In a lively final session at the TUI conference, delegates voted for an emergency motion to address the cost of living crisis. It instructs the
“Executive to inform the government and the ICTU that unless a meaningful pay offer is made by the end of the school/academic year which
• Compensates members for loss of earnings in 2021
• Provides for increases that keep pace with the level of inflation in 2022, and
• Provides for an escalator clause to compensate members from any further increases in inflation.
That it will initiate a ballot for a campaign of strike action”.
The motion was proposed and seconded by TUI Grassroots activists and People Before Profit members Eddie Conlon and Kate Mooney and was passed in the face of opposition from the union leadership.
It’s clear that teachers and lecturers want their living standards protected from the tsunami of price rises which has taken place. Teachers did not take kindly to being told by the ICTU speaker at the Conference that “a positive outcome from the talks could not be guaranteed,” referring to the talks which are due to start with the government on a replacement for Building Momentum public pay deal.
A key factor was that members are only now getting pay back that was taken during the austerity years. Pay has been static over an extended period of time. They felt that a more robust stance was necessary to ensure living standards were protected now. They felt the union would be better going into talks with a mandate for action in its back pocket.
Rather than being a solo run, as some executive members suggested it was, the strategy set out in the motion was seen as a pacesetter for others to follow.
Other unions should now take a similar approach and make it clear to the government that a failure to meet just pay demands will result in strike action.