TUI:TEACHERS WILL carry their fair share of the burden of resolving the current economic crisis but they will not tolerate an iniquitous public sector pension levy, Teachers Union of Ireland (TUI) general secretary Peter MacMenamin warned yesterday.
Addressing the opening day of the TUI annual conference in Cork, Mr MacMenamin said that the TUI fully recognised that the economy was in a terrible state and savings had to be made, but the maintenance of an excellent public service was essential.
“Who does the Government penalise to sort out this mess? The bankers and the developers who are a significant part of the problem – absolutely not – they turn in the first instance on their own employees: public sector workers – civil servants, nurses, gardaí and teachers .
“We, in the TUI recognise that the economy is in a dreadful state, that private sector workers must not be made the scapegoat by the imposition of selective and iniquitous so-called pension levies,” said Mr MacMenamin to loud and sustained applause from the 450 delegates attending the conference.
“Teachers as public sector workers recognise that everybody must share the pain, not because everybody has caused the problem but because the problem that has been caused by the few is so big that regrettably everybody must carry some of the burden to get this country out of the mess.
“As public service workers, we will carry our fair share but only our fair share. We reject unreservedly as an iniquitous tax, the pension levy imposed as it is exclusively on public service workers. We insist that any measure taken must be fair and equitable.”
Mr MacMenamin said the TUI stood over its contention that 1,200 teachers would lose their jobs in second level due to cuts.
The TUI believes that over 400 full-time equivalent positions affecting some 600 teachers will be lost in the vocational sector.
The savings to the Government for each teaching post will amount to no more than a couple of thousand euro as the cost of making teachers redundant will be over €20,000 per annum in terms of benefits paid and lost tax. The long-term cost will be incalculable, said Mr MacMenamin.
His attack on the Government was echoed by TUI president Don Ryan, who said it was a myth to suggest that the teachers and lecturers all enjoyed secure employment. He said the jobs of a further 400 or so TUI members were under threat in Youthreach and other non-mainstream centres and institutes of technology.
Mr Ryan said last week’s Budget would result in a teacher on €60,000 having to pay an additional €8,000 in levies on top of income tax and the 6.5 per cent pension contribution they had always paid. “Our members are deeply angered and our anger is justified because of the apparent unwillingness of the Government to address the economic sabotage of the country by big business, banks and developers and by the FitzPatricks and the Fingletons of this country,” he said.
Mr Ryan said teachers should ensure the current “infamous period” be described as “the era of vulture capitalism” when decades of corruption and greed brought the country to its knees.