Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Anti-Austerity Alliance) | Oireachtas source

We see how this Government acts. The Government used the Acts - the threat of FEMPI - to get those agreements passed with the other unions. One or two unions stuck it out and did not heed those threats. What happens? The Government victimises the members and young teachers and tries to stop them getting partial pay restoration as a result. Equal pay for equal work used to be a core principle of trade unionism. That is how women won the right to equal pay and it is how migrants and others should win it as well. It has been a long-standing principle. There has been a rise in employers treating new entrants badly, and it is important in the so-called recovery that workers take a stand on that. I support the ASTI in its ballot for industrial action against this measure. I also support anything that takes young workers and new graduates out of low pay and precarious work.

What happens here is that a teacher has to sign a book that is passed around the staffroom stating what union they are a member of. If they are a member of the ASTI, they do not get the increase while if they are a member of the TUI, they get the increase. I ask people in the TUI not to go along with this kind of division.

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