ASTI members to receive increments backdated to July if pay deal accepted

Members of the Association of Secondary Teachers' Ireland (ASTI) who were due an incremental pay rise from last July will receive a backdated payment of the money if the union votes to accept the Haddington Road agreement.

The payment of increments was frozen for members of the ASTI after they voted to reject the Haddington Road deal on public service pay and productivity in September and embarked on a low-level campaign of industrial action the following month.

However, the Department of Education has told the ASTI that the payment of increments would be applicable with effect from July 1st in the event that members now accepted the Haddington Road deal.

The department said yesterday that members of other teaching unions, which had accepted Haddington Road, had also received increments backdated to July. The department declined to comment on the cost of the pay rises to ASTI members for the period in which they had refused to implement the agreement.

The ASTI’s 180-strong central executive council will meet on Saturday to consider a recommendation from the union’s standing committee that there should be another ballot of members on the accord.

This followed talks between the department and the ASTI which resulted in a number of clarifications or changes in relation to the agreement.

One of the key new proposals was that second-level teachers will be allowed to opt out of supervision and substitution duties in schools – which previously had been compulsory under the deal – in return for a reduction in pay.

The ASTI described this initiative as “ a major change”.

The proposal on opting out of supervision and substitution duties will also apply to members of the Teachers’ Union of Ireland, whose members accepted Haddington Road and were working the agreement since mid-October. It said it had also been pressing for such changes.

TUI reaction
The TUI also indicated that its members would not work any more of the additional hours required under the agreement than those to be worked by members of the ASTI if they accepted the deal at this stage.

The union told members: “Issues that arise for the TUI in the event of acceptance by the ASTI of the Haddington Road agreement concern an equalisation of delivery. The position must be that, if the ASTI accepts the agreement, TUI members in a given school will do the same number of hours under the 33-hour commitment as their ASTI colleagues over the course of the 2013/14 school year.”

The Department of Education said: “Issues regarding the details will be worked out between the parties involved in due course.”