The annual teachers' conferences this week take place against a much-changed industrial relations landscape. An overwhelming majority of members across all three teachers' unions have voted to accept the cumulative 21 per cent on offer from the benchmarking process and the new national pay deal. Teachers have also endorsed the €38 per hour offer for supervision and substitution work.
The votes should herald a new era of industrial peace in the classrooms. The leaders of both the INTO and the TUI are entitled to see the recent ballots on theses issues as a vindication of their industrial relations strategy. Both unions managed to reflect the legitimate concerns of their members over pay - without resort to the militant tactics favoured by some in the ASTI.
For the ASTI, the huge majorities in favour of the benchmarking and supervision deals should, at the very least, prompt a period of reflection at this year's conference. There is no disguising the awkward fact that thousands of grassroots ASTI members defied their own leadership on both issues. The union had listed 15 reasons why members should vote against the supervision offer and not one leadership figure spoke out in favour of benchmarking. Despite this, a huge majority of members voted to support these deals.
The union must now begin the process of rebuilding. Moves to bridge the chasm that exists between the grassroots and the leadership have acquired a new urgency. As a first step, the union should ensure that all future ballots are held in schools - and not at branch level - as some 4,000 grassroots members have demanded. The union also needs to re-invigorate its branch structure. It could take a lead from the INTO where members are much more actively involved in their union at branch level.
A wider question is that of unity with the other teacher unions. Tentative moves are already under way in the ASTI to forge closer links with the TUI and the INTO. ASTI's highly respected president, Mr PJ Sheehy, has said these moves are timely. Both the TUI and the INTO are also anxious to build closer links.
There is a great deal of merit in these moves. ASTI's decision to cut itself adrift from the other unions proved to be counter-productive; it was bad for ASTI and it was bad for the other teacher unions. A push towards greater unity makes very good sense. As the INTO general secretary, Mr John Carr, has observed, there is far more that unites the teaching unions than divides them.
For its part, the INTO deserves great credit for highlighting the scandal of sub-standard primary schools. The union has exposed how tens of thousands of our schoolchildren, teachers and parents continue to endure Dickensian conditions. The Minister for Education, Mr Dempsey, has shown a good deal of vision and flair in his stewardship of education to date, not least on the issue of third-level education. But, for thousands of pupils and their teachers this will count for very little unless he moves quickly to end the school accommodation scandal.