Sir, - It is very likely that many ASTI members will not volunteer for supervision and substitution at the start of the next school year. This is the result of (i) the Minister deducting payment from secondary teachers' salaries last December when they withdrew from voluntary supervision and substitution and (ii) his statement that, due to "custom and practice", secondary teachers were not entitled to opt out of this work - which, until now, they had done voluntarily.
The Department of Education and Science, under pressure to have this problem sorted out by next September, has requested the conciliation council of the common Conciliation and Arbitration Scheme for Teachers (C & A.) to deal with this issue.
As part of its on-going industrial action, the ASTI, by decisions of its annual convention and Central Executive Council, has refused to attend the conciliation council's meetings.
The leaders of the other teachers' unions, the INTO and TUI, have accepted the Minister's invitation of the Minister to take part in the C & A talks. Not only is this against the spirit of the conciliation and arbitration process, which always involves the three teacher unions, but it is almost certainly against the constitution of the C & A scheme which makes no provision for the absence of any of the parties to it.
Moreover, the scheme states that the assent of all three unions is required before the teachers' side can communicate formally on an issue of "singular and exceptional importance" in the conciliation and arbitration machinery.
The Programme for Prosperity and Fairness does not in any way require the INTO and TUI to take part in the present conciliation talks on supervision and substitution. Their willingness to do so shows a disappointing lack of solidarity with their colleagues in the ASTI and is a betrayal of the spirit and letter of the common C & A scheme for teachers, which has been in existence for almost 30 years. - Yours, etc.,
Kevin Lewis, Marley Rise, Rathfarnham, Dublin 16.