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Suzanne Barrett, Leslie Thompson, Judy Dalton and Angie Burke. Garreth MacNamee

'We just want what's fair': School secretaries protest nationwide as they conduct work-to-rule action

Talks between the Department of Education and trade union Fórsa are still ongoing at the Workplace Relations Commission.

LAST UPDATE | 10 Jan 2020

SCHOOL SECRETARIES FROM around the country converged outside the Dáil this afternoon to demand parity of pay as they conduct work-to-rule industrial action.

The secretaries described how the lack of pay security means they must sign on to social welfare over periods when the schools are not open – Christmas being the latest time they had to do this. 

The industrial action, organised by the Forsa union, is set to continue.

If a deal is not struck, school secretaries will resume their work-to-rule, withdrawing from work on public service systems and databases. They will also refuse to carry out the functions of public servants.

Talks have been taking place since October to address the pay system that leaves most school secretaries earning just €12,500 a year with short-term contracts which unions say force them to sign on during the summer holidays and other school breaks.

Angie Burke is the secretary at Our Lady’s Boys School in Balinteer, south Dublin. She described how the current system is affecting workers. 

She told TheJournal.ie: “Basically, we get paid by a grant. The grant is based on the amount of pupils per school and that’s divided between the caretakers and secretaries. “We don’t have any job security. We don’t have any sick pay. We don’t have any pension and we don’t get paid for Christmas or Easter or summer and we don’t have any entitlements. So we have to sign on at these times.” 

Judy Dalton, who works at the North Bay Educate Together National School in Kilbarrack, north Dublin. She said that this “lack of pay parity” has been happening for decades. 

She said: “Well, I’m in a school now for 25 years. 25 years we’ve been in this business and I know that’s this has been going on for longer. What we want is parity with other school staff, that’s all.”

There have been multiple protests across the country today, including one outside the office of Education Minister Joe McHugh in Letterkenny, Donegal. Angie said that while there hasn’t been much love from the Government, the support from within the schools has been heartening. 

She said: “We’ve had amazing support from the principals, from the Board of management. We just want what we think is fair.”

Talks are continuing between trade union Fórsa, which is representing secretaries, and representatives of the Department of Education at the Workplace Relations Commission over what pay and work conditions would be acceptable. 

Fórsa claims that it would cost €7 million per annum to give secretaries the pay they’ve requested; the Education Minister Joe McHugh confirmed on RTÉ’s Today with Sean O’Rourke that it would cost between €5-7 million, but added that there were other complications to be considered. 

He said that this issue goes back to 1978, and that the “frustration is palpable” among school secretaries. “They’re the glue that keeps the schools together,” McHugh said.

The row centres around what secretaries call a “two-tier pay system”. Around 1,000 school secretaries are employed directly by the Department of Education and Skills, and could earn up to €44,711 per year, and are given pension entitlements, holiday leave and sick pay.

The majority of the country’s secretaries, however, are employed by each school’s Board of Management through an ancillary grant that is issued to each board annually by the Department to help run the school. Fórsa represents around half of this number.

These secretaries do not get the same pay as directly-employed secretaries, with some being paid as little as €12,700 a year. Most have no sick pay or pension entitlements and can be forced to go without any wages when the school closes for the Christmas, Easter or summer breaks.

The work-to-rule action today involves secretaries refusing to engage with Department of Education structures, which includes the payroll site for teachers.

Fórsa said negotiations with the Department in December lead to an offer of a 1.5% pay rise, which they called “a joke” and “derisory”, promising further strike action.

Andy Pike, Fórsa’s Head of Education, said the department had failed to bring forward any proposals on pay capable of resolving the issue, calling the 1.5% offer “insulting”.

The gap between both parties clearly remains far too wide, and school secretaries had no option but to re-commence their industrial action in their decades-long campaign for pay equity.

“Regrettably this is the only way to increase pressure on an employer wedded to an unjust two-tier pay system,” he said.

With reporting by Garreth MacNamee

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    Mute JC
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    Jan 10th 2020, 11:43 AM

    Those paid directly by the Board of Management are treated appallingly. Most are on minimum wage and then have to sign on during school holidays. I think a lot of school caertakers are in a similar position. Would stick in your throat when you know another person doing the same job is being paid a lot more with benefits.

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    Mute John Horan
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    Jan 10th 2020, 11:47 AM

    @JC: why not quit and get another job?

    105
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    Mute John O Reilly
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    Jan 10th 2020, 12:09 PM

    @John Horan: says the man who doesn’t use public services

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    Mute alan
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    Jan 10th 2020, 12:22 PM

    @John Horan: did you ever think of running for office? If you do, remember that your objection to public services means that you will not be able to use the roads. But I’m sure you will be able to continue crawling there through the ditch of your own attitudes.

    53
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    Mute Aidan
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    Jan 10th 2020, 12:53 PM

    @John Horan: Because they’d get shafted again. Schools need secretaries to function. They should get paid enough to get by.

    39
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    Mute Shazam37
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    Jan 10th 2020, 1:30 PM

    @Aidan: and who determines what’s enough to get by?

    Surely it is if far more benefit to everyone, not just PS trade union members, if the cost of housing is brought down. If insurance costs are brought down, if cost of childcare is brought down, I’d middle income earners aren’t paying the top rate of tax?

    Lunacy to just hand out pay rises to every vested interest that shouts loudest longest.

    23
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    Mute John O Reilly
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    Jan 10th 2020, 1:44 PM

    @Shazam37: have you read the article spanner

    25
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    Mute Gerard McDermott
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    Jan 10th 2020, 2:45 PM

    @Shazam37: cost of housing is linked to the cost of materials to build it – private sector. Mortgage needed to buy is dictated by banking regulations – private sector. Insurance costs – private sector, child care – private sector (though not immune to insurance costs). The private sector tail is wagging the national dog!

    16
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    Mute paul gurney
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    Jan 10th 2020, 2:52 PM

    @JC: It would stick in your throat when you consider that what they get paid per annum is less than a Dublin based Td gets in automatic travel allowance to get to Dublin 170 days in the year…We need to go back to the drawing board big time.

    28
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    Mute Jude
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    Jan 10th 2020, 3:46 PM

    @Aidan: Most secretaries get paid lousy money, not just school ones.

    14
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    Mute james foley
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    Jan 10th 2020, 3:53 PM

    @John Horan: now there’s an idea

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    Mute Shazam37
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    Jan 10th 2020, 5:59 PM

    @Gerard McDermott: the largest cost associated with housing is land – of which the state is the largest holder. Zoning greater levels of land for residential development reduces the cost of it. There are many ways to incentivise and reduce costs in private sector industries. Early Childcare should be provided by the state the same as health and education alleviating the cost to working parents.

    The list goes one and on.

    3
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    Mute Paul O'Brien
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    Jan 10th 2020, 11:47 AM

    Just give school secretaries their deserved pay. For God’s sake, €5-7m is NOTHING. Schools cannot function without secretaries. Fine Gael are imploding.

    124
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    Mute Shazam37
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    Jan 10th 2020, 1:17 PM

    @Paul O’Brien: just cannot understand this attitude. At what point do we have to say that we cannot just continue paying pay increases for administrators in every branch of the public sector?

    You can’t run a hospital or a fire station or a police station or the army or ANYTHING without administrators.

    What if they all go on strike?

    This is pure Bertie Nomics. The Economic policy that helped bankrupt the state.

    You get that there are finite resources right? What happens when there’s an economic downturn again or corporate tax receipts collapse?

    Crazy.

    47
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    Mute paul gurney
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    Jan 10th 2020, 2:54 PM

    @Paul O’Brien: Exactly…sure they spent 2 million on a feckin printer.

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    Mute JC
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    Jan 10th 2020, 4:01 PM

    @Shazam37: if you re-read the article, the secretaries on strike aren’t being paid by the public sector

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    Mute Shazam37
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    Jan 10th 2020, 6:01 PM

    @JC: I see JC so I suppose these strikes are designed so that Facebook will eventually crack and pay them more.

    Who are they asking for more money JC – who will ultimately have to pony up?

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    Mute Ciarán Myers
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    Jan 10th 2020, 11:35 AM

    Sure the TDs aren’t there, they are still on their holidays instead of back trying to fix the country.

    81
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    Mute Conoroconnor
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    Jan 10th 2020, 12:43 PM

    @Ciarán Myers: they are in election mode. Next up, the Healy Raes on a trailer attached to a Massey Ferguson at the next farmers protest chewing on straws playing while playing clawhammer banjo

    33
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    Mute D
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    Jan 10th 2020, 12:50 PM

    They should be paid for the statutory 20 days annual leave a year but why should they be paid when the school is closed and they’re not working? Split their annual salary across the year yes but they shouldn’t be paid for not working

    56
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    Mute Aidan
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    Jan 10th 2020, 12:56 PM

    @D: I think they’re asking for a decent salary split across twelve months.

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    Mute D
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    Jan 10th 2020, 1:34 PM

    @Aidan: Then that is completely fair and they should get it, I misunderstood what they were asking for. Everyone knows they run the school, they have to deal with so much. I know teachers are important but schools wouldn’t survive without secretaries.

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    Mute Peter Cuthbert
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    Jan 10th 2020, 11:43 AM

    Soon be voting time

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    Mute UCC Social Democrats Society
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    Jan 10th 2020, 12:37 PM

    @Peter Cuthbert: not soon enough!

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    Mute Ivan Assache
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    Jan 10th 2020, 12:23 PM

    All school secretaries should be paid year round, and a decent livable wage at that. They work bloody hard.

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    Mute UCC Social Democrats Society
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    Jan 10th 2020, 12:38 PM

    @Ivan Assache: agreed – alot of work they do is invisible, yet the school would suffer if they were not there to manage paperwork and Office tasks!

    34
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    Mute james dimaggio
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    Jan 10th 2020, 12:38 PM

    @Ivan Assache: Why should they be paid all the year round? What makes them so special? Oh and how do you know they work hard? Is there a shortage of school secretaries? If there isn’t, then there’s obviously enough people happy with the renumeration.

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    Mute Aidan
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    Jan 10th 2020, 12:55 PM

    @james dimaggio: They should be paid year round because that’s how teachers are paid. Schools need these staff to function and they are some of the first back. The increase can be split across twelve months.

    13
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    Mute mr magoo
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    Jan 10th 2020, 1:16 PM

    @Aidan: teachers are paid for 9 months work over 12. The dept withholds a percentage of their monthly salary for this reason. A sub in a school gets paid more per hour as they are not paid during the holidays.

    20
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    Mute Shazam37
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    Jan 10th 2020, 1:27 PM

    @UCC Social Democrats Society:

    Extrapolate that out across the whole public sector and then were back to the Bertie days of paying Pa wages that we simply cannot afford.

    This lunatic Bertie nomics is totally economically in feasible.

    How are we supposed to pay for it? Bertie paid for it with stamp duty and then the property market collapsed. How do the Soc Dems propose paying for salary increases for every public sector group that comes knocking?

    Let me ask you this – seriously – is there a PS group – army, fire, police, health – ANY – that you are steadfastly opposed to?

    13
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    Mute UCC Social Democrats Society
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    Jan 10th 2020, 1:50 PM

    @Shazam37: firstly, https://www.socialdemocrats.ie/what-we-stand-for/
    Have a read. You might learn something new.

    Secondly, Social Democracies worldwide make a budget for a MINIMUM of 5 years – that way there’s non of that BS of “oops no money, hahaha vote for us anyways”.

    Thirdly, Bertie is not, so far as I am aware, a Social Democrat. He is in Fianna Fáil. As such, he does not influence our policies, so to say “Bertie nomics”, or to suggest our fiscal policies would be a return to “the Bertie days”, is plainly incorrect. But dont let that stop you!

    Finally, let me ask you this – seriously – is there a PS Group – army, fire, police, health – ANY – that you think should be taken our for a ride by Government? Where do you draw the line?

    11
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    Mute Jude
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    Jan 10th 2020, 3:48 PM

    @mr magoo: Only permanent ones. Lots of teachers working and not getting paid over the summer.

    14
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    Mute Shazam37
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    Jan 10th 2020, 6:20 PM

    @UCC Social Democrats Society:

    Bertienomics SD is the notion that ongoing pay commitments can be continually increased without any fiscal prudence, based on an uncertain tax surplus.

    Every time I see Labour or the SD or SF or FF arguing for pay increases without saying how it’s to be paid for I automatically think – typical Bertie nomics.

    Suggesting that pay increases should be paid without regard to HOW we pay for them is a return to Bertie Aberns way of doing things.

    By avoiding my question you’ve answered it. There’s not a single Pub Sec pay demand you don’t support.

    As for your question putting aside the silliness of phrasing it as “being taken for a ride” – I’ll say that I am perfectly happy to support pay claims that are accompanied by a fiscal plan for Joe they will be revenue neutral to the exchequer. HOW do we pay for them!?

    As to where we draw the line. Well that’s really really simple. We draw the line at what we can AFFORD.

    1
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    Mute Kev M
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    Jan 10th 2020, 12:22 PM

    They bail out RTÉ, the FAI and God knows what else. School secretaries AND caretakers deserve to be paid by the government and not by BOMs

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    Mute Beer Wolf
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    Jan 10th 2020, 11:41 AM

    €5-7m per year is bloody nothing when the Government spends billions on stupid projects/printers, with obvious embezzlement going on…

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    Mute John Walsh
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    Jan 10th 2020, 3:26 PM

    I do have empathy, but what if they were employed in the private sector working part time/casual / temping hours.
    What’s the difference?

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    Mute Pat Corrigan
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    Jan 10th 2020, 12:13 PM

    That gives me some Friday night internet ideas, secretary walks into headmasters office, ” oh Mr Tyler I need a payrise”

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    Mute James Gannon
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    Jan 10th 2020, 12:39 PM

    Listening to the minister on radio this morning and he’s as competent as the one with responsibility for defence..

    11
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    Mute School4work
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    Jan 10th 2020, 5:33 PM

    Just look at Teachers pay and conditions, you could struggle to get your head around the pay and conditions they receive.
    They work about half the year and the pay is colossal.

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    Mute Martin Keogh
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    Jan 10th 2020, 3:09 PM

    Community employment supervisors formerly FAS in the same boat poor pay and no conditions also looking for some recognition.

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