Fórsa has resumed its campaign for pay and pension justice for school secretaries and caretakers.
The campaign was launched at an event on Saturday (23rd November) at the union’s head offices in Dublin.
While school secretaries fought and won the right to be included on the Department of Education payroll, they continue to be denied access to the public service pension scheme.
A number of Fórsa members spoke at the Fórsa event, outlining the difficulties faced by school secretaries and caretakers who are so far unable to join the public service pension scheme, despite being directly employed by the Department of Education.
Rena McGrath and Orla Greaney are school secretaries who have worked together in a Galway school. They’ve worked together for more than 20 years. Rena has access to the pension scheme, while Orla does not.
Rena described Orla’s situation as a clear injustice: “I work alongside Orla. We share an office and we share all the duties involved in working in our roles as school secretaries.
“Unfortunately, the Department chooses to ignore Orla’s needs when it comes to parity and fairness. This is not equality for my peers, and this is what we are fighting to change,” she said.
The secretary of Fórsa’s School Secretaries branch, Noreen O’Callaghan, said the vast majority (98.2%) of the branch’s membership are women while more than half (55%) of are over the age of 55: “Employers, workers and Government all understand how important it is for workers to have a pension.
“It makes no sense to have school secretaries on the payroll while denying them access to the main pension scheme. The inconsistency of the department’s approach ensures inequality. This must change,” she said.
Fórsa’s head of Education, Andy Pike, said the exclusion of school secretaries and caretakers from the public service pension scheme is an injustice: “The Minister of Education is now the paymaster for teachers, SNAs and school secretaries, all of whom are paid by the department.
“However, school secretaries and caretakers continue to be denied access to the pension scheme. That’s why Fórsa is resuming our campaign for pension justice, and more than 2,000 school secretaries are now preparing to take this campaign all the way to Government’s door,” he said.
The union successfully campaigned for a new pay agreement (2021) for school secretaries, who are now paid directly by the Department of Education. For many decades, prior to the agreement, school secretaries were individually employed by school boards of management, on varied and sometimes very precarious conditions.
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