I move:
"That Seanad Éireann calls on the Government (a) to re-assert their commitment to the agreed procedures of Conciliation and Arbitration for teachers and (b) to enter into immediate discussions with the three teacher unions."
The first part of this motion seeks the reassertion from the Government of their commitment to a system that has contributed much to good and orderly industrial relations since its introduction. Over the years both Government parties, Fine Gael and Labour, have on numerous occasions outlined their desire for good industrial relations. Many times, too, over the years both parties have reiterated their commitment to the principle of free collective bargaining.
In the Labour Party manifesto, which was issued prior to the 1982 General Election, there was a section headed "Collective Bargaining". This section stated:
The trade union movement and the public service have faced unprecedented attacks from the Government on pay and on negotiating procedures. Labour's policy is:
(i) free collective bargaining between workers and employers linked to a democratic planning process;
(ii) opposition to statutory control of wages;
(ii) opposition to restrictions by the main parties on the negotiating rights of trade unions.
The Government in their document Building on Reality state that:
...no effort must be spared to ensure that our industrial relations institutions and procedures are the best possible.
For almost 35 years the system that has been in existence for the determination of teachers' pay has been conciliation and arbitration. This is the system that has been agreed and accepted over the years by the teachers' unions, the management bodies and successive Governments. Conciliation and arbitration has been an orderly system. It has worked well. It has ensured that for the past 35 years there has been industrial peace in our schools. Our teachers went about the job of teaching. Salary claims were negotiated in an orderly fashion and resolved. Strike action was a weapon resorted to by others but not by teachers. This has been the situation since the first scheme of conciliation and arbitration for teachers was agreed and signed on 24 February 1951. In that year there was an inter-Party Government in office and the Minister for Education of the day was the late General Richard Mulcahy. the current scheme was agreed upon and signed in 1973 by the then Coalition Government. This scheme provided that, if agreement cannot be reached by the parties in the conciliation council, then disagreement is registered and the issue is submitted to the teachers' arbitration board for determination. The public service arbitrator, who is appointed by the Government, is the chairman of the teachers' arbitration board. Following the hearing of a claim it is his duty to decide the amount of the award, if any, to be made and to provide his recommendations in a report to the Government.
The establishment and acceptance of these procedures has resulted in 35 years of industrial peace and the orderly resolution of teachers' salary claims. For all these 35 years the arbitrator's recommendations have been regarded as binding on both sides and all arbitration reports have been implemented. Now it would appear that the Government are prepared, and even determined, to undermine and even to dismantle this system.
The public service arbitrator has not been reappointed and threats have been made by Government sources that the 10 per cent arbitration award to teachers will not be honoured. Is it any wonder, therefore, that teachers are up in arms? Is it any wonder that they feel angry and frustrated? Is it any wonder that they came in their thousands to Dublin last week to protest against what they see as the unilateral dismantling of existing conciliation and arbitration machinery and a very definite threat by the Government to repudiate, for the first time in 35 years, a public service arbitration finding? For 35 years the teachers and their unions, the associations of school managers and successive Governments have supported the conciliation and arbitration machinery. The alternative to conciliation and arbitration is confrontation and conflict. The teachers know this, and this is why they are so determined to fight for and to retain their system of free collective bargaining, namely, the process of conciliation and independent arbitration.
Irrespective of how they might try to fudge the issue, the Government are a party to the agreed conciliation and arbitration scheme for teachers. It is also important to remember that it was the present Government which appointed the arbitrator whose award they are now seeking to repudiate. Let us look for a moment at the history of this 10 per cent award. The claim which resulted in the award in question was lodged in 1982. There were several meetings of the conciliation council at which the case was argued between the representatives of the teachers and the officials representing the Departments of Education and the public service. No offer was made to the teachers side at council level, and disagreement was recorded. The claim was then referred to arbitration. The arbitrator, in arriving at his decision, took into account the case made by both parties. It is also important to remember that he took account of the state of the Exchequer finances in relation to the amount of the award which he recommended. His findings, as reported in the Irish Independent of Monday, 21 October, contained the following paragraph:
The state of the Exchequer finances is particularly relevant to this claim, having regard to the very high cost to the state of teachers' pay, and full regard is being had to the economic circumstances in these findings, but this cannot mean that the claim should be rejected irrespective of its merits as suggested by the official side. Such an approach would constitute a quite unjustified discrimination against teachers as distinct from all other professional grades in the public service.
From that paragraph it is obvious that it is blatantly untrue to suggest, as has been done, that the arbitrator made an award without any reference to the economic situation or the ability of the State to pay the award. His report then went on to recommend:
...that there be an increase of 10% in the salary allowances of all the claimants, such increase to take effect as to 50% thereof as and from 1st September 1985, and as to the balance as and from 1st March 1986.
I have quoted from the report of the findings of the arbitrator which appeared in the Irish Independent of monday, 21 October.
I now want to refer to certain events which occurred some months earlier, in August to be precise. When the arbitrator had drawn up his draft report, copies of the unsigned draft report were supplied to the parties involved, namely, the teachers, the Government and management. This was in accordance with established practice. However, contrary to established practice, some person or persons decided to leak the terms of the draft report to the media. No one has yet denied the allegation that the leaks came from Government sources. Anyway, as soon as details of the draft report were published in the media both the Minister for Education and the Minister for the Public Service and other Government spokespersons declared that the award would not be paid. the Minister, Deputy John Boland was quoted in The Sunday Press of 11 August as stating:
Only those special pay awards which predated the national plan will be implemented during the life of the plan.
In The Cork Examiner of 12 August a Government spokesman was reported as stating:
There will be no backing down on the Government's decision not to concede the special 10% teachers' award.
On the RTE "Morning Ireland" programme of 20 August the Minister for Education Deputy Gemma Hussey, stated that payment of the teachers award would mean that the Government's public service pay policy would be "seriously breached" and that the award "simply can't be paid".
The situation and the dispute was greatly exacerbated by the remarks of the Minister when she delivered her famous "morality" speech to a meeting of Young Fine Gael in O'Shea's Hotel in Bray on 19 August. During the course of that speech the Minister is reported as stating:
It is vital that all those organisations who publicly clamour for increases should address themselves to the morality of what they are about.
This statement caused great resentment among teachers throughout the country. There were two reasons for this. First of all, it was blatantly offensive to teachers to suggest that they were publicly clamouring for increases. The teachers' claim had been processed through the agreed machinery of conciliation and arbitration over a period of three years. The teachers had abided by the recognised procedures. The use of an extravagant phrase such as "publicly clamour" was seen and was taken as a calculated insult to a profession which not only acted responsibly in the case of this particular salary claim but which has a record second to none in relation to the way in which it has conducted its industrial relations over the years. Secondly, the use of the term "morality" by the Minister caused widespread offence. Was the Minister suggesting that it is immoral for any group to submit a claim to binding independent arbitration or is it only teachers or public servants who act immorally when they do so? I sincerely hope that over the next number of weeks the Minister and the Government will address themselves to the morality of participating for three years in recognising agreed machinery for the orderly determination of a salary claim and at the end of the day seeking to renege on their obligations in relation to the outcome.
It is this double-dealing on the part of the Government that has been responsible for the series of one-day strikes which have closed schools throughout the country over the past number of weeks. It is this double-dealing by the Government that brought over 20,000 teachers to march through Dublin last week.
The reason that those 20,000 teachers were on the streets of this city last Thursday was because they felt there was no other way by which they could bring home to the Government the extent of their anger and frustration. They are angry that it has become necessary for them to take industrial action. They are angry because they feel that the Government have forced this action on them. They would much prefer to be in their classrooms than on the streets of Dublin. They regret the disruption of their schools and their classes. They regret the inconvenience to parents and pupils. They are angry that the Government appear determined to discriminate against them. They are angry at what they see as the threat to dismantle their machinery for free collective bargaining. Thursday's march was about more than the implementation of the arbitration award: it was about preserving peace in the education service. It was about maintaining a consistent and high-quality education service. It was about indicating to the Government that teachers expect and demand that the Government act responsibly. It was about indicating to the Government that teachers expect that the Government keep the rules and honour their obligations.
The Government have a clear responsibility to the whole education service, to parents and to children and indeed to teachers, to bring this unfortunate episode of industrial unrest to an end. They have a duty and an obligation to allow the schools to return to the normality under which they have operated for the past 35 years. They can do so by announcing that they will implement the present arbitration award and that they will maintain the system of free collective bargaining through conciliation and arbitration which has existed for teachers for the past 35 years.
The Government should immediately reappoint the service arbitrator as an indication of their commitment to the system of conciliation and arbitration. This will make possible the holding of discussions on the 25th round of pay increases and other pay-related matters, other than awards already made.
If the Government are anxious for changes in the conciliation and arbitration schemes for the public service, I see no reason why such discussions cannot take place after the public service arbitrator has been reappointed. In the meantime the present system should continue as before.
The second part of this motion calls on the Government to enter into immediate discussions with the three teacher unions. On 28 November the Minister for Education was asked in the Dáil if she would agree to meet the teachers' unions for talks and she replied that she had not received any formal request to talks. In col. 656 of the Dáil Official Report of 28 November 1985, she states:
However, machinery exists in the Teachers' Conciliation Council for discussion of teachers' claims. I am perfectly willing to arrange to have officials meet the unions in the council and I would hope that it would be possible to reach agreement on a package which would include the 25th round of pay increases and other pay-related matters, due account taken of the financial constraints on the Exchequer.
I understand that since 28 November, when the Minister gave the reply I have just quoted, the general secretaries of the three unions have written to both the Minister for the Public Service and the Minister for Education requesting a meeting. I strongly urge both Ministers to agree to such a meeting. I fail to see why such a meeting cannot take place immediately. There is little point in inviting the teachers back into the conciliation council to discuss an arbitration award that has already been granted.
The only matter to be discussed in relation to that award is its implementation. To suggest that the teachers should go back to the conciliation council to discuss the arbitrator's award is like suggesting that a Christmas cake which has been taken out of the oven after baking should be put back into the oven and re-baked or, indeed, even be put back into the mixer to allow the process to start all over again. Let us not forget that this cake has been in the oven for the past three years. I am sure there are many matters the teachers are prepared to discuss in the conciliation council and there is no reason why such discussions should not go ahead but in relation to the arbitrator's award of 10 per cent I would appeal to the Government to have separate and direct discussions with the teacher unions on this issue.
Some weeks ago it was reported that the Government were prepared to discuss the matter with the Public Services Committee of ICTU. This, of course, was not acceptable to either the teacher unions or the public services committee of Congress. I understand that it is established trade union practice that any Government discussions on a pay dispute must be held with the union or unions immediately concerned. The Public Services Committee of Congress has not and never had at any time a mandate to discuss with the Government or with any other employer any award made by the arbitrator or by the Labour Court to an individual union or group of unions. If, instead of trying to confuse the issue by suggesting such discussions, the Government had at that time entered into direct talks with the teacher unions, the massive protest march of Thursday last might never have taken place. The Government still have time to prevent the dispute escalating. They have a duty and an obligation to do so. The way in which they can do so is by meeting the teacher representatives for talks.
Surely, after last Thursday, the Government must see that there is massive support from teachers for the campaign which the teacher unions have mounted. The reason for that massive support is that the cause is so obviously just. Teachers are not people who will down tools at the drop of a hat and head for Croke Park or O'Connell Street on a cold December day without just cause. The Government may have been under some illusion that the massive support for the campaign which was so evident on Thursday last did not exist. It may be that they had begun to believe their own propaganda that the leaders of the teachers' unions did not have the support of the rank and file members. The 20,000 teachers who travelled to Dublin from north, south, east and west on Thursday last must surely have dispelled that myth for once and for all as far as the Government are concerned.
By their actions to date the Government have been directly responsible for the series of strikes which have taken place. Let them now prevent an escalation of the dispute by reasserting their commitment to the agreed procedure for conciliation and arbitration for teachers and by entering into immediate discussions with the three teacher unions. It is unrealistic to suggest that these discussions should take the form of renegotiation. That is what the Government are asking when they seek to have the award discussed in the conciliation council. The teacher unions are not prepared to renegotiate an existing arbitration award and rightly so. This award is the outcome of the recognised and agreed negotiation machinery and is the result of an independent investigation of the claim. During the course of that investigation all the arguments and the plea of financial difficulty were fully considered.
The 10 per cent award to teachers is not an award that gives teachers an advantage over other public service employees. This award merely allows teachers to catch up with other employees. It is based entirely on comparisons with similar groups and is fully justified on that basis. Neither is this award an award to a group of people who are already well paid or who have wonderful conditions of service. Teachers are not well paid. I was talking to a teacher the other evening. He and a friend of his both sat for the leaving certificate the same year. He went on to university to qualify as a teacher. His friend joined the Garda at the age of 18. He got his first permanent job as a teacher at the age of 24. His friend retired this year on full pension after 30 years' service. He, the teacher, will not reach the maximum of the teachers' pay scale until next year and neither will be qualify for full pension until he has 40 years' service. Incidentally, his friend's son, who is now 25 years of age, is interested in politics. If that young man had succeeded in being nominated as a candidate for the Minister's party in the last general election, and if he were elected, he might have been appointed a Minister of State or even a Cabinet Minister. If he were appointed a Minister of State he would now be eligible for a pension of over £3,000 a year for the rest of his life. If he were appointed a Minister, his pension entitlement would now be in excess of £5,000 for the rest of his life.