Those most basic of working conditions - pay and pensions - are of particular concern to teachers just now. Major campaigns on salary are a feature of each teaching generation. The feeling is that we are in another "make or break" time for the profession. And added to questioning about salary options are concerns that pension conditions are under threat.
Why put our faith in salary benchmarking? Because it's the only show in town, say some union leaders. Admittedly, an inflexible Programme for Prosperity and Fairness (PPF), without provision for local bargaining or sectoral pay reviews, supports the "only show in town" thesis. But the evidence from the industrial relations scene is that many unions have found additional ways to progress pay demands. Since the start of PPF - October 1st last for teachers - settlements above its basic terms have been commonplace. Many of these involved double-digit increases on top of PPF. The table shows examples across sectors. Other claims are outstanding.
The teacher unions within congress are among those relying on benchmarking to deal with long-standing salary grievances. Scarcely a week goes by without a leak or a statement to show union determination to make bigger, better claims at the benchmarking body. One could be forgiven for forgetting that this body will not report before the middle of 2002. And therein lies the problem.
While those of us in the teacher unions argue, wait and hope for a substantial uplift from benchmarking, all around us settlements are made. Economic growth is at record levels, prices are rising and organised workers are negotiating while the iron is hot. We cannot foresee the economic picture for mid-2002 - we only know that in the present climate gains can be made.
It is time to expand the one-tune repertoire of the teacher unions - benchmarking. Throughout the INTO general secretary election campaign, I have advocated lodging a pay claim through the ordinary machinery. This would seek to protect the position of teachers pending the benchmarking report. It would have the further merit of enabling INTO and TUI to find common ground with ASTI in claiming a salary uplift for the high-inflation, record-growth year of 2000, and for 2001. Whatever benchmarking delivers will not be paid for those years. What is advocated is the opening of a second front on salary, not an abandonment of either benchmarking or partnership. It is difficult to envisage work of greater social or economic importance than teaching.
I believe we can make a powerful and well-grounded case at the benchmarking body. The mechanism should be both thorough and potentially productive. But, whatever its merits, benchmarking is not a speedy route for processing a claim. There is a concern that its in-depth nature is the very factor which will cause delay, that the "time and tide" will be missed. And if other pro-partnership unions can do a "double jig" - winning gains for their private sector members while telling the rest of us to wait - why can't organised teachers have a dual strategy?
Partnership is about more than pay settlements. I would be very reluctant to end that arrangement's deepening of democracy which has seen representatives of the marginalised and disadvantaged directly involved at a key centre of power. The death of partnership is more likely to come about from dissatisfaction on pay than from any attempt to run a parallel salary strategy.
On the pensions front there are new challenges also. Much of the recent report of the Commission on Public Service Pensions is positive; recommendations for greater flexibility in pre-retirement working, for a fund to guarantee pension increases, for an option (narrowly drawn) to join the spouses' and children's scheme. But for new entrants it proposes "a single retirement age of 65". One suggested variation is "cost neutral early retirement" allowing those aged 55 and over retire with benefits "subject to actuarial reduction". Neither of these proposals is welcome news in teaching where greater flexibility for both earlier and later retirees is sought.
Of equal concern are proposals on pension parity, whereby pension increases match salary uplift. Here the commission recommends that serving public servants "make an additional explicit 1 per cent contribution towards the cost of pay-related pension increases". In other words, pay more for existing conditions. It is difficult to do justice to either the report or to broader pension issues in a few sentences. But clearly there may be the same urgency about preparing to defend pension conditions as there is about our salary claim.
The union representatives appended to the pensions report reservations which address the issues raised. Their reservation on the proposed 1 per cent contribution does, however, need elaboration and it brings us back full circle to the benchmarking debate. The union executives oppose "at this stage" the proposed 1 per cent further contribution. They conclude that the issue "would be best left over for consideration in the context of the pay reviews by the benchmarking system".
The "only show in town" will not only be late, but may also seek quite an entry fee, even from those of us who go to it both determined and optimistic.
Noel Ward teaches in Tallaght and is a candidate for INTO General Secretary
