A chara, - With people like Donal O Loinsigh representing national teachers at the negotiation table, who needs employers to keep teachers in line? He attempts to defend the indefensible - benchmarking - before it has even been defined. Would we were all so confident.
Mr O Loinsigh's article (Opinion, March 9th) is an insult to thinking teachers. He suggests that teachers need not fear the concept of productivity as he will be looking for a salary increase based on past productivity (and we all know how much teachers have given in the past 10 years). However, if we accept the principle of productivity, then we are tied into it ad infinitum. What will they want from us when we look for our next salary increase?
Benchmarking is a Japanese concept by which car companies surveyed their rivals in order to establish a "benchmark" of unit costs against which they had to measure themselves. The aim was to engage in "continual improvement" in order to reduce their own costs below the benchmark. It was what they call "management by stress", where employees were permanently pressurised to be more productive.
Do the INTO and TUI union leaders and presidents (our elected representatives) want to go down in history as the people who marched unwilling teachers to benchmarking?
Some 49 per cent of INTO and a majority of TUI teachers voted against the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness, which contains the concept of benchmarking; they are bound to the agreement because of their unions are members of ICTU). Do they want to be responsible for helping to destroy the integrity of teaching?
It is past time for teachers to vigorously pursue the formation of one teachers' union (as our incoming TUI vice-president has suggested). It is time for us to put our professional future in the hands of leaders who care about the integrity of the teaching profession and about teachers as people.
Sadly, the escalating strike action by ASTI teachers is unavoidable. If they back away from their planned strategy now, they will be doing our educational system more long-term harm than good. If we all get behind the ASTI and give them 100 per cent support, the Government will have to concede the insidious nature of the PPF (which of course, is why they didn't opt for it themselves). - Is mise,
Mary Ryan, (TUI member), Malahide, Co Dublin.