Ged Nash is demanding the Government start treating school secretaries and caretakers with a bit of respect.
These key members of all school staff are due to take strike action on August 28 next.
It is bad news for parents because teachers are unlikely to pass their official pickets.
They are deeply unhappy about a lack of pension parity and seeking fairer contracts and conditions that they believe their work in the public sector warrants.
Deputy Nash said: “I am a long-standing and vocal supporter of the need to ensure that our school secretaries and caretakers – members of Forsa trade union – are provided with the same entitlement to decent pensions and other benefits enjoyed by every other staff member at the schools they are central to running and managing.
“The campaign to secure fairer terms and conditions for workers in these critical roles who have been taken for granted by the Department of Education, and who have been neglected and ignored for too long, has secures some significant wins along the way thanks to the dogged determination of school administrators and caretakers, and their union.
“The frustration over the failure of this and the previous government to, for example, take the next logical step and ensure school secretaries and caretakers employed by Boards of Management are treated like the public servants they are and enjoy access to the public sector pension scheme is being resisted at every turn by the government.
“The frustration among the school administrators with whom I liaise regularly is palpable. This has been expressed in packed meetings across the country in recent weeks, including in Drogheda.”
Deputy Nash said these are the very last people who want to go on strike.
But they feel they have been left with no option but to reach for this unprecedented action commencing in less than two weeks’ time.
He called on the Minister for Education Helen McEntee who lives out the road in the Slane area to make a meaningful intervention and sort the issue out.
