As schools prepare to reopen this week and next, trade union Fórsa has described as "deliberate and indefensible" the exclusion of many school secretaries and caretakers from access to a public service pension and public sector terms of employment.
The union was commenting ahead of indefinite strike action scheduled to begin next Thursday, by around 2,600 school secretaries and caretakers who are Fórsa members.
The action is being taken in pursuit of terms of employment, such as pension rights, enjoyed by other public service workers.
If it goes ahead, schools outside of the State's Education and Training Boards sector will be affected.
Fórsa says the decision to take strike action has been backed by 98% of its school secretary and caretaker members.
The union's national secretary, Andy Pike, described the State’s refusal to confer public service status on these workers as "a calculated policy decision to maintain inequality, regardless of the cost to those affected".
He said the policy has "locked out several generations of school staff from secure income in retirement".
Fórsa says the caretakers and secretaries, though employed in the same schools, under the same boards of management, and on the same departmental payroll as teachers and special needs assistants (SNAs), are treated as "second-class staff" by being denied key entitlements, such as occupational sick pay and bereavement leave.
"Decades of political engagement, promises and goodwill had failed to deliver pension justice, and the campaign by Fórsa members has not yet heard a single political voice raised in opposition to securing appropriate terms for this group of workers," the union said.
Fórsa members plan to rally outside the Department of Public Expenditure on Dublin’s Merrion Street on the first day of the strike.
The union said it has formally advised the Department of Education that it remains available for meaningful talks on terms for public service status and pension inclusion.
The Department of Education and Youth has said it recognises the vitally important role of secretaries and caretakers within school communities, without whom schools would be unsustainable.
It said that in recent years progress has been made in improving the terms and conditions of school secretaries.
"This has included secretaries being placed on the payroll of the department and linked to any increases in pay under public sector agreements, improved annual leave entitlements, improved maternity provisions and paid sick leave in excess of the statutory requirement."
It said it has referred the matter to the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) for assistance in resolving the dispute and "will continue to engage with all parties in the coming period".
Members have lost patience with ministers, TDs - Fórsa
Speaking to RTÉ's News at One, Andy Pike said there is a "difference in treatment" between people that work in the same school regarding public service pensions.
He said the problem has been ongoing for decades and "despite a lot of promises and a lot of political goodwill, it is just not being resolved".
"As a teacher or Special Needs Assistant (SNA) in a school, you have access to the normal public service pension arrangements and the normal leave provisions that apply."
"If you are a school secretary or a school caretaker you don’t, you are locked out of that system. There is no objective reason for that difference in treatment existing," he added.
"Our members have really reached the end of their patience and they all voted in a ballot and the ballot results are not surprising, 98% of them voted in favour of an indefinite strike and we just don’t see that," he said.
Mr Pike said the vote demonstrates that members have lost patience with ministers and TDs "telling them what a great job they do and how valuable they are".
"Yet at the same time standing over a system which locks them out of the same pension arrangements their colleagues enjoy," he said.
He said a school caretaker provided an example, noting that when a teacher or SNA retires, they retire with the usual pension provisions, but when a secretary or caretaker retires, the secretary may get a bunch of flowers and the caretaker a bottle of whiskey.
He said as a result, "that stark difference of treatment" means thousands and thousands have "no security of income retirement".
Meanwhile, Labour's spokesperson on education Eoghan Kenny called on the Minister for Education Helen McEntee to intervene in the dispute.
"Secretaries and caretakers are dedicated servants of the public who love their jobs, and their school communities.
"This is a dispute about equality, fairness and basic employment rights.
"I would implore with the minister to show leadership and intervene in their dispute before all schools return from the summer break," Mr Kenny said.
