DES return to threatening teachers over Lansdowne Rd Agreement

Alex Meier

I'm surprised i haven't seen a thread on this but it seems the Department of Education & Skills have returned to threatening teachers at second level if they don't sign up to the Lansdowne Road Agreement.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/teachers-could-lose-800-if-unions-fail-to-back-pact-1.2354342

The DES seem to be stating that despite teachers signing up to the Haddington Road Agreement (after a third ballot) they will not honour their side of the bargain by paying the S&S payments that are due to be paid in April 2017 and January 2018 if second level teachers vote NO to Lansdowne Road.

This is the sort of people you're dealing with folks and it's also indicative of the fact that Croke Park/Haddington Road (due to end in 2018) is, in fact, for life and was never for the duration of the financial crisis that the state went through.

Given the fact that threats were used on teachers by Quinn to force them to sign up (at the third time of asking) to Haddington Road. . . It's no surprise that the same tactic is being used again.

Disgusting & highly unprofessional.

km79

Alex Meier wrote: »

I'm surprised i haven't seen a thread on this but it seems the Department of Education & Skills have returned to threatening teachers at second level if they don't sign up to the Lansdowne Road Agreement.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/teachers-could-lose-800-if-unions-fail-to-back-pact-1.2354342

The DES seem to be stating that despite teachers signing up to the Haddington Road Agreement (after a third ballot) they will not honour their side of the bargain by paying the S&S payments that are due to be paid in April 2017 and January 2018.

This is the sort of people you're dealing with folks and it's also indicative of the fact that Croke Park/Haddington Road (due to end in 2018) is, in fact, for life and was never for the duration of the financial crisis that the state went through.

Given the fact that threats were used on teachers by Quinn to force them to sign up (at the third time of asking) to Haddington Road. . . It's no surprise that the same tactic is being used again.

Disgusting & highly unprofessional.

great news ! they are worried
id GLADLY get rid of CP hours instead

mirrorwall14

km79 wrote: »

great news ! they are worried
id GLADLY get rid of CP hours instead

I think this one will backfire. As the ASTI head said this morning if they were to so this no one would ever sign an agreement again because we did our side already! I think this one will be won by teachers tho due to the sheer hatred of the croke park hours. It's just too tempting to not have them after June

deiseindublin

mirrorwall14 wrote: »

I think this one will backfire. As the ASTI head said this morning if they were to so this no one would ever sign an agreement again because we did our side already! I think this one will be won by teachers tho due to the sheer hatred of the croke park hours. It's just too tempting to not have them after June

Where did he say this?

Alex Meier

deiseindublin wrote: »

Where did he say this?

Pat King was on Newstalk this morning . . at about 820am

deiseindublin

Great, tnx.

(Am totally despondent tonight after vote in our staff room today)

Alex Meier

deiseindublin wrote: »

Great, tnx.

(Am totally despondent tonight after vote in our staff room today)

Why?

What happened?

deiseindublin

Total apathy as to the fine print, most went with union directive, in lieu of bothering to read the full doc themselves.

Alex Meier

deiseindublin wrote: »

Total apathy as to the fine print, most went with union directive, in lieu of bothering to read the full doc themselves.

My own view is that ALL of these issues get passed through because the vast majority of teachers are female and docile.

In twenty years time we'll be voting on the extension of whatever other agreements come along to erode away our working conditions. . . By that stage we'll have stopped voting on Croke Park/Haddington Road as it will have come to have been accepted as being the norm when Lansdowne Road is passed.

doc_17

Brendan Howlin and the DES are untrustworthy. So why is anyone surprised by this latest shot across the bow. But the deal will be accepted. The rights that teachers have fought for over the years are being lost as the current generation are not stepping up to the plate.

byhookorbycrook

Alex Meier wrote: »

My own view is that ALL of these issues get passed through because the vast majority of teachers are female and docile.

.

:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes: Oh yeah, that's it.

deiseindublin

Do you know what Alex Meier, I couldn't be fu*cking bothered even answering such a lazy inflammatory myth.

doc_17

Alex Meier wrote: »

My own view is that ALL of these issues get passed through because the vast majority of teachers are female and docile.

That's a pretty strong statement. I have been of the belief that the INTO have been way to easy to roll over. They almost always accept the deal
quicker than second level unions. You think it's because they are predominantly women? I think it's because they are being led by lambs.

The fact that most teachers are female, or most politicians are men, brings about problems of course. But most nurses are female and they drive a pretty hard bargain and are one of the biggest thorns in the government's side.

Wanderer78

keep fighting folks. it means a lot for the rest of the hard working folk in this country. best of luck with it

deiseindublin

Who's fighting? One poster made a huge leap, on the grounds of gender.

Alex Meier

Apologies for any offence caused to the sisterhood there.

None intended - It's just a personal opinion of mine.

The best evidence that female teachers pass these "agreements" comes from the primary cohort [where numbers of female teachers are higher percentage wise]. The INTO seem to pass all of these agreements in a time and at such a speed that there cannot be any real opposition or internal union debate going on.

At least at second level we debate these issues.

Alex Meier

Another point.

Voting NO to Lansdowne Road is the last line of defence in terms of getting rid of these time wasting Croke Park hours.

If it is accepted then we are stating that these hours are acceptable to us now that the country is on the mend with tax cuts coming up in the budget.

BTW . . It seems to me that the money saved on Haddington Road across the public sector is similar to the amount of money available for pre-election bribes.

deiseindublin

I don't think you need to convince anybody here to vote No. It's the ones that don't even bother their arses reading the literature or picking up their polling card that you need to convince.

acequion

It seems that Alex has ruffled a few feathers tonight! But as a woman I completely agree with him. Women,in the caring professions like teaching and nursing, are useless when it comes to fighting and being ballsy. "Docile" is actually a very apt word. I see it in my school and in my branch. The tougher cookies are generally the men. That doesn't mean that there aren't a lot of feisty females around like myself and the ladies on this site. Nor does it mean that there aren't useless, docile men in teaching because indeed there are.

As for the nurses I haven't seen them put up any fight. Sure didn't they vote in HR long before us! They've got a good union front runner,when it suits him.But that's about the size of it.

rainbowtrout

Primary school teachers may be on the same pay scales and pensions as secondary school teachers, but but there are differences in their working conditions.

I don't by any means mean to denigrate the primary school teachers, but I'm sure that their view of teaching is slightly different to that of secondary teachers.

All of their jobs are the same, if you qualify as a primary teacher you can apply to any primary job advertised. Doesn't matter the school or the year group. If you are a secondary teacher, you can only teach your own subject and you are hoping for jobs to be advertised in your subject area (in the right subject combination). Primary jobs when they exist are not 'hours'. They are full time jobs, or on occasions, job shares. So at least when you get a job in a primary school you are on full pay. Secondary jobs have been decimated over the last 10 years into part time jobs, and teachers on 'hours'. In secondary we also have the whole issue around the new Junior Cert and assessment.

Primary school teaching graduates are finding it tough to find jobs too, I realise that, and also have to do Croke Park hours, etc but I'd imagine the impact on day to day work is different. Nominating free classes to do cover is not a thing in primary I'd assume, you have your class group and you are with them all day, maybe most of the time is allocated to break/lunch supervision?

I don't know enough about primary school teaching to comment on what issues primary school teachers might have that are specific to that sector, but I'd imagine some of the points above perhaps play a role in their faster acceptance of agreements than secondary teachers, rather than just gender.

Alex Meier

acequion wrote: »

It seems that Alex has ruffled a few feathers tonight! But as a woman I completely agree with him. Women,in the caring professions like teaching and nursing, are useless when it comes to fighting and being ballsy. "Docile" is actually a very apt word. I see it in my school and in my branch. The tougher cookies are generally the men. That doesn't mean that there aren't a lot of feisty females around like myself and the ladies on this site. Nor does it mean that there aren't useless, docile men in teaching because indeed there are.

As for the nurses I haven't seen them put up any fight. Sure didn't they vote in HR long before us! They've got a good union front runner,when it suits him.But that's about the size of it.

Many thanks Acequion. . . I'm not trying to be polarising or trolling.

All I was giving was my opinion on the matter and as a former union rep in a school with 11-12 men and 60 women I've seen the conversations going from reasons to why people say they'll vote NO to a threat from the DES/minister to "but we'll be on our own if we don't vote YES"

I saw it under the rerun of Croke Park and I saw it under the reruns of the Haddington Road Agreement.

I also see those leading the charge to a better and more effective union and, whilst some women are involved, it is invariably the men who are doing it.

This is not meant as a criticism of women in any way. . . If anything it represents a mindset in Ireland and it is that women will generally take their instruction from their superiors with minimal disruption in a way that men in Ireland will not and in the caring professions, like teaching/nursing, it is very easy for people in a male dominated profession (like politics) to issue instructions down to those in female dominated professions (like teaching).

Don't you remember the likes of Ed Walsh and Ruairi Quinn almost aghast at the site of teachers making a stand and not shutting up and doing as they were told?

rainbowtrout

Alex Meier wrote: »

Many thanks Acequion. . . I'm not trying to be polarising or trolling.

All I was giving was my opinion on the matter and as a former union rep in a school with 11-12 men and 60 women I've seen the conversations going from reasons to why people say they'll vote NO to a threat from the DES/minister to "but we'll be on our own if we don't vote YES"

I saw it under the rerun of Croke Park and I saw it under the reruns of the Haddington Road Agreement.

I also see those leading the charge to a better and more effective union and, whilst some women are involved, it is invariably the men who are doing it.

This is not meant as a criticism of women in any way. . . If anything it represents a mindset in Ireland and it is that women will generally take their instruction from their superiors with minimal disruption in a way that men in Ireland will not and in the caring professions, like teaching/nursing, it is very easy for people in a male dominated profession (like politics) to issue instructions down to those in female dominated professions (like teaching).

Don't you remember the likes of Ed Walsh and Ruairi Quinn almost aghast at the site of teachers making a stand and not shutting up and doing as they were told?

Are you for real? WTF is with the sweeping generalisations? You're basing your opinion on your school. Your school doesn't represent every school in the country. It certainly doesn't represent mine.

As for that bullshit highlighted above. Words fail me. Welcome to 2015.

evolving_doors

Maybe its just a confirmation bias thing. He sees certain 'people' doing X who happen to be women, therefore all women do X.
Has he investigated the possibility that most 'yes' proponents prefer ice-cream, whereas 'no' voters like apple tart more!
If the gender thing were true for secondary then how come the numbers of men increased in secondary teaching. Surely we should be all less 'docile' now as a profession.
Dont forget Eddie Hobbs was claiming that it was because the profession was mostly female that they were voting against CP an RQ's Junior cert... he advised them to 'increase dose feminax' as a cure... Was he right also?

man_no_plan

FWIW I think jc will pass but LRA will fail.

There is a strong sense that the grass is coming to an end and that unless we accept the new agreement we are relying on FEMPI. FEMPI hasn't been implemented for teachers yet as we agreed to the hra, if challenged in the courts it is likely to fail ( according to Howlin)

I can see why people are accepting JC. I can't see why anyone would accept the lansdowne Road agreement. It offers nothing that we aren't due otherwise + it's curtains for croke Park hours.

Alex Meier

man_no_plan wrote: »

FWIW I think jc will pass but LRA will fail.

There is a strong sense that the grass is coming to an end and that unless we accept the new agreement we are relying on FEMPI. FEMPI hasn't been implemented for teachers yet as we agreed to the hra, if challenged in the courts it is likely to fail ( according to Howlin)

I can see why people are accepting JC. I can't see why anyone would accept the lansdowne Road agreement. It offers nothing that we aren't due otherwise + it's curtains for croke Park hours.

The DES will NEVER SURRENDER on the 33 Croke Park hours. . . If anything they'll look for them to be extended/increased.

Look at Circular 58/04 [which is the half-in and half-out PTMs] . . . This was the circular that was introduced in 2004 on account for modest increases in benchmarking . . .

We're still doing despite pay cuts which have far exceeded the original pay increase.

The unions have been noticeably silent on that one.

byhookorbycrook

rainbowtrout wrote: »

All of their jobs are the same, if you qualify as a primary teacher you can apply to any primary job advertised. Doesn't matter the school or the year group. If you are a secondary teacher, you can only teach your own subject and you are hoping for jobs to be advertised in your subject area (in the right subject combination). Primary jobs when they exist are not 'hours'. They are full time jobs, or on occasions, job shares. So at least when you get a job in a primary school you are on full pay.

Primary school teaching graduates are finding it tough to find jobs too, I realise that, and also have to do Croke Park hours, etc but I'd imagine the impact on day to day work is different. Nominating free classes to do cover is not a thing in primary I'd assume, you have your class group and you are with them all day, maybe most of the time is allocated to break/lunch supervision?

Not all jobs in primary are the same, teaching/admin principals, learning support/ resource, EAL.

Many primary teachers are indeed on hours, we have 5 part time teachers in our school, but we are not allowed to combine those hours for a full time job.

We do supervision in the morning before school and for small and big breaks.We also do an extra day of break supervision in "sick bay" once a fortnight. If a teacher is out sick for the 1st day or at in-service, their class must be split , in our school that means at least 5 children extra in your class of 30, we don't have free classes. We do an hour a week of Croke Park after school on top of the above.

I don't think blaming primary teachers here is much of a help. We have enough on our hands with media spin on public versus private.

rainbowtrout

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

Not all jobs in primary are the same, teaching/admin principals, learning support/ resource, EAL.

Many primary teachers are indeed on hours, we have 5 part time teachers in our school, but we are not allowed to combine those hours for a full time job.

We do supervision in the morning before school and for small and big breaks.We also do an extra day of break supervision in "sick bay" once a fortnight. If a teacher is out sick for the 1st day or at in-service, their class must be split , in our school that means at least 5 children extra in your class of 30, we don't have free classes. We do an hour a week of Croke Park after school on top of the above.

I don't think blaming primary teachers here is much of a help. We have enough on our hands with media spin on public versus private.

Oh I wasn't blaming primary teachers, not in the slightest. I don't know enough about the job. Just saying that the way contracts exist for primary teachers and the way HRA/CP hours are managed have to be different because the job is different so it's likely that primary teachers don't have the same issues as secondary teachers.

My issue is the suggestion that primary teachers accept agreements because they are female.

rainbowtrout

Gebgbegb wrote: »

Maybe its just a confirmation bias thing. He sees certain 'people' doing X who happen to be women, therefore all women do X.

And what happened to not making sweeping generalisations about teachers on the forum. Last time I checked that was part of the charter. Not justifying their generalisations.

acequion

rainbowtrout wrote: »

Are you for real? WTF is with the sweeping generalisations? You're basing your opinion on your school. Your school doesn't represent every school in the country. It certainly doesn't represent mine.

As for that bullshit highlighted above. Words fail me. Welcome to 2015.

Aw come on rainbowtrout there is no need to attack the man like that for making very valid points! Maybe we live in 2015 but you are deluding yourself if you think that deep down Ireland is not still a male dominated culture,especially outside the pale.. And it is by no means a sweeping generalisation to point that out. Maybe not very PC but to hell with PC!

I worked abroad for about ten years and then came back to Ireland and I immediately spotted that Ireland was still a bastion of male leaders and female subordinates and a certain,often intangible deference could be sensed. Not so out in Europe. And though almost twenty years have passed since I came back home, that male,female hierarchy is still there to varying degrees. Maybe it's the Irish mammy syndrome and I kid you not folks.

Therefore the point about the male doyens in the department lording it over the female chattels in the schools,minding the kiddies,is not so far fetched as we might like to think. I know female teachers who will only wear skirts /dresses to school even though an open dress code is in place. I have no doubt that more women than men defer to the boss because it's in their Irish DNA. Not all of us,but a considerable number to tip the balance. And especially in the caring professions and even more especially in teaching, where traditional gender roles are slightly more defined.

So I'm in full agreement with Alex and not very confident that things will change any time soon.

acequion

man_no_plan wrote: »

FWIW I think jc will pass but LRA will fail.

There is a strong sense that the grass is coming to an end and that unless we accept the new agreement we are relying on FEMPI. FEMPI hasn't been implemented for teachers yet as we agreed to the hra, if challenged in the courts it is likely to fail ( according to Howlin)

I can see why people are accepting JC. I can't see why anyone would accept the lansdowne Road agreement. It offers nothing that we aren't due otherwise + it's curtains for croke Park hours.

To be honest,I can't for the life of me see why people are accepting JC. Just wait until reality dawns on what they've voted for!

aunt aggie

This thread has started to remind me of the scottish referendum ad run by Better Together. Really patronising ad aimed at women that showed a woman who's uninformed and indecisive and just scared of everything.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmRvbFlcQdA

I really hate this idea that women have small little brains that can't handle making big important decisions. I'm not saying that is what the OP implied but it is something I've come across a lot. It seems like some remnant of Ireland 50 years ago that just won't go away.

You can't just blame gender for people voting a certain way. In a teaching staffroom you have a range of different financial situations, age groups, length of service and contract types. There are three or four different types of pension at the moment in every staffroom in the country. In most elections, people vote for the option that will be most beneficial to themselves first, before considering the group.

Also are you sure that everyone who says they're voting yes, will actually do that??? I'm usually the new girl in the staffroom and I've kept my head down and not said anything about my vote this week. I'm not docile, I just don't want to come across as over-bearing or too opinionated when I'm new.

evolving_doors

rainbowtrout wrote: »

And what happened to not making sweeping generalisations about teachers on the forum. Last time I checked that was part of the charter. Not justifying their generalisations.

Indeed, I was making the point that attributing 'subservience and being docile' in teaching to gender, was possibly just as valid as linking it to preferences for types of dessert.

But ya mod hat on... we should leave the gender musings in the same pile as the 'not having the cajones' speak.

evolving_doors

'Member' has been warned.
I think we'll just park the stereotypes. We may as well be 'blaming' young teachers, NQT's, retired teachers , TUI vs' ASTI vs' INTO, pre 2004 vs' post 2004 teachers, management vs' young teachers, part timers vs' 22hrsers etc... which suits those who want to muddy waters and offer 'something for everyone'.

Back to Lansdowne rd.
Mod

acequion

Stereotypes are not PC. And only what is PC goes in Ireland! But I actually think stereotypes go a long way towards explaining the culture of the public service in general and teaching in particular in Ireland. After all perhaps we may not have settled for PS jobs if we were risk takers and trend setters.

But ya,back to Landsdowne Road...........

rainbowtrout

acequion wrote: »

Stereotypes are not PC. And only what is PC goes in Ireland! But I actually think stereotypes go a long way towards explaining the culture of the public service in general and teaching in particular in Ireland. After all perhaps we may not have settled for PS jobs if we were risk takers and trend setters.

But ya,back to Landsdowne Road...........

Settled? I just wanted to teach. Teaching in Ireland is a PS job. No settling for me.