'We are being discriminated against' says Cork school secretary

A Cork school secretary has said secretaries are being discriminated against by not being recognised as public sector workers, like all their school colleagues.

School secretaries and caretakers, who are members of Fórsa trade union, are set to go on an indefinite strike starting August 28.

Noreen O’Callaghan, who works at Watergrasshill National School, told The Echo: “We have to, because we’re not recognised as public servants even though we work in public buildings, we work with government departments every day and now they’re the ones denying us parity.”

She explained that currently they are not allowed benefits such as leave for bereavement or illness, which their other school colleagues have: “We have a member whose daughter died last year in very sad circumstances — she had no bereavement leave.”

She explained that her other daughter, who is a teacher in the same school, was entitled to leave for loss of a sibling: “We have minimal sick leave — one member took a year off work because she had breast cancer and she got paid three days’ pay. We have secretaries currently undergoing chemotherapy or radiation therapy and they are coming back to school afterwards.

“Teachers, principals, [special needs assistants], and secretaries — we’re all employed by the board of management and the department of education are our paymasters, but they’re discriminating against us.

“At our conference in Easter, Helen McEntee told us that she’d love to give us a pension, but we’re still waiting on it. The department have emailed schools about the strike, but they still haven’t made contact with us.”

She said the strike will have a “ripple effect”, saying they have to provide a huge amount of information to the department on registrations to help with planning, do the payroll for substitutes, and send returns to the government and organise special needs bus escorts, saying ‘nobody will be paid, and the phone won’t be answered’ while they are gone.

“Everybody notices when the school secretary is out, we’re integral to the whole school, and so are caretakers. We park in the car park, we go to staff room, we are part of the staff. I’ve been at my school 25 years and I’m the longest-serving staff member there.

“We have got great support from schools, they want pension parity for us. None of us want to be on strike, but I’ve been writing to every minister of education since I got this job and it’s all fallen on deaf ears.”