Dear Fórsa member,

As you may be aware, school secretaries are set to engage in a brief one hour work stoppage at the start of the school day tomorrow (Friday 20th September).

Secretaries will protest outside their school, and some will join with colleagues at other school protests for the duration of the stoppage.

Fórsa is calling on all members to show their support for the action by school secretaries. Here is a list of 250 planned protests at schools around the country.

We are asking Fórsa members to join one of their local protest locations and to stand alongside parents, teachers and pupils standing in solidarity with their school secretary.

The problem at the heart of this dispute is an antiquated and discriminatory pay regime, which discriminates between a minority of school secretaries who are directly-employed by the education department, and have public service employment status, and a majority who are hired by school management boards, which determine their pay and conditions.

In recent years, school secretaries have done everything short of industrial action in their campaign for pay equality. As they prepare to engage in industrial action for the first time, your support and solidarity will make a significant difference.

Please support them.

Thank you

Andy Pike

Head of Education

Fórsa

A digital map of protest locations around Ireland is available here: http://bit.ly/2kQLajI