More than 600 schools throughout the State are set to close for a series of one-day strikes in November after a secondary teachers' demand for a 30 per cent pay claim was rejected yesterday.
The strikes, organised on both a national and regional basis, are expected to begin in November. Further escalation of the dispute - including disruption of the Leaving and Junior Cert exams - will be considered by the executive of the Association of Secondary Teachers, Ireland (ASTI) when it meets on Saturday.
In all, over 300,000 students in 620 secondary and community schools could feel the effects of ASTI's industrial action.
Last night, ASTI said it was gravely disappointed with the decision by a Government-appointed arbitration board to dismiss its claim.
However, in a highly-unusual development, its members are set to receive a pay increase due under the new national pay deal whether they want it or not. The Department of Education is set to pay the first phase of the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness (PPF) - an 8.5 per cent increase from October 1st.
The Department is paying ASTI members because it does not want to break up the common basic scale for all teachers. For the past 30 years all teachers - primary or post primary, rural or urban - have been paid the same scale.
Rejecting the ASTI demand, the arbitration board hinted that the bench-marking process of the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness (PPF) might be brought forward to address ASTI's concerns.
The other teaching unions, the Irish National Teachers Organisation (INTO) and the Teachers' Union of Ireland (TUI), who support the PPF, hope to gain additional monies through the benchmarking mechanism which could reward teachers for additional productivity.
But the bench-marking review body is not due to report until 2003.
ASTI has already rejected the PPF and the bench-marking mechanism.
The board said it would be unfair to the majority of public service workers who have signed up to the PPF to allow one group to have its claim dealt with in isolation. However, the board believes that it would be desirable "that the teachers' claims be addressed in the bench-marking process at the earliest possible date".
In its finding the board expressed concern that any concession to ASTI could trigger knockon claims from other workers. It estimated that the ASTI pay claim, if conceded, would cost over £200 million and a further £195 million if it was given to other teachers.
Saturday's ASTI executive meeting will consider future strategy. The first step will be to ballot its members on a range of options. A significant grouping within ASTI is ready to support disruption of next year's exams if the Government fails to respond. The general secretary of the Irish National Teachers' Organisation, Senator Joe O'Toole, said yesterday he wanted the bench-marking process brought forward.
"Teachers and other workers have lost confidence in the social partnership process as a means of delivering satisfactory rewards.
"If the Government cannot see its way to responding decisively to the loss of confidence in the social partnership process which has served us so well in the past then the alternative will be industrial relations chaos and the end of social partnership," he said.
Mr Jim Dorney, the TUI general secretary, said the integrity of the agreement could only be restored by advancing the benchmarking mechanism. The PPF had been predicated on low inflation but the current rate of over 6 per cent threatened to wipe out any gains for teachers.