Teacher/Government pay & CP hour talks etc

deiseindublin

Does anybody know what is actually going on at the moment? Are all PS workers that rejected LR negotiating together or are Education sector together or each union for themselves etc?

I'm looking up TUI & ASTI website and FB pages every day but there's no information out there.

Getting really pissed off and have a horrible feeling they'll get us to re-vote on an eclectic mix (bag of ****) of issues together.

There are only 6 weeks before the end of term and whatever ballot takes place has to happen in May.

Will there even be an agreement without a government?

joebloggs32

deiseindublin wrote: »

Does anybody know what is actually going on at the moment? Are all PS workers that rejected LR negotiating together or are Education sector together or each union for themselves etc?

I'm looking up TUI & ASTI website and FB pages every day but there's no information out there.

Getting really pissed off and have a horrible feeling they'll get us to re-vote on an eclectic mix (bag of ****) of issues together.

There are only 6 weeks before the end of term and whatever ballot takes place has to happen in May.

Will there even be an agreement without a government?

From what I could gather at the TUI conference that's the gist of it.

Sounded like they were in negotiations with the department of education only. They promised to bring it to the members in May. It seems whatever comes out of it will cover a number of different issues

mirrorwall14

Has anyone else got their plan a and plan b yearly timetable done? One with the 33hrs and one without

The difference is just incredible. I'm on our committee for the hours and there is nothing more likely to have teachers keep voting no to any agreement involving them than looking at that timetable!

deiseindublin

How so mirrowwall? We don't have a timetabled half day so the 33 hours doesn't have any effect on timetable iykwim. I'm really hoping they don't want us to pencil in 2 full days CP in late Aug though. Shouldn't be planning for it until we see if it's actually there or not.

Icsics

There's a CEC meeting 2mw to word the ballot on CP hrs & decide on postal v school ballot.

mirrorwall14

deiseindublin wrote: »

How so mirrowwall? We don't have a timetabled half day so the 33 hours doesn't have any effect on timetable iykwim. I'm really hoping they don't want us to pencil in 2 full days CP in late Aug though. Shouldn't be planning for it until we see if it's actually there or not.

I mean the yearly planner like when and how long the meetings are after school making up the croke park hours are. One time table is three parent teacher meetings and three half in half out staff meetings. The other has a meeting/event pretty much every week

deiseindublin

Oh, ok, we're pretty much in the 1 hour a week category, with the odd week off for good behaviour if we've a longer one on an open night/awards night etc.

deiseindublin

Icsics wrote: »

There's a CEC meeting 2mw to word the ballot on CP hrs & decide on postal v school ballot.

Well, that's concrete anyway!

For some reason the media seem obsessed with ballot turnouts all of a sudden. Makes me laugh when I hear politicians talking about low turn outs and how close NO votes were to the 50% cut off. Doesn't seem to bother them on election day or if they get in on the final count!

solerina

We had a staff meeting last week and the P is planning CP hours as if nothing will stop them going ahead, he has planned Aug 23 + 24th as CP....no one was very impressed and a few pointed out that CP may not even exist by then..they were ignored !!
Please God give us a ballot so that we can get rid of those pointless hours !!
I hope anyway.

Mirrorwall, we don't have a committee, our P decides and that's it, tough if you don't like it.

mirrorwall14

I thought there has to be a committee?!

mirrorwall14

There has to be staff agreement. Our staff agreed that a full staff trying to decide every small detail was crazy so we have a small committee who meet with principal. Then they go away and talk to staff for a week or so and another meeting is held.
The proposed timetable arising from that is put to staff.

Icsics

ASTI school based ballot going ahead re CP hrs

deiseindublin

Jesus, I wish we'd hear some titbit of feedback from the TUI.

There is literally NOTHING on their website since the conference.

TheDriver

Isn't it better that a Principal plans the CP hours while staff are there instead of in Aug when no one else is there to discuss. If there is a vote to get rid of them then that TT is scraped but I think its right to have a plan in place at this stage. We have had situations before where we all thought they were gone (I think 3 years ago) and suddenly no change. No principal is going to "make" a cp hours timetable go ahead if its off the table come Sept.

deiseindublin

Fair enough as long as the CP hours aren't timetabled to be on for 2 or so full days at the end of August. I don't think it's unreasonable at this stage to be able to plan for holidays and flying home dates so we do need to know what the start back date is, and it shouldn't start with CP hours that may or may not happen.

TheDriver

Fair point but then staff could be quite aggrieved having to do the hours during the year to make them up? Catch 22.
At this stage, most of my staff have flights booked

deiseindublin

In fairness, any teacher I know is aware that it'll be either 33 or 0 hours so can't see they'll be aggrieved.

It's a huge bug bear of mine that the August starting date is a mystery to staff for so long. I don't see why August start dates can't be planned years in advance when the SSY is published by DES. Things can't get any more black and white than a calendar with dates set.

TheDriver

Because CP hours are decided at school level and some schools like to open gradually over a week

deiseindublin

But apart from CP hours, calendars should be set.

TheDriver

Indeed they should be but some schools already don't adhere to the current schedule never mind adding to it e.g. The schools that closed on 6th Jan this year.

man_no_plan

deiseindublin wrote: »

But apart from CP hours, calendars should be set.

The very latest you can start back and get in 167 days is 29 August. If you have religious observances or other days you have to push back into the previous week with or without Croke Park so in a sense it is fixed.

The safest bet is to plan them and then see what happens imo. There will still need to be meetings and planning etc. m58/04 still allows for that, we always did a bit of subject planning in our own time - i think the CP hours will actually end up making a balls of that because niw everything that happens has to have a time from the hours alloted to it. We were doing most of the hours anyway, why we had to do them all at the same time was beyond me.

mirrorwall14

The croke park hours are the biggest pain in the neck. The work always got done anyways. Now things have just expanded or got added to the schedule or you have to sit through ridiculous training or speakers making up hours. I absolutely despise them and I will not vote for any agreement involving them.

Of all of the things imposed by FEMPI or the 'agreements' that were forced on us, these rankle the most, especially because of the way they were implemented and the impact they have on extra curricular and our own planning which of course was not deemed worthy of being permissible because the untrustworthy teachers must sit down at the same time in case they don't do the work. No other area of the public service had this imposed. And the ONLY reason was because they knew they couldn't add another teaching hour as we are already well above the yearly average on contact hours. God forbid they would actually acknowledge that we do plenty of work outside of our teaching time. They could easily have said, every school must have a planning day where teachers stay in school to prepare their classes for one extra hour a week or teach extra curricular during that period but no we had to be punished and they were expressly forbidden to be contact hours. Instead extracurricular had to be cancelled for them.

deiseindublin

I can see them rolling CP hours into a ballot along with new salary scales mirrorwall and I'll be really conflicted about what to do if that's what's on the ballot.

I REALLY DON'T WANT TO DO CP hours but it's a bind when I see younger colleagues doing the same job as me for less. I suppose that's what DES will be depending on.

km79

deiseindublin wrote: »

I can see them rolling CP hours into a ballot along with new salary scales mirrorwall and I'll be really conflicted about what to do if that's what's on the ballot.

I REALLY DON'T WANT TO DO CP hours but it's a bind when I see younger colleagues doing the same job as me for less. I suppose that's what DES will be depending on.

there is a school based ballot on CP hours next month
why would the 2 issues be part of one vote ?
won't happen and isn't happening as far as I can tell

deiseindublin

I'm TUI, can see them pulling a 1-size fits all medley ballot out out of the bag in May. Hopefully I'm just being a pessimist though.

km79

deiseindublin wrote: »

I'm TUI, can see them pulling a 1-size fits all medley ballot out out of the bag in May. Hopefully I'm just being a pessimist though.

oh OK sorry
and yes they could
and then where will that leave us all!!

Icsics

ASTI ballot on CP hrs is stand alone. No doubt there'll be plenty threats coming from the DES in the run up eg not getting S&S etc

TheDriver

Pay will always come around in some form or another, terms and conditions of employment are much harder fought.

mirrorwall14

Icsics wrote: »

ASTI ballot on CP hrs is stand alone. No doubt there'll be plenty threats coming from the DES in the run up eg not getting S&S etc

We were never going to get that anyways lets be honest. It was always going to be used as an extra leverage for other productivity measures which is why it drove me nuts that we voted in the haddington road agreement.

I would agree that terms and conditions are far far more difficult to get back than pay. Conditions also muddy the waters and should not come into pay talks if at all possible

man_no_plan

I think that ASTI are being a bit hasty with their ballot, after all the Haddington Road agreement is still in force for now.

Is it not the case that if expires then you don't do the hours as they are part of the agreement? Is a ballot needed at all?

If the payment of s&s isnt given then there should be a separate ballot and we should hit the roadside for as long as we need to.

Let the DES break the agreement. While fempi may affect pay the expiration of the HR agreement should see the end of the hours. FEMPI is on its last legs to so maybe we could ride it out.

km79

man_no_plan wrote: »

I think that ASTI are being a bit hasty with their ballot, after all the Haddington Road agreement is still in force for now.

Is it not the case that if expires then you don't do the hours as they are part of the agreement? Is a ballot needed at all?

If the payment of s&s isnt given then there should be a separate ballot and we should hit the roadside for as long as we need to.

Let the DES break the agreement. While fempi may affect pay the expiration of the HR agreement should see the end of the hours. FEMPI is on its last legs to so maybe we could ride it out.

HRA ends in June
school year ends in June
calendars need to be done by then
I'm actually suprised and very pleased they have had the foresight to get the ballot and results sorted before we break up for the summer
Vote no to them and that should be that then . done and dusted and we can really enjoy the summer !