Pay dispute brings teacher stop-work

Press, 7 February 1986, Page 5

Pay dispute brings teacher stop-work

Secondary school classes will be disrupted on February 14 when teachers stop work for an hour at 8.30 a.m. The teachers will attend a meeting at Cashmere High School, called by the Post-Primary Teachers’ Association. Whether the teachers will discuss possible industrial action to support their pay claim depends on the outcome of a Cabinet policy committee meeting on Tuesday.

The association’s spokesman, Ms Theresa Shaughnessy, said the meeting was planned to bring teachers up to date with progress in the dispute. If there was no progress after Tuesday’s meeting, industrial action might be discussed, she said.

It would be up to individual schools to decide when pupils should start school that morning, she

said. An Education Department official has denied that the department plans to use untrained teachers to fill vacancies. The Director of Schools, Mr Arch Gilchrist, said the department was unequivocally committed to a trained graduate service. Mr Gilchrist had mentioned earlier this week that untrained teachers might be used to cover vacancies. He said yesterday that the agreement negotiated between the

P.P.T.A. and the Secondary School Boards’ Association dealt with temporary, short-term measures only. “Each situation is monitored very closely. The department accepts full responsibility for the effective administration of this section,” Mr Gilchrist said. “Nothing I said could be construed to mean that the department is in any way backing off its fundamental commitment to a trained graduate service,” he said.