Delegate after delegate argued for the development of new salary structures for second-level teachers at the ASTI conference in Killarney.
They also called for the ASTI to join forces with the INTO to pursue salary increases for teachers.
The belief that teachers had been badly served in the PCW negotiations was widespread. Teachers received increases of less than 6 per cent. Nurses and gardai, who were involved in later negotiations, had fared much better.
Over the past few years, there had been a welcome but bewildering variety of curriculum reforms, the ASTI president-elect, Ms Bernadine O'Sullivan, told the convention. These included new Junior Certificate programmes, the introduction of the transition year, Leaving Certificate Applied, new Leaving Certificate syllabuses and programmes in social, personal, health and sexuality education. Most of the curriculum reform had taken place at second level, she said.
"The biggest change that could take place in schools is that there be time out on change, so that we as teachers examine all the new programmes which have been put in place and assess their true educational value," she said.
The Education Act would impose additional workloads on teachers, who would be required to become involved in a range of new areas, including boards of management, school councils and school planning.
Ms O'Sullivan argued that post-primary teachers should stand firm. "We must be vigilant," she warned, "because the Government has struck a hard bargain and on the agenda of the exploratory talks between the Public Services Committee and the Government, there is the issue of linkages between pay and performance," she said.
"We owe it to ourselves as teachers and to future generations of teachers to ensure that teaching be regarded as a well-paid profession," she said, "which will attract and keep our bright young people."
There was no excuse, she declared, particularly at a time when the economy was booming, for the Minister, Mr McCreevy, to avoid fully remunerating teachers for the work they did.
The case for an increase in second-level teachers' salaries was simple, Mr Michael Waddell, a delegate from Wexford, said. "Our salary scale is inadequate. It is inadequate at the point of entry. It is inadequate at later points of the scale and it is certainly inadequate at the maximum point as a reward for 25 or 30 or 40 years' teaching experience."
He cited developing shortages of teachers in certain subject areas and the feminisation of the profession as outcomes of inadequate pay. "The implications for schools and for the second-level system as a whole of these problems are indeed serious," he said. Could these problems be addressed without doing something about salaries? he asked.
Pointing to the changes that had taken place in recent years, Mr Waddell stressed that "each and every change has meant more work, more planning, more time, more meetings".
In an incentive-driven economy, some people got incentives to persuade them to change, some got incentives to produce, some got incentives not to produce, some got bonuses, some got cars, some got big tax breaks to help them get wealthier, some apparently got brown envelopes. Teachers, on the other hand, were seen as requiring no incentives, he said.
Furthermore, transition year and repeat Leaving Certificate classes had meant that teachers were now required to teach much older cohorts of students. "We have never received recognition for this in our salary," he said.
Mr Joe Campbell, also from Wexford, pointed to salary grades in other professions. "It's obvious," he said, "that teacher salaries don't match those in other professions".
"Nurses look after people when they're sick, the gardai take care of them when they err, and teachers enable people to work," said Mr Philip Campion, a delegate from Fingal. "We are at the cutting edge of the knowledge capital of society. We are entitled to what they [nurses and gardai] got."
There were cheers from the floor when Mr Michael Stokes, from Kilkenny, demanded a salary increase for teachers of "at least 20 per cent and nothing else".
Mr Don McCluskey was elected ASTI vice-president.
Motions for debate today include the pupil-teacher ratio, class contact hours, discipline, school-based assessment and whole school evaluation.