It is understood that the ASTI Standing Committee is to recommend rejection of tonight's Labour Court pay package when the union's 180-member executive meets tomorrow morning. The Labour Court's proposal acknowledged that the 16,000 secondary teachers had a sustainable case for a pay increase but said that it should be dealt with through the benchmarking process, which the ASTI has already rejected.
Earlier, the Minister for Education, Dr Michael Woods, had welcomed the court's recognition of the important role of teachers in society and their entitlement to fair and equitable salaries. Dr Woods said that he and his department were giving detailed consideration to the court's recommendation in the long-running secondary teachers' pay dispute.
Since the end of January, ASTI strike action has been suspended while the Labour Court had been drawing up the recommendation. However, the prospect of a new round of strikes, beginning as early as Tuesday, is now an immediate one.
The difficulty for the court was that while it had been asked to look at the validity of the teachers' case for a 30% pay increase it also had to take into account the Government's view that any increase should be within the terms of the national agreement, the PPF. The agreement specifies that pay for teachers should be processed through the recently appointed benchmarking body. That limited the scope of the court's investigation and its room for manoeuvre.
