The teachers' supervision dispute escalated last night with the TUI telling its members not to work alongside non-teachers in some schools from next Monday.
The TUI said members in 120 "dual union" schools, where TUI and ASTI members work alongside each other, should not do supervision if non-teachers were brought in.
The union said although it was in dispute with nobody, it was not right that non-teachers would be paid €34 for supervision, while TUI members were paid nothing for the same work. The union also said it believed teachers were the best people to do the work.
The decision means managers at these 120 schools could have extra problems trying to replace TUI and ASTI members. The balance between the two unions in a school will be crucial. Schools with few ASTI members will have less problems, but those with a large ASTI contingent could find it hard to recruit replacements.
The general secretary of the TUI, Mr Jim Dorney, said the union did not want to see schools closed and still believed a deal could be put together.
TUI sources emphasised its decision was not taken in support of the ASTI. On the contrary, the ASTI was heavily criticised at the meeting of the TUI executive in Dublin.
The president of the TUI, Mr John McGabhann, said the ASTI had "unilaterally" introduced two further conditions into the negotiations about supervision recently. He said doing this was "unnecessary and unhelpful".
Mr Dorney said the TUI regarded the supervision issue as something to be negotiated through the Teachers' Conciliation Council, but the ASTI had blocked this idea.
He said the union regretted being put in this position but the approach the Government and the ASTI had taken in recent days made the TUI's job very hard. "We will be teaching in schools as normal, but we will not be co-operating with these contingency plans," he said.
Talks begin today with the Minister for Education, Dr Woods, on the issue, but few sources are predicting success for these talks. The ASTI's standing committee meets on Friday to discuss its position and its general secretary, Mr Charlie Lennon, said yesterday that the Government needed to get into "genuine" talks and make an offer acceptable to second-level teachers.
The ASTI also made it clear that any disciplinary problems which arose because of the contingency plans were for school managers to resolve, not for the ASTI.
"Disciplinary problems arising from the new arrangements would constitute additional work. It would be unreasonable to expect ASTI members to undertake such work and accordingly such problems must be dealt with by the school managerial authorities," he said.
In response to some queries on radio, the general secretary of the Joint Managerial Body, Mr George O'Callaghan, said there was no question of non-teachers not being able to use staffrooms, which were open to all staff.