Workers Solidarity Movement

INTO Vote No

Public Sector Deal - 10 Reasons to Vote No

1. The Government plans to cut the Budget deficit by €3 billion next December (2010) and another €3 billion in December 2011.  Failure to make any effort to deal with the crisis through reform of the taxation system and through making the wealthy pay their share means that workers in general and Public Sector workers in particular will be the seen by them as the soft touch yet again.

2. The “transformation agenda” will make savings across the Public Service by tearing up workers’ terms and conditions and getting rid of promoted posts and allowances.

3. The Agreement offers no guarantees on pay.  It allows the Government to cut pay yet again if they decide that there’s been an “unforeseen budgetary deterioration”.  No doubt if they’re going to do this they’ll make sure they have the contract and pension changes in place first.

4. The department side says that the “primary focus” of the contract review will be on the integrity of a 183 teaching day school year.  This means that all staff meetings, parent-teacher meetings, planning meetings and in-service training etc. will have to be done outside of the 183 days.  So they cannot claim that the contract review will not lengthen our working time.

5. Primary teachers will be required to work an additional hour per week which must be cost-saving.  This can only happen if we do work we’re not currently doing (e.g. supervision before and after school) or do work currently paid for otherwise (e.g. the work which was previously done by promoted posts which have now been suppressed)

6. Performance management has already been agreed under previous deals but this deal specifically states that “promotion and incremental progression [will be] linked in all cases to performance”. This can potentially lead to a situation where principals will have to verify individual teachers’ ‘performance’ for them to get their increments.

7. The Agreement paves the way for the Government to introduce a new pension scheme for new entrants to the profession by January 2011.  The INTO and other public sector unions will be “consulted” but will have no influence over the final decision.

8. Clauses about industrial action, and budgetary variation, have been implicitly or explicitly part of all recent agreements.  But everyone knows that there will certainly be “unforeseen budgetary deterioration” during the lifetime of this agreement.  The agreement paves the way for the government to cut our pay again after they have already got our contract and pension changes in place.

9. With this agreement there will be a disimprovement in conditions of service, promoted posts and pensions.  And there will remain a real threat that the government will cut our pay again.

10. If the deal is voted in, the INTO will be powerless to defend our conditions of service and pensions.

Protect your Future - Vote No