Schools facing industrial action 'as sure as night follows day', says union
The president of the Teachers Union of Ireland is again warning of industrial unrest, after the commencement order for the Lansdowne Road Agreement was signed yesterday.
Signing the order, Public Expenditure Minister Brendan Howlin said that trade unions who do not sign up to the public sector pay deal will not be entitled to share its benefits when it takes effect next July.
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The ASTI and TUI teaching unions and both the Garda Representative Association and the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors have rejected the agreement.
President of the TUI, Gerry Quinn, said that there will be industrial unrest before the election if the Government does not enter talks with them on the deal.
"As sure as night follows day that will happen, because the depth of feeling that with regards to these problems in our schools and in our colleges and in our institutes of technology is very very real," he said.
"The strategy we are putting in place is to act before the General Election in order to provide an opportunity for the Government to think twice and to talk to us."
The head of the Workplace Relations Commission Kieran Mulvey said that if any changes are made to the Lansdowne Road Agreement for teachers - then other unions would come back looking for separate deals too.
“They agree collectively to negotiate collectively and then they agree to ballot collectively on the outcome of the negotiations,” he said.
“And it has been a tradition in the past [that] the majority vote carries the day, and the majority vote clearly in this case was in favour of the Lansdowne Road Agreement, as it was for the Croke Park and Haddington Road agreements.”
