Tipperary school staff are on strike to highlight their entitlement to pension parity

Pickets were placed on over 70 schools in Tipperary by striking secretaries and caretakers on Monday morning. 

Over one hundred secretaries and caretakers, members of the Forsa trade union, from Tipperary schools staged a strike on Monday morning joining colleagues from all over the country.

READ MORE: Tipperary school secretaries and caretakers to join national strike action

School secretaries and caretakers represented by Fórsa began indefinite strike action from Thursday, August 28, in protest at their exclusion from public service pensions and basic entitlements.

The Tipperary school staff on strike joined thousands more at a rally at the Department of Public Expenditure, Merrion Street last Thursday and also staged a protest last Friday in Cork.

More than 2,600 workers nationwide are involved, following a 98% vote in favour of strike action. Approximately 2,000 schools nationwide will be affected by the strike action.

It marks the escalation of efforts by Fórsa to end what it describes as the deliberate and indefensible exclusion of school secretaries and caretakers from access to a public service pension and terms of employment.

Among those to join the picket on Monday morning was Anne Ahearne, a secretary at Ardfinnan National School.

Anne has worked as the secretary at Ardfinnan National School for the last 30 years.
Anne is the longest serving staff member at the school and has never been given access to a public service pension.

“I remember the first SNA coming to the school 28 years ago and automatically going into the public service pension.I am still fighting for my pension entitlements like so many other secretaries are,” said Anne.

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She accused the Government of treating secretaries like public service staff when it suited them .
“When the crash came teachers lost 5% of their wage and so did I and other school secretaries who have no public service pension.We were treated like public servants then, why have we not yet received public service pension rights. It is time for this inequality to stop" she insisted.