It is not the end. But it may be the beginning of the end. At his press conference last night, Charlie Lennon, underlined the limited range of options now available to his union. Asked if the exam ban would be reinstated if the union rejects the Labour Court offer, he said this would not be automatic. The message was clear: ASTI's room for manoeuvre is very limited. A three-week campaign will now begin for the hearts and minds of ASTI members. But when the dust clears, certain scenarios seem likely.
The ASTI, having reached for its prized "nuclear option" of hitting exams, is putting it back in cold storage. The Leaving and Junior Cert exams will now, almost certainly, proceed. There will be no more strike days and maybe no more disruption to the school year. ASTI has played most of its hand.
It has few aces still to play.
There is still a significant hardcore of militants who want to fight on - to what will certainly be a most bitter end. But there is the sense the leadership is war-weary and anxious to move on. Charlie Lennon will be hoping the 17,000 members feel the same. Many ordinary teachers will be disappointed with the Labour Court offer. There is no 30 per cent pay increase, no upfront payment. There are honeyed words and soft phrases in the revised document issued yesterday.
But the bottom line is clear. If the ASTI wants a decent pay increase over and above the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness (PPF), it must enter the benchmarking process. End of story.
One long-time ASTI member caught the mood of the hardliners yesterday: "All of this . . . all of the hassle, all of the disruption and what have we to show for it? A couple of hundred quid for a bloody laptop. And some soothing words about benchmarking. We have lost and lost badly."
But this is to understate the potential of the Labour Court offer. The reassurances about bench marking could not be more comprehensive. There is the promise of money for supervision and substitution, the lack of which has been a running sore in staffrooms for a generation. There is the not inconsiderable sum of £1,750 for teachers who make up lost time with exam classes.
Most of all, there is the guarantee that the ASTI will emerge with a hefty increase from the bench marking process. The Department of Education has made it clear it will not dispute the court's case that ASTI has a "sustainable" case for a pay increase.
In truth, the ASTI has little option but to accept the offer. It is not perfect but it is as good as it will get. The Achilles' heel of the ASTI pay campaign - its lack of a coherent strategy - means the union has backed itself into a corner. There is no credible alternative. It has been a bruising campaign. This morning, ASTI appears more isolated than ever. Over the past year, it has made many enemies and few friends in the wider trade union movement. Its actions have damaged relations between teachers and pupils. It has damaged teachers' high public esteem. The irony is that the ASTI had a very good case for a substantial pay rise. Teachers' pay is now lagging well behind other graduate professions. But a good case needed good tactics.
And, from the moment the hardliners took control and pushed the union towards the "nuclear option", there was never a coherent strategy. As any experienced trade unionist would say, every pay claim - even a small relativity claim - needs a decent strategy.
In the ASTI's case this was even more essential. The union was breaking ranks with the Government, the other public service unions and the other two teaching unions, the INTO and the TUI. It was taking on the core of Government pay policy - the PPF - and the industrial relations machinery of the State. It was targeting 120,000 Leaving and Junior Cert students and their parents. But instead, the union ploughed on relentlessly. It convinced itself that the Government - or more particularly Bertie Ahern - would eventually roll over. It convinced itself the PPF would collapse. It convinced itself the other teaching unions would come on board.
But its bluff was called. The exam threat and strike action only stiffened the Government's resolve. The PPF weathered several storms. And over 30,000 teachers in the TUI and the INTO stayed inside the partnership tent.
The ASTI's claim was dismissed by its own conciliation scheme, by the Public Service Arbitration Board and on two occasions by the Labour Court. In its document yesterday, the court makes it clear no other third-party intervention in the dispute is possible.
Until this month, the ASTI was able to walk away from the negotiating table and ratchet up its industrial action.
But its options have narrowed significantly in recent weeks. The Government's success in recruiting over 7,000 supervisors - almost twice as many as it needs - means the State exams will run in June, with or without the ASTI.
There is also little point in unleashing more strike action. Over a dozen days of disruption have failed to break the Government's will. There is little confidence that more strike days will make a difference.
