Latest: ASTI claims second-level teachers are 'being targeted and demoralised'

Update 1.20pm: Teachers have accused Education Minister Richard Bruton of provocation and embedding inequality as they strike over pay.

Latest: ASTI claims second-level teachers are 'being targeted and demoralised'

Update 2pm: The country is facing "the complete and utter shutdown" of the education system next month unless an immediate solution is found to the school strikes crisis, the Government has been warned.

Fiachra Ó Cionnaith of the Irish Examiner writes that

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Update 1.20pm: Teachers have accused Education Minister Richard Bruton of provocation and embedding inequality as they strike over pay.

The union claims some recent graduates to the profession are earning €8,000 less than those whose careers began a year earlier.

ASTI president Ed Byrne said: "Ireland's youngest and brightest second-level teachers are being targeted and demoralised through unequal pay.

"The Government's failure to commit to achieving equal pay for young and recently qualified teachers is most alarming. The implications for education and for society are far-reaching.

"Embedding inequality in the teaching profession can only lead to widespread morale issues amongst teachers. At best teachers will feel devalued, at worst the most talented and dedicated will leave the profession or the country. Students will lose out."

Meanwhile, Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin said he was concerned about the threat of a prolonged strike.

"That's not for the benefit of anybody. We have to have more concerted efforts to ensure that doesn't happen," he told RTE Radio.

"One also has to see that anything that disrupts the school system, the education of young people, is disastrous. There's no profession that knows that better than teachers themselves."

The ASTI has planned six other strikes in November on Tuesday 8, Wednesday 16, Thursday 24, Tuesday 29 and consecutive days in December on Tuesday 6 and Wednesday 7.

Update 12.40pm: Teachers are claiming the Government has left them with no other option.

The Department of Education wants the ASTI to sign up to the Lansdowne Road public pay deal.

However Pat, who teaches at PobalScoil Neasain in Baldoyle in Dublin, says they are being bullied.

He said: "The teachers had a choice to enter into an agreement or not, they chose not to. As a result of that they were punished in terms of the conditions for newly qualified teachers coming in.

"After that they were no longer paid for substitution and supervision and the Goverment decided to punish them even further."

Education Minister Richard Bruton has hit out at members of the ASTI union for rejecting a "substantial" deal in favour of today's strike action.

Almost 70% of second-level schools have not opened today as ASTI members have taken strike action in a bid to fully restore pay for newly qualified teachers.

Speaking as schools across the country remain closed today, Mr Bruton said: "I am very disappointed that it has come to a strike today.

"I feel disappointed for students and parents, parents discommoded in their work but students more particularly, it's a tense time people are preparing for an important year in their career and this disrupts their learning."

Today's strike is the first of seven days planned and teachers will also withdraw from supervision and substitution from next month.

Mr Bruton said his department would continue to engage with the ASTI in a bid to come up with a solution and avoid the industrial action planned by members from November 7, but could not give an end point for these talks if agreement is not reached.

"We have made huge strides in respect of restoring equality of treatment for young teachers, we have closed the gap by virtually three quarters at this stage.

He said that over the next two years newly qualified teachers would receive a 22% pay increase bringing pay up to €37,700 for a teacher recruited last year.

"We are well on the way to do that, but we cannot commit to an individual union, a sectoral deal for one union who has decided to not negotiate around these issues but to unilateraly withdraw from commitments that every teacher is committed to as part of their core duties."

He said if the withdrawal from supervision and substitution from November 7, results in schools closing then teachers would be docked pay.

"Where there is withdrawal of supervision and the school remains open then the industrial action hasn't resulted in the withdrawal of labour and they will continue to work and continue to get paid.

"But where industrial action has resulted in the closure of the school that will be different," Mr Bruton said.

Update 10am: The ASTI has denied using children as pawns in their pay row with the Government.

A quarter of a million secondary students will be forced to stay home this morning as teachers take to the picket line.

However, ASTI president Ed Byrne said they are being been left with no other choice.

“Every teacher who’s in a classroom cares about their children, and they do not use them as pawns,” he said.

“That’s clichéd and I hate when I hear it, because that’s not the case. At some point, you reach the point in the road where you can’t get any further by talking.

“It’s unfortunate, I have no interest in discommoding parents or their children. The children are our prime concern.”

Teachers Ann Piggott, Edel Farrell and Kevin Wall, on the picket line during the ASTI strike at Deerpark CBS in Turner's Cross, Cork. Picture: David Keane.
Teachers Ann Piggott, Edel Farrell and Kevin Wall, on the picket line during the ASTI strike at Deerpark CBS in Turner's Cross, Cork. Picture: David Keane.

Update 7.59am: The National Parents Council has appealed to the Government and teachers to resolve the pay dispute as quickly as possible.

Some 507 out of 735 secondary schools are expected to close as members of the Association of Secondary Teachers of Ireland (ASTI) begin strike action.

“I would say please think of the students, please think of our children, and especially the Junior Cert students and the Leaving Cert students,” said Post primary PRO Rebecca Hemrych.

“They need to be put first at this stage.”

Earlier:

More than 500 secondary schools are set to close today in the first of a series of crippling teachers' strikes over pay.

The walkouts by the Association of Secondary Teachers of Ireland (ASTI) are the first of seven as the union seeks equal wages for staff qualified since 2011.

Management bodies have told the Department of Education that 507 schools out of 735 will close.

Education Minister Richard Bruton has said there is a "substantial" pay offer on the table.

But he warned strikes could run indefinitely in the days after the mid-term as the ASTI's 17,000 members are refusing supervision and substitution duties and replacement staff will not be available.

That action was taken after €800 pay penalties were imposed over the refusal of union members to hold meetings outside of normal school timetables, known as Croke Park hours.

Mr Bruton said: "I am disappointed by the decision of the ASTI to take industrial action which will close schools unnecessarily."

The Minister claimed the pay offer tabled is worth 15% and 22% by January 2018 for new entrant teachers along with other benefits.

"It would not be equal or fair for us to conclude sectoral deals with particular groups of public servants to the exclusion of other groups of public servants," Mr Bruton said.

"To do so would also mean that we do not have the money left in the public purse to provide increases in social welfare payments for vulnerable groups, tax reductions for people at work, or investments in improvements in public services that people rely on."

The ASTI insists that some newly qualified teachers are being paid as much as €8,000 less than colleagues doing the same job.

The union also claimed the Government's attempt to strike a deal would still leave a difference of up to €2,775 in the pay rates for teachers who took up their first jobs since 2011.

The ASTI has planned strikes for Thursday, then in November on Tuesday 8, Wednesday 16, Thursday 24, Tuesday 29 and consecutive days in December on Tuesday 6 and Wednesday 7.

Alongside the strike days ASTI members will also withdraw from supervision and substitution work from Monday November 7.

This will force principals to shut the school gates unless suitable and vetted replacement staff can be found in time.

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