School secretaries in Dundalk strike against two-tier system

School secretaries in Dundalk joined their colleagues across the country last Friday morning in a brief one hour work stoppage at the start of the school day.

Forsá, the trade union representing school secretaries say that the problem at the heart of the dispute, is an "antiquated and discriminatory pay regime", which the trade union says discriminates between a minority of school secretaries who are directly-employed by the education department, and have public service employment status, and a majority who are hired by school management boards, which determine their pay and conditions.

Fórsa say most school secretaries are very poorly paid, with uncertain short-term contracts that force many of them to sign on during the summer holidays. It also highlights the "very wide range of duties" carried out by school secretaries.

Four protests took place in Louth last Friday, including at St Louis Secondary School and the CBS Primary School in Dundalk.

Louth Labour senator Ged Nash, spoke out last week in support of the school secretaries, saying that he “he fully supports the industrial action” and said that the “Minister for Education should get real and start to show our school secretaries the respect they deserve.”

Fórsa say that following the protest the next step will involve “a significant work to rule”.
The work to rule action will withdraw school secretaries from work on public service systems and databases on the basis that if they are not paid or recognised as public servants.

Fórsa say they will also refuse to carry out the functions of public servants. The action is expected to cause significant disruption to the administration of the schools sector without affecting students or parents.