Teacher Pay dispute

Article Summary

ASTI second-level teachers reject public service pay deal. (Irish Independent, September 2016)
The leadership of the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI) met to consider whether to
reinstate a campaign of industrial action in schools. The move follows the narrow rejection of the
new public service pay agreement by ASTI members in a ballot. Members of the ASTI voted in the
ballot to reject the new public service pay deal by 51.5 per cent to 48.5 per cent. The turnout was 64
per cent. Teachers who started work after 2010 earn 14% less than colleagues, after sweeping cuts
following the economic crash.

The campaign of industrial action saw second-level schools close for a number of days last year. Mr.
Curtin (ASTI President) said the two-tier pay structure was causing all sorts of problems in schools.
Schools were finding it difficult to recruit staff and some subjects were being left without qualified
teachers to teach them. The discriminatory treatment of post-2010 teachers has serious implications
for the future of the teaching profession and the education of children and young people, he said.
TUI president Joanne Irwin said it was morally wrong that two colleagues are placed on significantly
different pay scales although carrying out the same work.
This constitutes unacceptable discrimination against those employed after 1st January 2011.
Teachers and lecturers have voted decisively to reject the new public service agreement and to back
industrial action in opposition to the current two-tier pay structure in schools. Members of the
Teachers Union of Ireland (TUI) opposed the new public service agreement by 87 per cent to 13 per
cent. The campaign of industrial action saw second-level schools close for many days last year.

However, Minister for Education Richard Bruton said that the introduction of pay parity for teachers
could only come about at the expense of resources for schools. The only way that could be done is
denying children resources in their school.
Mr Bruton insisted he fully understood the request from younger teachers to be on the same pay
scale but the Minister said he had to balance the needs of students with the requests of teachers.

The unions executive decided in June to suspend a campaign of industrial action pending a decision
of members on the new pay deal.

Article Reflection
 Teacher Pay dispute

This article focuses on the ongoing industrial relations dialogue between the teaching unions and the
department of Education and Skills. Although this article was published in 2016, the issue has still
not been resolved. As a student teacher this issue is very relevant to my future career.

Although no further industrial action in schools is planned, there are a number of key events due to
take place over the coming weeks which will be watched very closely by the Government as well as
tens of thousands of parents and students. In essence, teachers will have to decide whether they
should row in with what will (more than likely) be the majority decision of the public service trade
union movement to back the proposed new public service pay deal. Their alternative is to fight to try
to achieve something better. However, teaching unions have argued that the agreement did not
sufficiently address their concerns about the two-tier pay structure which sees staff recruited after
2011 paid less than their counterparts taken on before then. The ASTI is recommending to its 18000
members to reject the new service pay deal.

My analysis of the article led to one key question: how is the two-tier pay structure and the
associated industrial action likely to affect students and teachers?

We will initially address effects on students. According to Paul Mooney, president of the National
Parents Council-post primary (NPCpp),

anything that disrupts students education must be avoided and that children must not be

used as pawns in the teachers pay dispute by strikes or school closures.

Most people are willing to accept the assumption that teacher strikes would have a negative effect
on student achievement. However, there is no empirical data to suggest small scale strikes have any
significant effects.

What we actually know about the impact of strikes on student achievement is very little. Given the
obvious lack of control subjects, there is an inherent difficulty in assessing effect of outside
influences on student performance. However, studies have been conducted on this topic in a variety
of locations: the United Kingdom (), Belgium (Belot and Webbink, 2006), the United States (Caldwell
and Maskalski, 1981 and Zwerling, 2008), Canada (Johnson, 2009). Having reviewed the parameters
and results of these studies, the main conclusion to be drawn is a strong correlation between length
of industrial action and impact on students. Strikes which last 10 instructional days or more are
widely regarded as having significant negative effects shorter strikes had little or no impact.
 Teacher Pay dispute
Moving to the effect of this issue on teachers, National Union for Teachers in England and Wales
(NUT) deputy general secretary Kevin Courtney (2014) talks about the effects strikes have on
teachers:
"Good people are leaving the profession, we are building up to a teacher shortage and our children
deserve energetic and enthusiastic teachers not demoralised and exhausted ones."

The teacher is the basis of schooling, and the morale of that teacher influences every aspect of the
educational process. Whitaker, Whitaker, and Lumpa (2000) found it surprising that books on
teacher morale were almost non-existent given that the issue of staff morale is so critical to every
school. Simply put, staff morale has not been thought of as a prominent factor in efforts to improve
education.

Black (2001) outlined the link between teacher morale and student performance, observing where
teacher morale is high, students typically show high achievement. The author also outlined that low
teacher morale can lead to a variety of negative performance characteristics of teachers including
little initiative when it comes to preparing lessons and other classroom activities. Therefore, we
can state that teacher morale should be a priority for educational departments. Preserving a two-
tier salary system will surely do little for the morale of staff, either individually or collectively. A cost-
benefit analysis could possibly conclude that the benefit of eliminating this divisive structure would
far outweigh the financial cost of doing so.

Maslow (1970), in his hierarchy of needs theory, offered a great basis to begin to understand the
foundations or building blocks of teacher morale. According to Lunenburg and Ornstein (1996),
Maslow established five basic needs of humans that emerge in a hierarchy of importance, arranged
from lowest to highest, which address physiological, safety, social, esteem, and self-actualization
needs of humans. These five are contended to be the basic needs of humans and are a determining
factor when looking at the morale of an individual person. For the lowest two of these levels, we
would assume that physiological and safety issues should not be prominent in an educational
environment. However, where social, esteem and self-actualisation needs are concerned, it could be
argued that educational systems and individual schools could do more to enhance the experience for
teaching staff. In particular, self-actualization needs include the desire for maximizing your own
potential, autonomy, and creativity (Whitaker et al., 2000, p. 5). These should be key targets for
management staff at school and departmental level.

Amabile (1997) identified the distinction between two types of motivation: extrinsic (linked to
external rewards like salary) and intrinsic (linked to inspiring enthusiasm in staff through intangible
aspects of the workplace). This work highlighted the limitation of extrinsic factors in motivating staff.
 Teacher Pay dispute
Given that pay scales are rigid and not immediately linked to performance in educational
environments, it is particularly important to focus on fostering intrinsic motivation in staff.

To conclude, research has shown that short term strikes have no significant impact on student
performance. However, industrial relations issues of this nature have a major impact upon teacher
morale, which in turn impacts greatly upon student performance. This analysis points to the
conclusion that if the Department of Education are genuinely concerned about student achievement
being impacted by their educational environment, then it is not short-term strikes that should be of
most concern but rather the morale and motivation of teachers.

References

Teresa M Amabile (1997) Motivating creativity in organizations: On doing what you love and loving
what you do, California Management Review; Berkeley; Fall 1997;

Belot, Michele and Dinand Webbink, (2006), The Lost Generation: The Effect of Teachers Strikes on
students Evidence from Belgium, University of Essex.

Black, Susan (2001). When Teachers feel good about their work, research shows, student
achievement rises. American School Board Journal. Research.htm.

Caldwell, W. E., and M.D. Moskalski, (1981), The effect of school district strikes on student
achievement, Government Union Review, 2(4), 3-14.

Johnson, David, (2009), How do Work Stoppages and Work-to-Rule Campaigns Change Elementary
School Assessment Results? Manuscript, Wilfred Laurier University.

Lunenburg, F.C., & Ornstein, A. C. (1996). Educational administration: Concepts and practices.
Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Maslow, A. H. (1970). Motivation and personality. New York: Harper and Row.

McConnell, D. McEnroe, J. and Murray, N. Irish Examiner Anger at call for parity on teacher salaries
Friday, August 25, 2017, viewed on 27/10/17

Parks, D. J. (1983). Leadership in times of austerity. Educational Leadership 40, 11-13. Raferty

Retention of two-tier pay structure remains an issue for teaching unions, Irish Times Sat, Sep 9, 2017,
16:58 viewed on 27/10/17
 Teacher Pay dispute
Saul, H. Independent Members of the National Union of Teachers (NUT) walk out over pensions, pay
and conditions, Wednesday 26 March 2014 viewed on 27/10/17

Zwerling, Harris L., (2008), Pennsylvania Teachers Strikes and Academic Performance Journal of
Collective Negotiations 32(2): 151-172.

Whitaker, T., Whitaker, B., & Lumpa, D. (2000). Motivating and inspiring teachers: The educational
leaders guide for building staff morale. Larchmont, NY: Eye On Education.