TUI CONFERENCE: TUI delegates gave Dr Michael Woods a polite response yesterday, writes Emmet Oliver, Education Correspondent
Shaken but not stirred. That was how the Minister for Education, Dr Woods, appeared at the TUI conference. A day after his brush with ASTI militants, he looked surprisingly fresh considering the reception he was given in Bundoran.
At Cork's Rochestown Park Hotel, the ambience was very different to Bundoran.
Whether it was the luxurious facilities available in the hotel's leisure centre or the guests' massage service, most teachers appeared relaxed and highly unlikely to seek a confrontation with the Minister.
They listened. They applauded. But the TUI are in a type of limbo at the moment waiting for benchmarking and have little interest mixing it with the Government, at least for now.
The union has been praised for its stance over the last two years and Dr Woods added to this chorus by saying the union had been "responsible".
This is not a word which used to be associated with the TUI, but under its general secretary Mr Jim Dorney the union has become a more cohesive force in recent years. It is now respected, maybe not by the more radical voices in the trade union movement, but certainly by long-standing and experienced negotiators.
It was often said that in the TUI there was too much democracy, but now the ordinary delegates complain there is not enough. They say the union's executive has become too powerful and any motion they do not like is swiftly defeated.
This claim arose during several debates yesterday, but it all seemed like shadow-boxing in the absence of the benchmarking report, which has the potential to cause a genuine clash between the leadership and the union's more hardline members.
Most sections of the TUI are in harmony. There is still contention over the treatment of the union's former education officer Mr Billy Fitzpatrick, and even the odd heated exchange of the issue of teachers' pensions, but on pay the union is relatively united.
How united will be clear today when the union debates benchmarking and related issues and there are signs that one or two delegates are going to ask the leadership some searching questions.
But their response is likely to be a shrug of the shoulders because they know benchmarking is the only game in town. "Show us another way to get a pay increase," asked one TUI official yesterday.
In the light of the troubled ASTI campaign, going outside the social partnership framework seems a waste of time for the TUI. So instead the members will have to sit and wait until the end of June.
Dr Woods assured them the waiting would be worthwhile, while also stressing that the benchmarking body was entirely independent of Government. Much to the disappointment of the media, the benchmarking group, under Mr Justice Quirke, keeps its own counsel and teachers are in the dark as much as anybody about what it is going to decide.
In the absence of any hard information, Dr Woods tried instead to convince the delegates he was on their side. "I want to see teachers well rewarded for the work they do," he told them. Several issues raised by the president of the union, Mr John MacGabhann, were immediately taken up by Dr Woods in a demonstration of amazing political alacrity.
For example, Dr Woods said in a press briefing immediately afterwards that he would set up an expert group to look at the conditions of service of TUI members working with Travellers, in VTOS centres and in PLC colleges.
This issue, while possibly of little interest outside teaching circles, has been a bugbear of the TUI and Mr MacGabhann and his colleagues are likely to use the opportunity to gain concessions.
Dr Woods also said schools with serious disadvantage problems would get a chance to reduce their pupil-teacher ratio down to 16 under a new scheme.
By announcing these changes, Dr Woods was trying to show the TUI that playing by the rules brings rewards. Is that true? Benchmarking will tell. It will also tell TUI members whether their leaders are gullible or inspired trade unionists with a knack for seeing an opportunity.
Mr MacGabhann will not have the onerous task of selling the deal to the TUI membership. That unenviable task will fall to Mr Derek Dunne (the union's next president) and Mr Dorney, who knows a thing or two about selling deals to this often volatile constituency.
There is one other issue in the background and that is the row over supervision and substitution.
The TUI, again, have taken a different view on this from the ASTI. They are unhappy with the deal, but believe staying in talks is preferable to hurling from the ditch. Judging from the lengthy applause, the view of Mr MacGabhann that teachers are the best people to do the job is shared throughout the union.
The union has set mid-April as the deadline for Dr Woods and his officials to come up with something better. How much better the TUI negotiators, understandably, are not telling.