Teaching Matters: Anita Roddick once memorably said that her company's refusal to recognise trade unions was justified, because trade unions are only necessary where management are bastards.
She has never been forgiven by trade unionists - no matter how much time she spends campaigning for anti-capitalist causes. Many of her workers rather acidly pointed out that not recognising unions meant that management were in charge of deciding whether they were bastards or not, and they seemed poorly equipped for the task.
Of course, trade unions are necessary for far more than keeping management in check. At their best, they operate as a kind of one-stop shop for workers, disseminating information, offering training courses, and even financial advantages for some services. Historically, unions have had a difficult time - remember Margaret Thatcher's determination to break the miners during the 1980s, just as Ronald Reagan had broken the air-traffic controllers in the US?
In more recent times, the pressures of globalisation have meant that unions are no longer as powerful as once they were. In Ireland, it is arguable that the partnership agreements at once reinforced the power of unions and undermined it. Bargaining that is as centralised as it is in Ireland leaves little room for manoeuvre for individual unions, while at the same time, a place at the decision-making table is hard to forego. However, the perception that union negotiators are becoming merely well-paid members of the establishment can lead to muttering in the ranks, as members feel they are losing out to more powerful interest groups.
The ASTI decision to leave the ICTU meant stepping firmly outside the partnership process, which it believed was not delivering for its members.
Despite that, at one stage the muttering in the ranks rose even higher. The only question was whether rank and file unhappiness, or the Cold (and occasionally very heated) War being played out in head office would cause the union most damage. The ASTI appeared a union under siege from within and without as members, deeply uncomfortable with how the campaign for fairer pay was conducted, often queried aloud whether there was any point in being part of a union as inept as this one appeared to be. To use an American political metaphor, the ASTI was losing both the ground and the air war, the ground war being the kind of nitty-gritty, day-to-day work of convincing people, including your own of the correctness of your position. The air war is conducted in print and on the airwaves.
The ASTI has often seemed sorely lacking in media skills. Again and again, especially during the pay campaign, people bemoaned the lack of a positive media presence, which they relied on the ASTI to provide. There was much speculation as to whether the ASTI was too busy dealing with poisonous internal wrangles to engage adequately with the outside world.
In fairness, the ferocity of media commentary took most teachers by surprise. As idealists, they assumed that most media coverage was fair. It was a rather brutal form of media education, but an instructive one, to discover that the loss of media approval is akin to being staked out in the desert, covered in honey, as an appetiser for large ants.
However, with the feisty, articulate Susie Hall as president, and John White as acting general secretary, are happy days here again in Winetavern Street? Sort of. Susie Hall is undeniably capable, and passionately committed to securing care for students and teachers. She has an excellent media presence. The ASTI may have dealt with some of its more outstanding internal difficulties, but it has cost it dearly in various settlements.
More importantly, many members remain at best lukewarm to the ASTI, supporting it, but sometimes for lack of a viable alternative.
The other teacher unions seem to have managed to side-step some of the pitfalls of the ASTI. The legendary Joe O'Toole, though not universally liked within his union, managed to make the INTO a formidable force. This has been carried on by John Carr, so that when the INTO bangs the table, the Government is inclined to listen. The INTO has also managed to ally itself with the concerns of parents, while the ASTI has been easily caricatured as only interested in pay and conditions for teachers.
It is in the interests of education, and not just teachers, that the ASTI become a flexible, vibrant union. Second-level education did reasonably well in the Estimates, but the Department of Education privately wonders what level of real support the ASTI has, and so takes them less seriously than it did in the past. Second-level education, particularly in the voluntary sector, needs as much clout as it can get.
Public relations has a bad name, but one definition of public relations is doing the right thing (in the sense of morally right), and being seen to do it. The ASTI has to harness the very real concerns of teachers, and begin to mesh them with the concerns of the public. Teachers want the best for all pupils, including pupils with special needs. They want schools that are fair and flexible, but where learning is facilitated. Parents hate when their child's chances are compromised by maliciously disruptive pupils.
Reduction in class size is another issue which, if explained properly, the public would support. All of this would go a long way to counteracting the unfair impression that teachers are only worried about themselves, and help regain some vital credibility.
• Breda O'Brien is a teacher at Dominican Convent, Muckross Park, Dublin and an Irish Times columnist
