The leadership of both of the State's teacher unions at second level are now recommending that their members reject the new national pay deal, after a weekend decision by the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) central executive to put the issue to a ballot of its 17,000 members.
The move follows a similar decision by the executive of the Teachers Union of Ireland (TUI) in the past 10 days, and is widely seen as a reaction by teachers to what they feel are inadequate pay rises and insufficient commitments to additional resources for the sector in the new agreement.
The TUI also represents teachers and lecturers in the third-level sector, and has a total membership of some 13,000. It is due to debate the issue at a special union congress taking place in Dublin later today.
A meeting on Saturday of ASTI's 180-member central executive to consider the 10-year "Towards 2016" social partnership framework voted unanimously to recommend that its members reject the deal in a ballot of its members due to be undertaken at branch level in the coming weeks.
Significantly, this is the first major ballot of the ASTI's membership since they opted to rejoin the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu), by a margin of four to one last March, after spending six years outside of it.
As with any union, the ASTI retains the right to pull out of the national pay deal altogether if it feels this is in the best interests of its members - and in view of the results of the ballot.
However, some within the union believe that it is unlikely to go against any decision by Ictu's overall membership to ratify and implement the deal, after having only recently decided to re-enter congress.
Representatives of each of Ictu's members, including the TUI and the ASTI, are due to vote on the new partnership framework at a special Ictu congress on September 5th.
Another possibility is that, when balloted, the ASTI's members may opt to disregard the recommendation of its central executive, and instead decide to support the new deal.
If the ASTI or the TUI fail to implement the new deal by deciding not to abide by the overall decision of Ictu's members on the matter, this could lead the Government to withhold pay rises of some 10 per cent over 27 months allowed for under the deal. But teachers are believed to be anxious to send a message to the Government regarding their concerns. One way they could do this would be by voting against the deal, but accepting the overall decision of Ictu.
Commenting on the ASTI central executive's decision, general secretary of the ASTI John White yesterday said the unions' members had carefully considered what was being offered. Many felt the pay offer was only marginally above inflation and was not "in any way" sufficient to compensate for the additional requirements placed on them in areas such as the mainstreaming of special needs students, international students and the discipline crisis, he said.
Some of this was being created by the demands of new legislation, he added.
Meanwhile, the agenda for today's TUI meeting is understood to focus on three possible options for members to consider, before the issue of the new national pay deal is put to a national ballot of members at the end of the summer.
These are: a recommendation to accept the new deal, a recommendation to reject the new deal; or no recommendation at all.
There is believed to be no proposal that the TUI refuse to accept and implement any decision by ICTU's overall membership on the new pay deal.