A MAJOR push to establish a new federation representing over 60,000 teachers and third-level academic staff is set to be made at the forthcoming teacher conferences.
The new links are designed to provide a common platform on key issues while respecting the identity of the three teacher unions and the Irish Federation of University Teachers (IFUT).
The three teacher unions - the INTO, the ASTI and the Teachers' Union of Ireland will each consider a new discussion document on the new federation at next month's Easter conferences. Broadly, this discussion paper backs much closer links between the three unions and the IFUT.
After a period of bitter division during the ASTI dispute, the three teacher unions now co-operate closely on virtually all issues. The three unions, for example, often meet informally in advance of meetings of the Teachers Conciliation Council, which considers industrial relations issues in the teaching sector. The new federation would provide formalised co-operation across a range of areas. The hope is that it would give additional lobbying power to the four unions in question.
The appetite for closer links is stronger after the recent benchmarking report made no award in respect of teachers. Teachers received a 13 per cent award under the first benchmarking exercise several years ago.
The federation is something less than some trade unionists would like to see. Some figures in the ASTI and the TUI favour a formal merger between the two unions but this move has still to win much support from within the leadership of either union.
The three teacher unions tend to promote the general notion of teacher unity but each union is also anxious to protect its own strong identity.
The INTO has over 25,000 members in the Republic; the ASTI has 17,000 and the TUI over 10,000, including teachers and staff in third-level colleges, notably in the institutes of technology. Plans to consider much closer links through a new federation were agreed at the teacher conferences last year.
In the 1980s the three teacher unions ran a very successful Teachers United campaign against a series of government cutbacks in the education sector.
The bitter ASTI dispute five years ago damaged relations between the three teacher unions.
