Dublin South West representative Se\u00e1n Crowe has claimed that Education Minister Ruair\u00ed Quinn has adopted a \u201cbully boy approach\u201d in the way he has attempted to resolve the on-going industrial dispute with the secondary teachers union ASTI over their rejection of the Haddington Road Agreement.<\/p>\n
Crowe said the possibility of all-out strike action by teachers, should it happen, could be attributed in no small part to the threats that were being made by the Department of Education (DES) including the discontinuing of the Substitution and Supervision (S&S) Allowance and the \u00a0threat of job losses.<\/p>\n
Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe claimed:<\/p>\n
\u201cMinister Quinn and his Department officials seem \u2018hell bent\u2019 in attempting to bully and coerce the secondary teachers union ASTI into accepting the Haddington Road Agreement. He has signalled that he intends to withdraw the Substitution and Supervision Allowance and suggested that job losses may follow their Haddington Road rejection. His confrontational and reckless approach is not only counterproductive – it is likely to lead to an escalation of the dispute that could result in strike action by teachers in the New Year.<\/p>\n
\u201cCoercion is in no one\u2019s interests, least of all the young people whose education will be badly affected by this type of disruption.\u00a0A succession of cuts in teacher\u2019s pay and allowances have resulted in a demoralised teaching cohort and an erosion of the goodwill that is so essential to the learning environment both in and outside the school classroom.Yet regardless of this reality, Minister Quinn has continued with this confrontational approach in his dealings with the teachers and their union.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs recently as last week the Minister, in a reply to a Sinn F\u00e9in Parliamentary Question, stated that until the ASTI agree to the terms of Haddington Road there would be no engagement with the teachers union to exam the concerns they have around the proposed Junior Certificate \u00a0Cycle reform.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is foolhardy and unacceptable as the priority has to be in ensuring the radical changes to the Junior Cert are deliverable. This means in an inclusive manner addressing the very genuine concerns of the ASTI and their membership who are absolutely essential in delivering any new curriculum.<\/p>\n
\u201cInstead of trying to browbeat and humiliate the ASTI and its members, Minster Quinn needs to seriously engage with teachers. He also needs to do all within his power to address their legitimate concerns and grievances and that means dropping his bully boy approach.”<\/p>\n
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Dublin South West representative Se\u00e1n Crowe has claimed that Education Minister Ruair\u00ed Quinn has adopted a \u201cbully boy approach\u201d in the way he has attempted to resolve the on-going industrial dispute with the secondary teachers union ASTI over their rejection of the Haddington Road Agreement. Crowe said the possibility of all-out strike action by teachers, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1467"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1467\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1468,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1467\/revisions\/1468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}