The Education and Training Boards marked ten years in existence on 1st July this year. But Fórsa’s NETB branch has criticised the failure of the Department of Education to negotiate a review of all grades and functions. 

The union’s National Education and Training Board (NETB) branch said staff are still awaiting structures and appropriate roles after all these years. Fórsa is currently working on their behalf to resolve this impasse. 

Fórsa said PMSS unions are seeking a structure from the bottom up to afford member promotional prospects in each of their ETB’s. 

Union official Stella Griffin said it was imperative that a national grading structure isestablished for all roles, “so that all members working in a role cannot be treated less favourable due to the ability or not of an ETB’s budget.” 

The NETB branch also highlighted its concern regarding the grade drift issue, austerity staffing constraints and the high levels of burn out among staff.  

Speaking to the branch’s motion at Fórsa’s Education divisional conference in April this year, branch chair Marcel McCafferty said that the majority of Fórsa members in the education sector had been working above their pay grades for many years. 
 
He told delegates that a second phase of organisational design was to look at the staffing structure from Grade III upwards to establish consistent structures across the ETB sector. 
 
However, he told delegates the process has yet to be agreed and accused the department of ‘backtracking’ on its commitment to talks on a second phase. 
 
Marcel told delegates: “As an employee of an ETB this has been a very frustrating time. 
 
“Without a designated structure, staff have found limited career progression options, and we’ve unfortunately seen staff with many years of experience leave ETBs for that exact reason. 
 
“I’ve witnessed two members with eighteen and sixteen years’ experience, respectively, leave in the past year due to the lack of progression options,” he said. 

Delegates at the conference in Portlaoise in April backed the motion, which calls on the Education DEC to ensure continued progression of Organisational Design Phase II, to include a review of all grades and functions of an ETB.