Tipperary's adult education tutors to protest today over their pay and conditions

Adult education tutors will stage a protest outside Tipperary Education & Training Board’s main offices today (Friday, April 21) to highlight their long standing claim for better pay and conditions.

The protest outside the ETB’s offices in Clonmel and in Nenagh is being organised by the Adult Education Tutors Organisation.

It is part of a national day of protest action the organisation’s members are staging at ETB head offices across the country to put pressure on the Government to resolve their claim for proper public service contracts with an incremental salary scale, recognition of prior service and improved conditions like pay during term and midterm holidays.

They are also seeking parity of pay for those recruited after 2011, who are paid less than longer serving colleagues.

The protest at Tipperary ETB’s administrative offices on the Western Road in Clonmel will start at 12.30pm today.

Among the tutors protesting will be Breda Lonergan-Ryan from Newcastle, who works as an adult literacy and community education tutor with Tipperary ETB in Clonmel.

Breda went back to college in her 30s and secured a BA degree and a Higher Diploma in Adult and Continuing Education but says due recognition is not given in her job to these qualifications.

Breda says tutors like her have no security of employment and no contracts. They are only paid for the class hours they teach and are not paid during mid-term or holiday periods.

“We sign on (the dole) at each holiday be it midterm, Easter, summer, Halloween and Christmas. Our pension contributions are also very poor. I will be lucky to get a decent pension, she told The Nationalist.

Breda points out that a friend with the same qualifications as her and teaching in Mary Immaculate College’s Thurles Campus has a contract and much better pay and working conditions.

She says it’s very unfair that adult education tutors don’t get the recognition they deserve for their qualifications and the important work they do.

Fellow adult education tutor Caoimhin Woods said the Adult Education Tutors Organisation is a cross-union group tat includes members of trade unions like Teachers Union of Ireland (TUI) as well as non-union members.

He stressed the day of action is not a strike but a protest to highlight their plight over poor pay and conditions.

Caoimhin has a BA degree in History & Anthropology, a Masters in Adult & Community Education and qualification in teaching English as a foreign language. He specialises in teaching English to members of the immigrant and refugee community.

He points out that adult education tutors’ work is real front line teaching. Some of his students left school at the age of 12, which presents certain challenges. It’s a very specialised area of teaching,” he says.

“I have been working for Tipperary ETB since 2006 and have received no pay increments and no pay rises. There is no recognition given to my qualifications.

“We want a proper incremental pay scale like other teachers and proper public service contracts which would recognise our qualifications.”

Caoimhin, who works in Nenagh and Roscrea, has a friend working as an adult education tutor in the Prison Service. This friend’s pay and conditions are like those of a secondary school teacher.

When he notified the TUI of this glaring anomaly, it was explained that the prison teachers are paid under the secondary school system.

Like Breda and other adult education tutors, Caoimhin signs on for social welfare payments five times a year. While he has been with the ETB for 17 year and works full-time hours, he is treated as a part-time worker.

“It's unbelievable,” he says.

He explains that adult education tutors have what is called “guaranteed hours” that are based on the hours you worked in the base year of 2016.

While luckily he is working full-time hours, other tutors are not because their class hours were low that year.
Caoimhin says their trade unions have tried to bring their pay and conditions into line with teachers in other education sectors.

The dispute, which involves more than 3,300 tutors from across the country, has been before both the Workplace Relations Commission and Labour Court with the latter recommending in March 2020 that the Department of Education assess how much of a budget it could provide to address the tutors’ claim and then make an offer regarding staffing and pay levels based on that budget.

Last year, the Department told the tutors that it would put that offer to them by the end of September but that hasn’t happened yet.

The offer regarding their claim for public service contracts is currently being considered by the Department of Public Expenditure & Reform and won’t be presented until it is signed off by this department.
In February, frustrated at the delay, the adult education tutors staged a protest at the Dáil. Next week’s protest is their second day of action.

In a statement, the Department of Further & Higher Education said there is no specific public sector grade of adult education tutor and tutors are paid on an hourly rate basis, generally at the unqualified teacher rate.

It said while progress has been made across other issues for adult tutors, relating to the awarding of Contracts of Indefinite Duration across ETBs and access to leave schemes, paid leave and the appropriate public sector pension scheme, the claim from SIPTU and TUI to align adult education tutors to a pay scale of an existing ETB grade remains unresolved.

“In 2020, the Labour Court recommended that the official side make an offer. A joint proposal has been prepared by this Department and the Department of Education, which retains regulatory responsibility for the ETB sector.

“This proposal is currently under discussion with the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform.

“The Department recognises the critical role played by these tutors within the further education and training system and is working to finalise the offer to the unions at the earliest opportunity,” the statement concluded.