
After its dispute was overtaken by the taxi and other disputes last week, ASTI is hoping the national protest will have a more significant impact.
The union has also re-affirmed its opposition to the Government's new benchmarking pay review body. The overwhelming majority of schools will not be accepting pupils tomorrow, Wednesday and Thursday as ASTI members again withdraw from break-time supervision.
School managers have again advised parents to keep students at home as their health and safety cannot be guaranteed. ASTI's executive refused this weekend to give any exemption to Leaving Certificate students, despite pleas from school management and parent groups. According to one senior ASTI member: "This would be seen as a sign of weakness."
ASTI members do not expect to be paid for the two days of national strikes, but they do expect payment for the six days this month in which they report for work but refuse to provide break-time supervision.
The weekend meeting of ASTI's standing committee heard the union had a strong legal case, if the Minister for Education, Dr Woods, proceeds with his threat to dock a week's pay on December 21st next.
Dr Woods is refusing to pay ASTI members for the days they withdraw from supervision work, since he maintains this forms part of a teacher's regular duties, but ASTI will argue in any court action that its members are not contractually obliged to do this work.
Secondary teachers generally provide break-time supervision or short-term cover for absent colleagues on a "voluntary" basis.
The Department of Education faces practical difficulties if it seeks to dock payments. It is likely that school principals, most of them ASTI members, will be asked to vouch whether teachers performed supervisory duties, but some may be reluctant to co-operate.
At this stage, no negotiations are scheduled between ASTI and the Government. The other teaching unions - the Irish National Teachers Organisation and the Teachers Union of Ireland - believe benchmarking will deliver significant pay increases for their members. ASTI, however, will not co-operate with it.
This weekend, Mr Charlie Lennon, the ASTI general secretary, said the whole benchmarking process "would need to be transformed" to be of use to his members. The review body is not due to report until June 2002 but this is expected to be fast-tracked by the Government shortly.
There is also speculation that some kind of down-payment will be given to the union who co-operate with the process.