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Any industrial action by teachers over vaccine priority won't stop schools reopening after Easter break 

Tuesday, 6 April 2021 06:50

A joint motion will be debated at the ASTI, TUI and INTO annual conferences, which start today. 

Teachers had expected to be among the first third of the population to get a dose until last week, when the advice from the National Immunisation Advisory Committee changed. 

Martin Marjoram, president of the TUI, says teachers will have to be back at work to vote on the action:

"There's a lengthy process involved in fact, in balloting for industrial action. There has to be a ballot of all of the affected members, that would require us to get those ballots into the Second Level workplaces, which will be fully reopened as we know from the 12th of April, which is another consideration in our minds. We will be back in the most crowded classrooms and most crowded schools in Europe again. That takes a period of time."

The ASTI conference will hear teachers on part-time or temporary contracts are having trouble making ends meet. 

The union's president Ann Piggott says many used to fill the gaps in their schedule by taking work in hospitality: 

"We have motions relating to non-permanent teachers and the casualisation of their profession, many of them can't get permanent jobs for a while. Some of them can't get full time hours, and in the past we've been told at conventions that they had jobs in pubs, restaurants and shops, and that avenue for them now to have steady income has disappeared also."

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