LRA Agreement will extend Croke Park hours to Sept 2018

gaiscioch

Remember: If you vote 'Yes' to the Lansdowne Road Agreement/LRA, a ballot for which you should have at your address at the moment, you will be extending all 33 of the unpaid Idiot Hours to September 2018. Under the present agreement, these Croke Park hours are due to expire in June 2016. Is everybody clear about this proposed extension of the formerly "emergency" FEMPI-motivated Croke Park hours? Accept them now for the first time in a non-"emergency" situation, and they are here for good to impact upon the quality of your teaching career. Vote No.

A huge number of my colleagues were oblivious to this aspect of the LRA.

If you're a teacher please take a few minutes out of your life to educate yourself by reading this:

Nuacht: CEC urges ‘NO’ to Lansdowne Road proposals

gaiscioch

PS: Those of you who are single now and have little trouble staying back after school, remember this: when you have a family of your own you will be suffering in quality of life terms and financially (e.g. increased childcare costs) from having to do the Idiot Hours.

Just how much money will compensate for the impact of this change in your quality of life? The €796 they'll give you back in 2017 in lieu of S&S? That's about €400 nett after all the deductions for doing 33 hours per year unpaid work, multiplied by 3 years, and a vital precedent of your working conditions. 99 hours/€400 (you'll only get the €796 in 2017, two years into it) =€4 per hour (minus inflation!). Open your eyes to the bigger picture. Vote 'No' and tell all your colleagues what's at stake here.

Please read the link on the above post and think of the quality of your career in 2, 3, 5 or 10 years if you agree to this.

Alex Meier

The 33 hours has proven to be a scam and austerity was the buzzword used by senior civil servants/the media/politicians/unions (ASTI, INTO & TUI) to launch an internal war on the public servant with those at the top of the public sector pyramid setting the circumstances for those on the frontline (the teacher, nurse, Garda etc. . )

We were told that this needed to be done in the national interest. . .wear the green jersey for the country. . .

All rubbish, of course, because now that the economy is in recovery and tax cuts are on the agenda the public servant is being told. . . Carry on with your unpaid time-wasting Croke Park hours.

deiseindublin

gaiscioch wrote: »

...The €796 they'll give you back in 2017 in lieu of S&S? That's about €400 nett after all the deductions for doing 33 hours per year unpaid work, multiplied by 3 years, and a vital precedent of your working conditions. 99 hours/€400 (you'll only get the €796 in 2017, two years into it) =€4 per hour (minus inflation!). Open your eyes to the bigger picture. Vote 'No' and tell all your colleagues what's at stake here.

Great number crunching, if that doesn't get a NO vote, I don't know what will.

acequion

Brilliant thread,well done gaiscioch for the information!

man_no_plan

gaiscioch wrote: »

PS: Those of you who are single now and have little trouble staying back after school, remember this: when you have a family of your own you will be suffering in quality of life terms and financially (e.g. increased childcare costs) from having to do the Idiot Hours.

Just how much money will compensate for the impact of this change in your quality of life? The €796 they'll give you back in 2017 in lieu of S&S? That's about €400 nett after all the deductions for doing 33 hours per year unpaid work, multiplied by 3 years, and a vital precedent of your working conditions. 99 hours/€400 (you'll only get the €796 in 2017, two years into it) =€4 per hour (minus inflation!). Open your eyes to the bigger picture. Vote 'No' and tell all your colleagues what's at stake here.

Please read the link on the above post and think of the quality of your career in 2, 3, 5 or 10 years if you agree to this.

Good point may I add to it?

you are getting €796 x 2 in the wind up so lets call it €1592 but....

33 hours CP plus the 43 hours S&S is an extra 76 hours per year every year!

Given that a second level teacher is in class for 735 hours per year if they are on full hours this is approx. 10% of an increase in working time. That's before you get into planning and prep and marking / feedback.

Basically, for the rest of your career, you will be doing 76 hours per year for €1592. The taxman will take half so lets call it a tenner an hour.

Not as dramatic at the €4 per hour but we need to have the long term, view in sight. And don't be sucked in by the propaganda of the INTO you are due your increments anyway, you are due your S/S money anyway. People considering a yes may look to the INTO for yes advice but read with caution please.

The PRD will fall in time if we hold tough on it.

TheDriver

The bit that really really pi$$es me off (and I also have the same issue with the >65k cuts) is that the money back restoration part of the agreement was already in place by accepting the last agreement and now its become part of the next agreement. That's changing the goalposts and is a big q I will be asking any TD who comes canvassing and their part in voting FEMPI through.

gaiscioch

Two important reminders in the above two posts of other deeply negative aspects of the LRA - of the additional 43 S&S hours and that the money-back promise was part of the last agreement.

I put the poll private so people could be free to give their honest view. Nevertheless, it would be interesting to hear any rational argument in favour of this agreement. I met one person who is voting to accept everything because they want that €796 payment in 2017 (and yes, this individual doesn't get the reality of the €796 after PAYE, PRD, USC, PRSI etc deductions) and was furious that a day's salary would be lost for a strike. This carrot, in school mismanagement who never teaches, is on about €70k and has no family to rear.

To accept conditions which will shape one's working life for years to come based on such a myopic thing as a €400 after tax payment, or even the restoration of half of the 5.5% salary cut on salaries about €65,000, defies belief. I mean, like, wtf. If you want a career based primarily on salary rather than on conditions of employment no intelligent person chooses teaching.

gaiscioch

And one other thing, you may have loads of energy now but with the workload the LRA consolidates and extends upon us, have you thought about your likely energy levels when you reach 50 or 55? These "reforms" have the yellow pack English system written all over them: 9am-5pm school days filled with "planning", paper filling, pointless meetings and extra curricular all done by people in receipt of yellow pack salaries. Where will the consolation for poor salary and pension be when you're 55 if the conditions of employment are not there? By then, you'll be very familiar with the lower standard of new teachers as the people with 400 or 500 points opted for more realistic occupations than teaching and your colleagues are overwhelmingly younger and teaching as a gap filler before they move on to a serious career themselves (40% of teachers in England quit within 5 years of qualifying).

It's a lot harder to change career at 50 or 55 when you have to keep a family going and employers don't really want some energy-drained person. If you're 22 now, just qualified and hoping for any bit of "extra" money be aware that the conditions you accept will impact your career much, much more than the few shillings they're throwing at people in this ballot. Money comes and goes. These conditions will stay. Be smart.

gaiscioch

Speaking of lower-paid teachers, here's what the LRA offers part-time teachers (according to the link in the op):

The pay restoration proposed is of little or no benefit to part-time teachers e.g. a part-time teacher earning €21,600 per year does not qualify for the 1st January
2016 2.5% pay increase payable to those with annualised salaries of up to
€24,000.
• The proposed pay increases and PRD deductions are totally inadequate:
In 2016 the net benefit of the PRD changes will be approximately €8.44 per
week (assuming top rate tax payer).
In 2017 the net benefit of the €1,000 salary increase and the PRD
changes will be approximately €19.95 per week (assuming top rate tax
payer).

mirrorwall14

gaiscioch wrote: »

Speaking of lower-paid teachers, here's what the LRA offers part-time teachers (according to the link in the op):

Didn't actually know that one, thanks for the info!

Alex Meier

Does the LRA bring to an end the "annual" incremental rises extended to 15/18 months under Haddington Road?

evolving_doors

I threw my ballot in the post box last week. But what was the closing date?
M ightbe worth putting in the rthead title OP

Alex Meier

Gebgbegb wrote: »

I threw my ballot in the post box last week. But what was the closing date?
M ightbe worth putting in the rthead title OP

You might have been better off throwing it in the bin. . . Judging by the previous ballots on Croke Park/HR

gaiscioch

Gebgbegb wrote: »

I threw my ballot in the post box last week. But what was the closing date?
M ightbe worth putting in the rthead title OP

Good idea. I can't edit the op, however, so feel free to put it in. From the Nuacht link in the op:

Returned ballot papers must reach ASTI Head Office by 5.30p.m. on Tuesday, October 6th 2015

Both the TUI and the ASTI have recommended a 'No' vote to the LRA. And remember, if you oppose the LRA you're voting No to acceptance of it. You're not voting Yes to reject it! (in the last ballot a colleague of mine, who's lovely but a bit scattered, voted the opposite of what she wanted to vote because she got confused) The question on the ballot is: Do you accept the proposed Public Service Stability Agreement 2013-2018 (the Lansdowne Road Agreement)?

Answer: No. Here's a photo of my own ballot paper just to help.

gaiscioch

Alex Meier wrote: »

You might have been better off throwing it in the bin. . . Judging by the previous ballots on Croke Park/HR

While your despondency is understandable, Alex, there is nothing to be gained by anybody except the Department of Education and its obscenely overpaid senior civil servants from that attitude.

Nothing is won without a fight. Nothing is kept without a fight. This is human society at its most basic. The people who resist ensure they keep much more than they would keep if they just gave in without a fight. Fight them all the way because this is your career, this is your quality of life and these are your working conditions that they are playing with before they escape off into the sunset on their recently increased (July 2015) massive pensions. Your enjoyment of your job will continue to suffer because of these changes.

Every step of the way here the yellow pack English school system has been aped by our two Labour Party ministers for education - we, Irish teachers, are the yellow packers expected to take the cuts; our government ministers and their senior civil servants are the recipients of pension increases. This "do as we say, not as we do" attitude from the Irish Labour Party would gladden the heart of the English Tory party in Thatcher's heyday.

A basic sense of pride should inspire every secondary teacher in Ireland to give these Yeatsian "beggars on horseback" a kick up the arse. Any teacher in doubt about his or her value should reflect on the lives they have changed and inspired for the better. The real differences they have made by their work, patience, clarity and encouragement of so many students. We have "saved" our subjects for so many of our students by the way we have helped them. We know our value because we see lives transformed in our classes. Never mind the boxes of chocolates or wine but think of those moving letters from departing students thanking you for helping them so much. That sense of satisfaction, of making a difference, is what this job has been about. How much paperwork would have to be filled, or how many pointless Croke Park hours fulfilled, before an Irish teacher gets that sense of personal fulfilment/job satisfaction that teaching gives? That, for me, is the crux of all my opposition.

We do a hugely important job in Irish society, and I for one will be damned if I go down without a fight. Value yourselves and your work now by making a stand, or accept this government's relentless yellow packing of this profession and you might have your CID/permanency - but a CID in a teaching profession which is incomparably inferior to that worked in by a CID teacher in 2008. There's really not much to aspire to in that, to be euphemistic about it.

deiseindublin

Bumping this thread coz didn't want to start another for much the same issue.

Our school seems to be planning schedule of CP meetings for September. Are other schools doing the same? I know they're gone from end June and not sure what (if anything) will change in the meantime.

mirrorwall14

deiseindublin wrote: »

Bumping this thread coz didn't want to start another for much the same issue.

Our school seems to be planning schedule of CP meetings for September. Are other schools doing the same? I know they're gone from end June and not sure what (if anything) will change in the meantime.

So is ours. And I will be bloody livid if we sign up to some agreement by September.

r93kaey5p2izun

My school has also planned the CP schedule for next year. My principal says we will be doing them, that we will be forced to by threats whether we sign up or not and that the school must have them to function anyway. He seems to have forgotten that we survived just fine (better even) in the past without them.

deiseindublin

Should we not be waiting to plan/schedule them until we are told they're actually happening!

TheDriver

The unions have said not to however having them planned for an eventuality that we will be doing them is prudent because otherwise you could be playing catchup. However it does concern me that he says ye must do them anyways??

gaiscioch

Serious question: have our glorious leaders given an official justification for the existence of the Croke Park hours?

Has anybody in government justified them in recent years? I wonder did they have the temerity to claim they were part of "reforms"?

One benefit of the failure of the right-wing "don't interfere with the free market" politics that has driven this state for so many years is that both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil in 2016 cannot even get 50% of the vote between them now (in 1977, for instance, Fianna Fáil on its own managed to get more than 50% of the vote, and almost 57% of the seats). This is a historic change in Irish elections. What is the consequence of this for teachers?

In my view, there's no sense for the vast majority of politicians in having another election (a few marginal seats will be managed better but overall it would be a fool's errand for the elected TDs). It's ridiculously expensive for the independent candidates, who haven't got taxpayer funding for their campaigns, while FF's finances are still dire. In the likely event that politicians must return for another election in the next few months - even in the event of a FF-supported FG minority government that lasts longer than that, no politician is going to risk alienating teachers (or gardaí, etc) by insisting on what the world and its mother know to be the utterly pointless and counterproductive (in terms of teachers withdrawing from voluntarily giving their time to after school activities) hours that constitute the Croke Park hours.

No government minister is going to insist on our doing Croke Park hours while the threat of another election lingers over them. Expect limbo. Ultimately, I see the four or five useful hours from Croke Park - e.g. parent-teacher meetings - being incorporated into our working year unpaid, and the other pointless nonsense ditched.

acequion

gaiscioch wrote: »

Serious question: have our glorious leaders given an official justification for the existence of the Croke Park hours?

Has anybody in government justified them in recent years? I wonder did they have the temerity to claim they were part of "reforms"?

One benefit of the failure of the right-wing "don't interfere with the free market" politics that has driven this state for so many years is that both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil in 2016 cannot even get 50% of the vote between them now (in 1977, for instance, Fianna Fáil on its own managed to get more than 50% of the vote, and almost 57% of the seats). This is a historic change in Irish elections. What is the consequence of this for teachers?

In my view, there's no sense for the vast majority of politicians in having another election (a few marginal seats will be managed better but overall it would be a fool's errand for the elected TDs). It's ridiculously expensive for the independent candidates, who haven't got taxpayer funding for their campaigns, while FF's finances are still dire. In the likely event that politicians must return for another election in the next few months - even in the event of a FF-supported FG minority government that lasts longer than that, no politician is going to risk alienating teachers (or gardaí, etc) by insisting on what the world and its mother know to be the utterly pointless and counterproductive (in terms of teachers withdrawing from voluntarily giving their time to after school activities) hours that constitute the Croke Park hours.

No government minister is going to insist on our doing Croke Park hours while the threat of another election lingers over them. Expect limbo. Ultimately, I see the four or five useful hours from Croke Park - e.g. parent-teacher meetings - being incorporated into our working year unpaid, and the other pointless nonsense ditched.

So hope you're right gaiscioch. And that's a very interesting observation about the right wing parties.

However there are school managers eagerly factoring in CP time at the start of the year and quite obviously hoping they'll go ahead. Such an attitude really disgusts me but it's out there,no doubt about that. So this is our one chance to get rid of these dreadful agreements once and for all.

Let's hope we take it!

Chilli Con Kearney

If a principal insists on assigning cpa/hra/lra hours for next yearat a staff meeting, then the meeting should be brought to an end.

We agreed to forego a miniscule pay increase and not do those 'hours'. That is reality. Anything else is pure speculation and opinion on which you should not waste time planning.

If it comes to pass (never, hopefully) that we end up doing those 'hours' then an emergency meeting can be called for the last class some day as they are probably all used up by now (almost). If something arises during the summer, then it can be sorted using the 'hours' when we return. It's pointless planning on opinions of others, when we voted not to do something.

acequion

Chilli Con Kearney wrote: »

If a principal insists on assigning cpa/hra/lra hours for next yearat a staff meeting, then the meeting should be brought to an end.

We agreed to forego a miniscule pay increase and not do those 'hours'. That is reality. Anything else is pure speculation and opinion on which you should not waste time planning.

If it comes to pass (never, hopefully) that we end up doing those 'hours' then an emergency meeting can be called for the last class some day as they are probably all used up by now (almost). If something arises during the summer, then it can be sorted using the 'hours' when we return. It's pointless planning on opinions of others, when we voted not to do something.

I couldn't agree more but how many teachers can you see standing up and declaring that this meeting must come to an end? The reality is that many school managers are already enthusiastically planning those hated hours and waving the hand dismissively at suggestions that they mightn't go ahead. And these same managers are also union members, which makes it all the worse!

One again we need clear leadership from our unions which we'll hopefully get after the Easter conferences.

mirrorwall14

I think we are actually in a very good position right now. Minority government, private company pay strikes (Luas), public sector pay strike (dart) and little to no justification for maintaining FEMPI after a giveaway budget. I'm honestly not sure what they can threaten us with as

1. FEMPI won't (in my non legal opinion) stand up in court now
2. Non payment of S and S won't stand up in court as we have already (proveably) done the work called for in lieu of this payment

deiseindublin

mirrorwall14 wrote: »

...1. FEMPI won't (in my non legal opinion) stand up in court now

Our unions don't even seem to be challenging FEMPI. Last I heard from BH was that they were going to wind it down (as soon as they were finished with their give-away, one for everybody in the audience election)

mirrorwall14

deiseindublin wrote: »

Our unions don't even seem to be challenging FEMPI. Last I heard from BH was that they were going to wind it down (as soon as they were finished with their give-away, one for everybody in the audience election)

Yeah I don't get that. Maybe they're holding out as long as possible in case the court ruled against them in which case we'd be f*cked

doc_17

Plan away at your CP hours. All it will take in the summer/September is a directive from The Union to not cooperate with them. Until June we are bound by Haddington Road and we will/should not break out end of the deal. We respect what we sign, unlike others

evolving_doors

doc_17 wrote: »

Plan away at your CP hours. All it will take in the summer/September is a directive from The Union to not cooperate with them. Until June we are bound by Haddington Road and we will/should not break out end of the deal. We respect what we sign, unlike others

I agree, a deal is a deal, stick to the deal. No debate or bartering.

If a new deal is wanted then offer something new, not something old.

feardeas

There are times when one can truly despair. Reading some of the comments on this is one of those times. Firstly to blithely call FF and FG 'right wing' parties is to patently ignore reality or certainly what passes for political and economic reality in most democracies. FF, rightly or wrongly, pumped and I mean pumped money into Social Welfare from 1997 to 2007. Right enough there have been savage cuts to it since but for the love of whoever those cuts do not come anywhere close to what a right wing group would actually do. All of the parties promised to increase spending in the next five years [with God knows what]. There is no right wing party that does that, they much rather shrinking the state to a shell ala the Conservatives in the UK or that crowd, that make our average county council look like a member of the intelligentsia, the GOP in America.

Both FF and FG came in at less than 50%. Look at the independents, lots of them not far removed from FF or FG and with the possible exception of one or two they are hardly ready to jump aboard some new utopia where we will be able to print money to pay for what ever we like like Mr Boyd Barrett was suggesting in Limerick on the seven leader debate.

Now as for the LRA and Croke Park. I dislike CP. I hate the fact that they were foisted on us and most of all that their use has on occasion been less than productive. However there are times where they afforded the scope to get things that needed to be done done. AS for being more creative in how they can be used absolutely. I tell you one thing I am mightily sick of some people not doing them especially since the discretionary five came in.

I don't know what the next while will bring but I'm not sure that never ending dispute is much use. What I would like to see our beloved union look at is

1 the disgraceful inequality in pay scales. I heard a member at a branch meeting say 'sure we all had to start'. Talk about 'I'm alright Jack'.

2 This is going to be controversial. I think it is time something was done about underperforming teachers. People who are actually a real hinderance to learning. I'm talking about people who are not working in their classrooms, not preparing, not marking, barely getting courses covered and leaving students in a state of near panic. These people, if permanent, can swan in and out of schools safe in the knowledge that they are virtually untouchable. Now they are a small minority, I believe, but their presence is every bit as much a de-motivating force than any minute spent on Croke Park hours.