TUI delegates have given unanimous support to an emergency motion rejecting the proposed public service agreement negotiated at Croke Park last month.
The TUI is the first union to return a rejection of the proposed pay deal.
The motion also reserved the right of the TUI to act independently of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu) or other groups.
The union will now ballot all members with a strong recommendation from Congress to reject the agreement.
The TUI represents 15,000 post primary teachers and third level teachers.
Ictu was strongly criticised by TUI president Don Ryan, who described union leadership as “arrogant” and “out of touch”.
The 450 TUI delegates rose to their feet to applaud the president’s call for an outright rejection of the proposal. The documents “are not worthy of discussion”, he said.
The annual teacher’s conference, which opened today in Ennis, Co Clare heard that anything other than a rejection of the pay deal would represent the “total loss of our credibility as trade union”.
The conference opened with an address by TUI general secretary Peter McMenamin, in which he called on delegates to focus their anger against a government that he described as “the most anti-worker government since the foundation of the State”.
He accused the government of squandering the nation’s resources for generations into the future by distributing the personal debts of an elite few, resulting in a liability of €12,000 for every individual in the country.
“How is it that the funds for this bailout can be found with apparent ease yet staffing ratios must be cut in schools and colleges?” asked Mr McMenamin.
“Why is it that this Government will allow the three or four senior executives of this bank to escape their responsibilities leaving behind their personal debts running to over €100 million to be picked up by the tax payer while the books for schoolchildren are withdrawn and the pay of TUI members is cut to the bone and beyond?”
Mr McMenamin compared the €22 billion needed committed to bail out Anglo Irish Bank to the €8 billion currently budgeted for education and asked if there as “something rotten in the state of Ireland”.
A proposed motion of no confidence in the Ictu public services committee was ruled out of order and will not be taken.
