Tomorrow, over 600 secondary schools throughout the State will be closed as the main secondary teachers' union pursues its campaign for a 30 per cent pay increase. There will be more disruption on six other days this month when members of the Association of Secondary Teachers, Ireland (ASTI) withdraw supervisory cover.
It is regrettable that the ASTI feels it necessary to take this action. Tens of thousands of homes, including many where both parents are now working, will be greatly discommoded. Still more importantly, students taking exams face disruption at a crucial time in the academic year; others will have their education unnecessarily disrupted.
Parents, even those affected by the campaign of industrial action, will probably have some sympathy for ASTI members. Most fair-minded people want to see a teaching profession that is well motivated and highly-regarded. There is little appetite to repeat the experience in Britain where the status of the profession was systematically downgraded. Most want to see the profession in this State continue to attract the best and the brightest.
Teachers have a decent case for more money but the tactics used by the ASTI are reckless and ill-considered. The fact that over 30,000 teachers in the other teaching unions have been ready to pursue their pay claims through the partnership process speaks volumes. Both the Irish National Teachers' Organisation (INTO) and the Teachers Union of Ireland (TUI) accepted the 19 per cent on offer in the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness (PPF). They hope to secure further pay increases in the current PPF review and from the benchmarking mechanism of the PPF which links public sector pay to that in the private sector.
The ASTI, by contrast, is on a solo run. When an independent arbitration board rejected their claim, they refused to accept the ruling. They want 30 per cent for no additional productivity. Their spokesmen talk loosely about the pay and perks in the private sector but the ASTI, more than any other teaching union, has refused to embrace the kind of working practices common in the private sector. They have even refused to co-operate with the new, very mild form of school inspection known as whole school evaluation.
The Government is right to face down the ASTI and protect the PPF. As the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, warned in his thought-provoking article in this newspaper last week, this society cannot return to the anarchic, damaging days of a wage free-for-all.
But the Government can also do much to help its own case. Both the INTO and the TUI are now under intense internal pressure to achieve substantial pay increases. The TUI is to ballot members on industrial action. Both unions need a helping hand from the Government - and with inflation at over six per cent, they need it quickly. Tax and other concessions as part of the PPF review form part of the answer. But the Government might also bring forward the whole benchmarking exercise.
It might also ask the ASTI to attend the first meeting of the benchmarking body later this month. Mr Charlie Lennon, general secretary of the ASTI, says he is unsure what benchmarking is all about. Why does he not go along and find out?