PAYMENT OF THE Substitution and Supervision Allowance will be discontinued with effect from 17 January 2014 if the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) further reject the Haddington Road Agreement, said the Department of Education and Skills this afternoon.

They added that the discharge of substitution and supervision duties will be mandatory and unpaid from that date in line with the terms of the Haddington Road Agreement.

Payment

Following Cabinet discussions on the issue, ministers said that the continued payment of the Substitution and Supervision Allowance to ASTI members is “unsustainable”.

The Government added the Haddington Road Agreement “provides for the integration of the Supervision and Substitution Allowance into the pay scale of teachers in 2017 and 2018″.

The statement continued, stating:

… this Agreement removes the freeze on increments currently applying to ASTI members under the Financial Emergency legislation and provides for an improved pay scale for new entrant teachers together with a range of measures designed to improve the employment prospects of young teachers and to diminish levels of casualisation in teaching.

Industrial action

Responding to the Department of Education and Skills’ statement today that the Government will use its powers under the Financial Emergency in the Public Interest legislation to make supervision and substitution a compulsory, unpaid duty for ASTI members, the ASTI General Secretary Pat King said:

This move to unilaterally change teachers’ terms and conditions will lead to a serious escalation of the current industrial dispute in schools.

The ASTI has already stated that if the Government uses the FEMPI legislation again to worsen teachers’ terms and conditions, we will respond with strong trade union action.

Yesterday, the teacher’s union promised that it will take action if their members are targeted for redundancy.

The ASTI will ballot on the deal for a third time in the coming weeks. ASTI is the only teachers’ union to have rejected the deal thus far and said it can not recommend that its members accept the deal.

Read: ASTI promises “strong action” if teachers are made redundant>

Read: ASTI: ‘Schools are being run on a shoe-string and teachers have had enough’>