The Executive of the Teachers’ Union of Ireland (TUI) has taken the decision to accept an invitation by the Labour Relations Commission (LRC) to attend education sector talks.
The decision was made at a meeting of the TUI Executive on Friday 17th May 2013. The decision was taken following detailed discussion and careful consideration in order to best represent the interests of members and to negotiate on their behalf.
The Executive concluded that TUI should enter talks/negotiations, the timing of which to be decided by the TUI President and General Secretary in consultation with the other teacher unions.
TUI President Gerard Craughwell said: “TUI will enter education sector talks with the other teacher and lecturer unions in order to engage meaningfully on education issues.
“The Croke Park 2 proposals are dead and gone in the education sector following the massive rejection by all four teacher and lecturer unions. In TUI we rejected the proposals by a margin of 86% to 14%.
“We, in TUI, will make it clear during talks that the education sector has been pushed to the limit in terms of cuts and that teachers and lecturers have already given a huge amount towards national recovery, in terms of pay cuts and extra productivity. We believe that the cuts agenda must be reconsidered, austerity simply is not working.
“TUI has a range of issues to bring to the table in talks and in particular, will prioritise tackling the casualisation of the teaching and lecturing professions and restoring the pay scales of newly qualified teachers and lecturers. In addition, the LRC proposals unfairly targeted teachers and lecturers by reducing the take home pay of our members who earn less than €65,000. We will not allow teachers and lecturers to be singled out for such unfair targeting.”
Separately the TUI ballot for industrial action closes this Monday and the union is calling for a strong mandate to protect pay and conditions to the greatest possible extent.