New pay deal must take account of workload and inflation, TUI delegates hear

The next pay agreement must adequately compensate for the increased workload facing teachers as well as the impact of inflation, delegates at the Teachers’ Union of Ireland conference were told on Wednesday.

Brigid Delamere of the TUI executive committee said that teachers saw their pay decimated during the financial crisis over a decade ago.

“That was about 13 years ago, and we have barely managed to achieve restoration,” she said. “We worked harder and became - if it was possible - even more productive. During the pandemic, we were asked once again to put our shoulder to the wheel, and teachers and lecturers went way beyond our contract of employment. But now we feel taken for granted.

“The unsustainable workload we face needs to be rewarded. We are being obliterated by the rising cost of living, with spiralling costs meaning teachers meaning teachers, who moved further and further from their place of work in search of a home they could afford, have to move further and further from their place of work.”

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Delegate Eddie Conlon of the Dublin colleges branch said that teacher pay was badly hit during the financial crash.

“We’re only back now to where we were and inflation is hammering our pay. At the same time, the pay of CEOs is through the roof and the profits of energy companies are soaring,” he said.

TUI delegates also expressed opposition to the “inequity” of a sectoral bargaining mechanism which saw TUI members forgo elements of a pay rise to bring the pay of younger colleagues closer to that of older members.

“Sectoral bargaining is a disgrace,” TUI president Martin Marjoram said, adding that it was a flawed and unjust mechanism.

“It is an appalling indictment of this Government that we should have to divert our money, long overdue to us in offsetting inflation, into footing the bill for necessary repairs to our profession.”

Mr Marjoram also called for a restoration of allowances paid to graduates of the postgraduate masters in education and an end to pay inequality, which sees teachers who entered the profession post-2010 paid less than their colleagues.