Budget 2011 Education Cuts: School Secretaries, Caretakers and Cleaners foot the bill for grant cuts [impact.ie]
- Published: 07 December 2010
News Summary:
IMPACT trade union has said that the announcement in today’s budget of a 5% cut in the capitation grant to primary and secondary schools directly reflects the pay cut imposed on non-education staff announced last month by the Department of Education.News Content:
The Department of Education and Skills last month issued a circular to all schools and VECs instructing them to impose pay cuts, averaging 5%, on up to 17,000 low paid staff from January 1st 2011.
IMPACT trade union represents many of the workers involved and has said that it will challenge the pay cut. Deputy General Secretary Kevin Callinan commented, “The pay cut announced last month was clearly designed to facilitate the cut in school grants announced today. These workers are already on low incomes. They enjoy no other benefits or securities for their vital contribution to the education sector. They will face increased taxes and benefit reductions as a result of this budget. But it is beyond reason that they are also being asked to foot the bill as grants to schools are slashed.
“School secretaries in particular have waited for years to have their terms and conditions of employment standardised. In the worst cases we have found some were earning less than the minimum wage, and many never had the chance to earn much more than that. But the government have now decided that they can be thought of as public servants in order to facilitate a pay cut on top of bearing further austerity measures” he said.
