Workers Solidarity Movement

Members of the 3 teacher unions – INTO, TUI and ASTI – have begun a ballot for industrial action which, if agreed, “will be triggered in the event of government proceeding unilaterally to impose salary cuts or to worsen working conditions.”     INTO members will vote at meetings to be held across the country this coming week while ASTI and TUI members are voting by postal ballot with a closing date of 20^th May.

The decision of the 3 teacher unions to conduct a ballot for industrial action ups the ante in the battle against government attempts to impose a new round of paycuts on public sector workers.  The unions have announced a decision to “conduct a ballot of members for industrial action, up to and including strike action”, and that industrial action “will be triggered in the event of government proceeding unilaterally to impose salary cuts or to worsen working conditions.”

The Croke Park Extension (CPX) represents an all-out assault on the pay, pensions and conditions of employment of teachers. It is the latest attack on workers whose pay has been cut by 14% - 30% since 2008. CPX reverses many gains made by teachers, that took decades to achieve.

A grass-roots rally of public servants in the education sector will take place in the Gresham Hotel Dublin at 12:00 on this Saturday 9th March 2013.

Strikes took off across Cork city and county this morning as workers took direct action to stop the Government's attack on wages and conditions.

Somewhere over 50,000 people took part in the INTO organised march through Dublin this afternoon in protest at the education cuts, The was the culmination of a series of regional marches called by the INTO.

They came from the four corners of Munster and beyond for yesterday’s INTO organised protest march through Cork city. 

The final numbers taking part were huge and clearly the biggest seen in the city for a long, long time. Schools from Dungarvan, Listowel, Skibbereen, Kenmare, Thurles, Limerick, Tralee were present along with a huge showing from Cork City. Union banners present were from all over and included the TUI and the ASTI.

THE BATTLE AGAINST the latest "social partnership" deal - The Programme for Prosperity and Fairness - in the teachers' unions has thrown up the best chance for decades for the building of a real rank-and-file oppositional group within the three teacher unions. Activists in all three unions - the INTO, TUI and ASTI - have united in "Teachers Against Partnership" and delivered a strong message to the leadership of the unions that passivity among the rank-and-file is coming to an end.