Public sector vilified -- ASTI
Sunday November 08 2009
TEACHERS and public servants are being subjected to "vilification" by right-wing economists and commentators, according to Asti General Secretary John White.
Speaking at the ASTI Education conference in Dublin yesterday, Mr White condemned commentators over "incorrect statements" about teachers' conditions of work.
"Utterly incorrect statements about teachers' sick leave, hours of work, duties and responsibilities are repeated ad nauseam by the same right-wing economists and commentators who were the cheerleaders for the operation of the raw market," he said.
"I want to say to the Government and the right-wing commentariat that when you damage teachers and the education system, you damage more than the education system, you damage the social good."
Mr White called on the ASTI's 17,000 members to vote yes in the upcoming ballot for industrial action and urged the other three teachers' unions -- the Teachers' Union of Ireland, Irish National Teachers' Organisation and Irish Federation of University Teachers -- to join forces.
Mr White warned that the terms of employment of teachers had never before been under such attack. "Teachers are faced with pay cuts, a longer school day, a longer school year, requirements as to attendance, the end of the supervision and substitution scheme and so on."
The ASTI conference, entitled 'Teachers, Education and Social Good', took place in University College, Dublin, and was opened by Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney.
- Sile Cleary
Sunday Independent
