ASTI members yesterday voted overwhelmingly to recommend rejection of the Labour Court pay offer. Instead, they are seeking a series of passive actions which effectively represent a work-to-rule.
However, a decision will not be made until next week on whether this year's Leaving and Junior Cert exams will be affected. This will be determined by the balloting of members on the Labour Court deal from next week, but it appears unlikely the exams will be hit.
Delegates attending the union's annual convention in Galway, in devising a programme of action to be implemented if the Labour Court offer is rejected, decided against all-out strike action or a series of rolling strike days. They also rejected a motion to withdraw from participation in all parent-teacher meetings or from co-operating with national parents' bodies.
"The actions are primarily non-strike action," the union's general secretary, Mr Charlie Lennon, said. "They are directed towards withdrawal of cooperation with the Department in a number of respects - issues like not engaging in voluntary activities in schools."
He said the move represented a softer approach by the ASTI and would not necessarily result in school closures. "The determination in there [at the convention] was not to close schools as such," he said. "If members withdraw supervision then schools may close but the fact of the matter is that issue is being looked at in another context." This issue is also expected to be balloted on.
"ASTI members may withdraw supervision and substitution in the autumn if this campaign is continuing through direct action at that stage," Mr Lennon said.
In a robust debate on their pay campaign, which opened to the media for the first time yesterday afternoon, delegates spoke for and against an all-out strike. Mr Tim Lynch, Kerry, urged colleagues to stop "Mickey-mousing about" and vote for an all-out strike.
Mr Billy Ryle, also Kerry, said he had been mandated by his branch to vote for all-out strike action. "The accusation has been levelled against us that we ran a campaign but ran from the pain. It is a valid criticism. I know it's easy to be wise with hindsight, but I feel that if we had totally shut down the second level education system our pay claim might have been satisfactorily resolved by now."
Ms Miriam Hennessy, Bray, said the teachers were poor enough already. "We could not survive starvation," she said, urging rejection of an all-out strike.
Referring to the ASTI's campaign, Mr Willie Ruane, West Mayo, said: "It's been said our PR campaign was a disaster. I'd go so far as saying the whole campaign was a disaster."
He said if it had been a success "we would not be here today attending almost a wake".
Mr Paddy Clancy, Waterford, said any teacher who voted for Fianna Fail in the next election "is a turkey voting for Christmas".
Mr Noel Buckley, Tipperary, referred to the great co-operation there had been between parents and teachers in the past and said the president of the National Parent's Council (Post Primary), Ms Marie Danaswamy - who alleged she had been verbally attacked on a number of occasions at the convention - was not representative of all parents.
"It's naive of the woman to walk into an assembly here and expect a warm and welcoming reception given the way she represented parents in this dispute," he said.