Every school is expected to open as normal for all students next week despite a planned strike by secretaries and caretakers, the Department of Education has told schools managers.
More than 2,600 secretaries and caretakers, who are members of the Fórsa trade union, are to start indefinite action from August 28th.
It is part of a campaign to end what the union describes as “the deliberate and indefensible exclusion of school secretaries and caretakers from access to a public service pension and terms of employment”.
The union believes between 2,000 and 2,300 schools at primary and second level are expected to be affected by the action. Education and Training Board schools will not be involved.
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In guidance sent on Wednesday to school boards of management, the Department of Education said staff who were not members of the Fórsa secretaries and caretakers branch were not included in the industrial action and were obliged to pass the picket and attend work.
“We understand this may be a challenging time for school communities and appreciate your work to minimise disruption for staff, students, and families,” the Department of Education said in a letter to the chairs of boards of management.
“During this action every school and every class is expected to open as normal for all students.”
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In the letter the department said there were practical steps that could be taken this week in advance of the action.
It said schools should ensure an appropriate person had access “to all critical systems and records” including banking arrangements, alarm codes and payroll systems for ancillary staff – for example bus escorts, caretakers and secretaries not on the Department of Education payroll.
The letter included a sample note that could be sent to parents to say that while pickets will be placed schools would remain open and “teaching and learning will continue without disruption”.
The Association of Secondary Teachers in Ireland (ASTI), which “wholeheartedly supports Fórsa’s campaign and forthcoming strike action”, told members that as it is not involved in the dispute they will be expected to work as normal.
However, the ASTI said no member including principal teachers, deputy principal teachers and/or other postholders “may undertake any duties that are normally performed by school secretaries or caretakers who are on strike”.
The department said it could not unilaterally grant access to public service pension arrangements. It said it had referred the dispute to the Workplace Relations Commission.
Fórsa national secretary Andy Pike said secretaries and caretakers were “employed in the same schools, under the same boards of management, on the same departmental payroll as teachers and SNAs, but they are treated as second-class staff in every material way and are denied key entitlements such as occupational sick pay and bereavement leave”.
The department said it recognised “the vitally important role of secretaries and caretakers within school communities”.
“Without them, our schools would be unsustainable”, it said.
In a statement it said progress had been made in recent years 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,” the department said.
It said that an agreement reached in February 2022 provided for school secretaries to be assimilated to the payroll of the Department of Education and Youth, providing significant benefits in terms of pay and access to leave.
“The agreement did not grant public servant status to school secretaries and therefore school secretaries do not have access to the single public service pension scheme. The granting of such status is not a matter that any one department can decide unilaterally,” the department said.
But Mr Pike said the State’s continued refusal to confer public service status on these workers was “a calculated policy decision to maintain inequality, regardless of the cost to those affected”. He said the policy had “locked out several generations of school staff from secure income in retirement”.
