School secretaries strike over pay and working conditions
School secretaries from across Meath came out in force today to take part in industrial action over poor pay and working conditions.
The state-wide day of strike, the second such action follows talks between the trade union Fórsa and the Government at the Workplace Relations Commission, which have so far failed to resolve the dispute. Secretaries staged a protest outside their respective schools before converging outside the Dáil this afternoon to demand parity of pay.
They want an end to a two-tier pay system that sees some employees earning as little as €12,000 a year with no entitlement to sick pay or maternity leave and many of them are forced to sign on for social welfare payments during holiday periods.
Most school secretaries are not paid by the Department of Education but through an Auxiliary grant, a grant given by the school to pay secretaries and caretakers however on all school closures and breaks the majority of school secretaries have to sign on.
Fianna Fail West Meath TD Shane Cassells supporting the secretaries this morning.
Eilish Delahunt has been a secretary in Navan Educate Together on the Commons Road in Navan for the past fifteen years and says the situation is 'extremely insulting.'
"I have no issue with my school or the board of management but I do have an issue with this two-tier system in that I do the same work as somebody else and they paid anywhere between €24,000 and €39,000 and I get paid half that.
"It's not the board of management's fault because the government don't give them the money to pay me. They don't even specify that the auxiliary grant has to be paid to the secretary it can be used to buy toilet roll if that's what the board of management choose to do with it.
"The board of management, principal and all of the staff in the school are behind me.
"The work we do in the school is vital, it couldn't operate without us, from putting plasters on fingers to doing the accounts and everything in between.
"It's extremely insulting and very belittling. We are professionals, we are very good at what we do and we should be treated as such."
Olivia Holland who has worked in St Stephen's N.S in Johnstown, Navan for six and a half years says being forced to sign on during school holidays is 'degrading.'
Local school secretaries at the Dail today protest against the two-tier pay system
"I worked in the private sector for 15 years before I came to the school. The reasons for taking the job was because I had young children and I was pregnant at the time. I went out on maternity leave in the December with no pay and I ended up cutting my maternity leave short to come back into the school.
"Basically if you don't go to work you don't get paid and it doesn't matter if you are sick, someone died or anything else.
"When you break up for school holidays you have to go down and sign on, it's utterly degrading. At the end of the day, we are civil servants but we are not being treated as civil servants."
Karen Ann Smyth, a secretary in St Anne's N.S in Navan explains why taking action is important.
“In the last number of months we have been listed by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade as being a recognised person that can sign a form on behalf of somebody to get a passport but they are not recognising us as employees of the Department of Education as a civil servant but we are expected to do all of that kind of work.
“We don’t want to interrupt the school, the teachers or the pupils but it is to try and make the Department realise how much we do on a daily basis."
The school secretaries will also resume a work-to-rule which means that they will not input information into State databases or engage in any duties they regard as public service work. This includes the inputting of teacher and other staff payroll data.