‘We have low pay, no holiday pay, no sick pay, no real job security’

A PRIMARY school secretary from Navan will be amongst hundreds of school secretaries from around the country due to take part in industrial action later this month in a dispute over pay and working conditions.

Karen Smyth, a secretary in St Anne’s NS in Navan is a committee member for SOS (Support our Secretaries) a campaign started by trade union Forsa to protest over the Department of Education’s refusal to address 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 forcing many to sign on for social welfare payments during holiday periods.

Members of the trade union were balloted over the summer months after talks with the department broke down. Fórsa said 94% of its members voted in favour of industrial action. The union said that its members will begin a work to rule from 20th September which will cause ‘significant disruption to the administration of the schools.

Karen has worked in the Navan primary school for 14 years and says she loves her job, has a great relationship with the school and industrial action is a last resort.

“Most school secretaries are not paid by the Department of Education, they paid by an Auxiliary grant, a grant given by the school to pay secretaries and caretakers but on all school closures and breaks the majority of school secretaries have to sign on and we receive no occupational pensions.

"The Department of Education leaves the onus of the employment of secretaries to each school. There are about 10% of secretaries who are paid by the department and they are under a scheme known as the 1978 scheme.”

Navan school secretary Karen Smyth is ready to start industrial action.

The two-tier secretarial pay system was created almost 40 years ago in 1978. This allowed larger schools to appoint school secretaries and caretakers on a full-time permanent basis. However, from 1982 on, no new appointments were allowed under this scheme.

 From 1994 onwards, all new school secretaries were appointed under an ancillary grant.

“There has been a drive over the last number of years to try and get the Department of Education and Skills to recognise the intricate part of a school secretary in a school environment given that we would do an awful lot of government work like salary pay for substitute teachers, inputting pupils on to the DES data system and organising letters for social welfare payments.

“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. My gripe is not with St Anne’s, I don’t think any school secretary would have a gripe with the school that they are working for but what we do want is the department to recognise all of the work that we do.

“The school’s hands are tied, this is how they have to employ a secretary, they don’t have any other option.”

Members of trade union Fórsa protesting over working conditions recently 

Karen describes how school secretaries have an uncertain future after they retire and no job security during their career,

“We have low pay, no holiday pay, no sick pay, no real job security, no occupational pensions, and no access to public service salary scales. There are secretaries retiring after 25 years of work and they have no pensions.

"We work alongside teachers and SNAs that are paid by the Department and are recognised by the Department and have all of the benefits of being an employee of the Government and school secretaries who a school couldn’t function without are not recognised.

 “I’m 52 this year, I have another 13 or 14 years of service and I have no pension at the end of it all. On every holiday break, I have to sign on.

“There are other secretaries on the 1978 Scheme as we do exactly the same work as them and they are on graded pay. 

"There is no consistency in the job spec. We are the first person anyone meets when they come through the door of the school, we deal with everything but are treated as second class employees.”