THE DEPARTMENT of Education is threatening to make more than 300 surplus teachers in second-level schools redundant this year unless teacher unions back the Croke Park deal.
The threat is made in “clarifications” on the deal provided by the department to two teaching unions yesterday.
The unions, the Teachers Union of Ireland (TUI) and the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI), rejected the Croke Park deal.
The department hopes to push through the redeployment of surplus teachers from next September.
Last month’s Budget announced the redeployment of 170 second-level teachers.
As a result of Budget changes, a further 160 teachers in the VEC sector are likely to be redeployed.
In all cases, a teacher could be reassigned to a school within a maximum radius of 50km from his/her existing school or home.
The Department of Education’s tough approach comes after they threatened to sack lecturers in the institutes of technology sector last year unless the TUI dropped its industrial action over the Croke Park deal.
In October, 84 per cent of TUI members voted to suspend industrial action after these threats.
In the coming weeks TUI and ASTI will ballot members on the “clarifications’’ circulated yesterday.
These tease out the various requirements under the Croke Park deal on public service reform.
This promises no pay cuts and compulsory job losses until 2014 in return for modernisation measures.
For teachers this means an extra 33 hours per year, extra supervision and new redeployment measures.
TUI and ASTI members voted down the Croke Park deal in large numbers after a recommendation to reject from both union executives.
The move put the unions out of line with other public service unions and the Irish National Teachers Organisation (INTO) which backed the Croke Park deal in June.
The ASTI, however, quickly suspended industrial action and returned to the negotiating table seeking clarifications on the deal.
The TUI followed suit in October.
An ASTI briefing document published yesterday says the outcome of the talks represents “the optimum achievable for members in the current negotiating climate’’.
Key features of the clarifications include:
1. School management may designate the use of the 33 hours to provide additional time for school planning and policy development, staff meetings, parent-teacher meetings, induction, in-service on new programmes or syllabi, approved school-arranged inservice/professional development, appropriate further education activities and substitution and supervision;
2. The hours must only be used for the purposes listed. Only as a last resort, when the hours are not used for the listed purposes, can they be used for supervision and substitution;
3. There must be consultation with all staff when the school is deciding how to use and schedule the 33 hours;
4. Parent-teacher meetings currently held within school time may now take place outside school time;
5. Where a teacher has been “freed up” because a colleague teacher has taken his/her class away, that teacher may be reassigned to supervise the class(es) of the colleague teacher only;
6. Pension: A guarantee remains that a retirement lump sum will be based on “uncut” salary for those who retire before February 2012.
Meanwhile, the farm advisory agency Teagasc is seeking Government approval to shed about 100 jobs as part of a new voluntary early retirement scheme.
The agency said yesterday that such a scheme would cost some €6.4 million, to be paid by the exchequer.
If approved by the Cabinet such an arrangement would represent the second such scheme in the public service in recent months.
In a statement yesterday, Teagasc said the Government was setting employment numbers for all organisations, with an overall decrease of 25,000 in public service numbers over the next four years.
“For Teagasc this involves a 10 per cent reduction in staff numbers, and the organisation is anxious to implement this with the minimum detrimental effect on its frontline services.
“For example, Teagasc are making a case for no further reductions in the number of frontline advisers as any further reduction in numbers would have a severe impact on the service provided,” said the advisory agency.
“Therefore Teagasc has put in a request to Government for a voluntary early retirement scheme for 100 non-frontline staff,” the statemend said.
“In the proposal the estimated cost is €6.4 million, to be funded from the central exchequer,” continued the statement.