ASTI CONFERENCE: The ASTI leadership was criticised at the union's convention yesterday for failing to do enough for temporary teachers.
Debating a motion calling for part-time teachers to be paid no later than two weeks after the start of the school year, one young teacher described how she had to get a bank loan to pay her rent because she worked for nine weeks without being paid.
Ms Ruth Coppinger, who has been a teacher for three years in Tallaght, Co Dublin, said she works full-time hours but does not have a permanent post.
She waited nine weeks at the start of the school year to get paid. The teachers had to keep ringing the Department, as the onus was not on school management to ensure they got paid once contracts were signed.
Successive speakers also expressed anger that the newly employed supervisors were paid without delay. Supervisors were repeatedly referred to as "black- leg labour".
Ms Coppinger said people in her position were under pressure not to rock the boat in schools to try to get "that elusive permanent job"; about half the staff in her school didn't have permanent posts.
Other speakers complained about the rate of pay for non-permanent teachers. An example was given of a woman who was teaching for 10 years, and still earning only €22,855 (£18,000).
One speaker called for pickets to be mounted at the offices of the Department and for the treatment of part-time teachers to be highlighted in the media.
The motion was proposed by Ms Martha Goggin, who has been working for 10 years as a part-time teacher in a Dublin inner city school.
The union's general secretary, Mr Charlie Lennon, defending the ASTI's record, said "the concept of permanency" had changed in recent years.