PRIMARY TEACHERS HAVE voted to accept the Haddington Road proposals on public service pay.
INTO, the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation, said a ballot of its members showed 63 per cent are in favour and 37 per cent are against the proposals.
Last month, the executive of the union recommended accepting the proposals to its 32,000 members in the republic.
Croke Park 2
Earlier this year, INTO members rejected the Croke Park 2 proposals by a substantial margin when they were put to a ballot of the membership without a recommendation.
INTO members then strongly backed the leadership’s call for industrial action, and the leadership subsequently agreed to take part in talks that led to the Haddington Road proposals.
Under the Haddington Road proposals, the supervision and substitution allowance for all teachers will be abolished.
The INTO noted that there is a commitment to reinstate most of this payment, worth in the region of €1,800, by incorporating it into salary in two phases, in 2016 and the following year.
The proposals contain a similar commitment to restore pay levels to those earning more than 65,000, and also contain improved scales for newly qualified teachers.
General secretary of the INTO Sheila Nunan welcomed the outcome, saying it was clear that teachers viewed Haddington Road proposals as better than the government’s alternative proposals.
She said acceptance was “not an endorsement but an opinion that it was the better of two alternatives”.
Teachers have not so much backed the Haddington Road proposals as rejected the government’s alternative
Nunan said they offered more protection to teachers and their families than the government’s alternatives for public service pay. She described the outcome as “a pragmatic choice between two unpalatable options” and said that primary teachers were “determined to ensure that government keeps its word in terms of the alleviation of the cutbacks”.
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