The continued unequal treatment of non-teaching school staff is effectively teaching children that it’s “okay to disrespect and discriminate,” according to the outgoing chair of Fórsa’s 12,000-strong Education Division.

Fórsa will seek to renegotiate the SNAs’ contract “to establish parity with conditions of service for others in education and address long-standing problems” if a planned new model of service provision leads to increased responsibilities and work demands.

Fórsa has raised the idea of a mid-term review of the Public Service Stability Agreement (PSSA), which currently governs pay and working conditions for most public servants.

Delegates at Fórsa’s Education Division conference called on the education department to quickly implement a job evaluation scheme recently won by the union, and to extend the agreement to other education staff.

Fórsa has called on the Minister for Education and Skills to put school secretaries, who are employed by school boards of management, on public service pay scales.

Fórsa wants education employers to prepare for mandatory gender pay gap reporting and develop action plans to address inequality across the sector.

Staff in Ireland’s School Completion Programme (SCP) are seeking urgent talks with the Department of Children to resolve outstanding issues on funding, pay and pensions.

Fórsa’s Education Division last week became the first in the union to have a divisional executive committee made up by exclusively by women.

Fórsa has expressed disappointment at Ibec’s negative reaction to proposals to expand paid and unpaid parental leave.

Inspections carried out by the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) discovered and recouped over €3 million in unpaid wages in Ireland last year, according to the WRC’s annual report.