The union representing more than 3,000 school secretaries and caretakers who went on strike in September over their pension entitlements says further industrial action is likely if talks at the Labour Court this week fail.
About 2,300 of the State’s schools were affected by the Fórsa-organised strike that lasted more than a week and led to rubbish piling up in many locations, as well as a backlog of administrative work.
The union wants the secretaries and caretakers to be able to access the pension scheme availed of by teachers and special needs assistants (SNAs) and wants recognition of the workers’ prior service.
The strike ended after the two sides met at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) last September. At that stage, the union said there had been a Government commitment to negotiate comparable pension entitlements for the school secretaries and caretakers.
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Then minister for education Helen McEntee said there should be talks “without preconditions” about the issues involved.
However, later engagement did not produce an agreement, and talks at the WRC broke down last November.
Almost four months on from the strike, Fórsa’s head of education, Andy Pike, said he is not “overly optimistic” that Monday’s Labour Court meeting will lead to a deal.
“The gap between the parties is considerable to say the least,” he said.
“The arguments the court is going to hear relate to things such as the different contribution rates between auto-enrolment and the single public service (pension) scheme ... There’s been no progress on establishing what is comparable to the pension entitlements of teachers and SNAs.”
He said the Government’s position has been that auto-enrolment provides the staff involved with a pension. Mr Pike said the union continues to argue that this requires paying more in and the workers would get less out. “It saves the employer a considerable sum of money compared to the single [public service pension] scheme, because the contribution rates are different,” he said.
This means the Labour Court has a “very difficult job trying to broker a solution”, he said.
Whether the Labour Court’s involvement leads to an agreement or a court recommendation, the result will be put to the secretaries and caretakers in a ballot, he said. If all that is on offer is auto-enrolment, which “would have been there anyway”, Mr Pike said the workers will feel they have been “codded by the Government side”. He said the Government gave “very clear public commitments that comparable pension provision would be on the table because auto-enrolment is not in any way comparable”.
In such a scenario, he said, new industrial action would be “very, very likely”.
Asked about its position ahead of the talks, a spokesperson for the Department of Education said it “remains committed and ready to engage with Fórsa to reach a resolution to this important matter”.
