Impact education division says ‘whole country’ needs pay rise

Trade union Impact’s education division has said the “whole country needs a pay rise” after what it describes as “such a long period of wage stagnation”.

Speaking on the eve of Minister for Education Jan O'Sullivan's address to delegates, Impact education division chairwoman Gina O'Brien warned that economic recovery meant nothing unless there is a "recovery of income for all workers".

"There is a strong and growing trend among employers to improve workers' pay," Ms O'Brien told Impact delegates in her opening address to the conference in Galway.

She quoted one survey of employers, which had found 45 per cent increased pay last year, and a separate Ibec study which found 57 per cent of those surveyed would do so this year.

While the pay improvements were “modest”, at an average 3 per cent, they represented a “welcome development” and it was “entirely appropriate for the public sector to keep in step”, she said.

School secretaries

Impact’s education division, formed in 2012, says it represents 10,000 people working in non-teaching roles. These include special needs assistants (SNAs), school secretaries, and staff in the Education and Training Boards Ireland.

Ms O’Brien cited fragmentation of SNA posts, funding for the school completion programme for vulnerable young people, and improved pay for school secretaries as among the issues facing the union.

“Many secretaries receive just about the minimum wage,” she said, and some had “very poor conditions of employment”.

Grant-paid secretaries are paid by school boards of management, and Ms O’Brien said she feared that many of these boards had “very little regard for their staff”.

The three-day conference in Galway is also expected to discuss cyberbullying and nutrition.

Ms O’Sullivan will deliver her address this morning.