@Patricia Ellis Dunne: What I mean was people had a new found respect for teachers when tasked with educating their own children.

@Neil Davey: All the more reason to strike now for time off and then try get the vaccines now so they canhit the beaches in Europe this summer :)

@Darren Norris: And hit them with fines for non essential travel

@Neil Davey: The leaving cert my dear boy. The leaving cert.

@Ed: well your comments just show how fleeting and fickle your “respect” and “good will” are, so meh!

@Patricia Ellis Dunne: Meh! The retort of someone with no argument. Thanks for trying.

@Ed: I mean meh as in your respect and goodwill are obviously not worth a lot if you can lose them so easily

@Patricia Ellis Dunne: They haven’t voted for it yet so my respect is still intact. The union’s on the other hand will never have my respect.

@Ed: The teachers I know will not be voting in favour of strike. They wanted the vaccination before the schools reopened. That didn’t happen and they’ve moved on, trying their best to stay safe.

@Ed: No, people have had to juggle both work and homeschooling, so parents have gained massive respect in my opinion.

@Seosamh: Nobody claimed otherwise Seosamh.

@Darren Norris: if a strike is voted for it will be in September given the time required for returning ballots etc.

@Ed: the union is it’s members. Teacher unions in particular are very responsive to their members.

@Ed: unions are a scurge on this country. Holding the people to ransom using their children’s education. These union leaders should be charged with treason

@Ed: I agree. If they want to make a true statement all front line workers need to strike at the same time yes I mean all who are working during level 5. Only then the Government will understand they mean business. Start off with 2 hour and increase daily until they cave.

@Ed: Shame on them. They have lost the peoples support.

@Neil Davey: They want to be fully vaccinated in time for their summer holidays.

@KSham: thank you

@Chris Mc: In the private sector you can negotiate your own pay and conditions directly with your employer. A union gives you a bit more power in that negotiation.
You can’t negotiate your own pay and conditions directly with your employer if they’re the government- they’ll just ignore you. A union is necessary for any power in the negotiation. That’s why unions are more popular in the public sector.

@Ed: very selfish behaviour

@Ed: Let’s be honest Ed, that goodwill will be long gone once summer holidays hit. I’ve pals who are teachers, and I’ve heard quite a few non-teacher parents/friends poke fun at all the extended holidays teachers get. It’s terrible, but people will always begrudge.

@Mickey Finn: I have worked in the car manufacturing industry for over 35 years and never once negotiated my own pay and conditions with my employer, neither did the tens of thousands of my colleagues, your spouting a load of tripe.

@Ed:
TDs won’t even sit in the Dáil, instead we pay 25000 per day for them to use the Convention Centre for social distancing.

Yet you want teachers to sit in a classroom full of schoolchildren?

Fair play to the unions. Homeschool your own kids. It’s a pandemic. Parents are pulling their hair out being around your *own* children.

@Dean: Shut the supermarkets so and see how long you last.

@Dean: I guess the parents should split the teachers salary between themselves too, if theres no need for a teacher, why are we paying them at all?

@Mickey Finn: unions are not allowed in most of the private sector. And if you tried to negotiate with your private sector employer in any way similar to this you would be out on your ear.

@jay bernard: Teachers have never had support from the public so why bother trying? The public in this country don’t think education is that important.

@Mark H: unions only act in response to their members demands. They don’t act independently of them. Any industrial action only follows a ballot of the members and a motion at convention.

@Padraig Mac Aodha: they must have had some kind of respect seeing thousands of us give them our kids for hours every day!!!

@jay bernard: it’s cheaper than a babysitter. But don’t let that spoil the cribbing about teachers party..

@Brendan Greene: that is completely factually incorrect. The leadership of a union is elected, they engage with employers on issues they believe are important (and in accordance with their mandate), they decide if a vote is required and they make recommendations to the union body before votes are cast. No ballot has been put to the union bodies on this issue yet so the teachers have not given their input. Before everyone jumps up and down on teachers at least wait until votes are cast.

@Brendan Greene: that’s where you’re soo wrong

@Neil Ryan: they’re at it for years! Absolutely

@Neil Ryan: No. I completely understand that the unions are looking out for their members interests. If teachers are expected to continue educating our children in oversized classrooms they should be given the vaccine.

@Neil Ryan: I’m just sick and tired of the general public whinging and crying over everything……the blame for this lies solely at the government’s door. It’s about time the whole country directs their anger at dail eireann

@Dwayne Jordan: so should our frontline retail workers,over a year now on the shop floor with a lot of customers no interest in social distance

@Neil Ryan: One in partucular, and he is in charge of the whole country. Biggest bully of them all

@Bennasi84: I’m no fan of the current government but how can you blame them on something the Unions cooked up all by themselves?

@Christina Colling: did you ever think that the majority are happy to be back teaching? The majority will want to vote no to strike action- there is a global pandemic going on – some of us are glad to have jobs and will happily wait until its our turn. Don’t paint us all with the same brush.

@Neil Ryan: it’s not the teachers. It’s the unions

100% agree with you about safety measures in primary schools. It’s not that hard to spread out the students in the class to have them distancing. I know someone who is a teacher and I asked her has the classroom layout changed much since covid. She said it hasn’t changed 1 bit. No distancing, no masks, very little sanitisation. Only difference is she wears a mask sometimes. Looking at the news in other countries and younger kids are distancing in the classroom and wearing Masks. Covid transmission will happen very easily in those classrooms. Teachers particularly older teachers, deserve to be vaccinated for their own safety in primary schools particularly. Not all teachers agree with striking, but teachers have been known for going on strike when they don’t agree with what’s happening

@Eoin Fitzgerald: never seem to do so in the summer months

@Anthony Hilton: will he get the vaccine before next Monday, when (all of the issues raised above)

@Fergal Murphy: and teachers are prepared to gamble with the health of everyone else

@Anthony Hilton: Anthony thank you for doubting my intelligence and suggesting it’s time to retire in your rush to make a personal comment. With respect I think you have missed the main points of my post above. I corrected an inaccurate statement and expressed legitimate concerns I have. I also mentioned my opposition to a possible strike and at no time expressed a preference for my union’s position on vaccine roll out.

@Fergal Murphy: Are you not in line to get vaccinated as a 60 year old? The goalposts moved because they are following advice from the health experts. There are many areas who work in close proximity with colleagues, the food sector, etc.

@Fergal Murphy: While you might not have been involved, teachers strikes are a common occurance in the last 39 years, nearly an annual tradition at this stage

@Fergal Murphy: ironically at 60 you will probably get vaccinated much quicker if we stick to the government age based plan.

@Fergal Murphy:you say”It will never come to pass”
How would you respond if pupils threatened teachers and later said it will never come to pass?

@James Lyons: when was there ever a taxi strike?

@Eoin Fitzgerald: no they don’t. They don’t get paid.

@Eoin Fitzgerald: secondary school kids are pulling the masks off at the drop of a hat, wearing them under their noses, spitting in the corridors, coughing at staff. Public haven’t a clue but plenty to say.

@Patricia Ellis Dunne: Primary and SEN children

@Brian Renaghan: Retail workers come in more contact with far more people, and a lot less control over the conditions, in a day than teachers do in a month

@John Michalski: nonsense. And retail workers have very brief interactions with the public which reduces risk compared to standing in front of a group of kids for an hour or more. But if that is the argument then I’d be happy for retail workers to be prioritised as well.

@Patricia Ellis Dunne: those packing shelves and fridges have no screen , just a lot of people with no clue of social distance ,my son’s partner has already done 2 weeks isolation from an unknown social contact in work

@Sarah Lou: Wish that was the case but they do in fact get Strike pay, luckily its only for a maximum of a few weeks, I have a feeling teachers are just looking to cash this in while watching Netflix for the last few months of the curriculum, they dont give a rats what happens to the kids educations, always next year sure….

@Adam J: What a load of balony. Much prefer being in the classroom. But that doesn’t suit your thinking.

@Caroline Redmond: anyone defending this move needs to reevaluate their own thinking. What is needed from the teachers unions is creativity of how to make the most of this situation for the whole school environment going forward, such as, calling for reduced class sizes, more supports in each school to achieve smaller class sizes going forward, better ventilation etc. Not strike. In the whole situation the teachers have been facilitated and accommodated and are one of the only groups that have been accommodated throughout. I’m sure alot of nurses would have loved to work remotely when the hospitals were full and the covid patient numbers high but it was not a possibility. 25% of the country out of work and not one striking. The teachers on full pay for the duration, not in person or with any set standard required of them for the remote teaching, a pay rise in October and they are voting to strike despite the fact the older and vulnerable members will get the vaccine and the rest will get it in time…. By end of June being the current target. I think this is the final nail in the coffin for any public support.

@Adam J: There is a mechanism for unions paying strike pay to their members from subscriptions for drawn out strikes. However I’ve been teaching 20 years and never got any pay for a strike day. Don’t think this ballot will pass by the way. Looks like posturing on behalf of the unions, as realistically it would be mid May by the time ballots went to membership and votes counted up. Setting themselves up for another PR disaster as school holidays are soon coming up. The leadership of these unions need to get real.

@Longlin: sorry what, behind a screen. So those people on self service, stacking shelves… Dealing with no masks on some…. 100s if not 1000s passing by them daily don’t deserve the vaccine more than pampered well paid teachers who sat most of this out at home. Omg wow get real spend a day in Tesco

@Caroline Redmond: same here , I haven’t a notion of voting for strike. Unions are a joke!

@Nicola Long: Regardless of whether the vote is passed, this action will sow a tremendous amount of negative sentiment towards teachers unions and unfortunately teachers, as a result. Its damaging.

@Pedro: Agreed, Teachers need to leave these greedy unions en masse to get the point home that they do not make these kind of calls without the full backing of teachers

@Johnny: People pay their subs because it has been instilled on us that we have too in case anything goes wrong. It’s almost like an insurance policy. Either way, that does not mean that we are not happy with the way the unions have been using bullying tactics to get what they want. In an ideal world, everyone working with crowds of people would be vaccinated. Im all for the unions fighting for our rights, but bullying tactics like threatening strikes, I don’t like and will never vote for.

@Siobhan Feehan: Unless you need one to represent you…

@Caroline Redmond: when the votes are in we will see a true reflection of how the teachers feel on the matter.

@David Kelly: the argument isn’t about catching covid, it’s about protecting those that are most susceptible to severe covid and death in the first instance.

@Jakim Berndsen: because they have to go buy food and interact with people even if they are working from home

@ed w: Buying food is a relatively controlled environment. Supermarkets are meant to be distanced, and the only person you should be interacting with is the person on the till. This does not compare to shopkeepers, who will have hundreds of these interactions per day, or teachers, who may be in close, non-distanced proximity with 100s of students and tens of colleagues. Public facing roles have a far larger infection risk.

The big cry is to open the pubs/restaurants. The majority of people working in this environment are young – why on earth would they want to risk long term illness without a vaccine? Of course we should be vaccinating these people. If we hit a point where this slows down the rollout, then going purely aged based begins to make sense. By the time we’re swimming in vaccines, the way things are going, you would imagine that most of the public facing rolls are nearly vaccinated anyway.

Let’s not forget that if the shopkeeper is vaccinated, the chances of catching covid for the work-from-home, twice-a-week shop goer drop to a fraction of their already very low levels.

@Padraig Mac Aodha: the really important thing here is that you and your colleagues don’t jump the queue, Paddy. The rest is just fluff.

@bmul: no, it isn’t. I’m a retired teacher and was in quite a few industrial actions over the years which were all more or less successful. None of them had public support.

@Johnny: you’re actually wrong there. I’m an active union member in my branch. I have regularly brought issues and raised issues with My rep via email and at branch meetings. Its not as simple as saying to stop paying your subs, you could well need your union on other issues and topics

@t: Would love to know what the Union would help you with that EU employment law doesnt already cover

@Adam J: workplace issues which they resolve on your behalf while up holding a degree of anonymity. I’m saying they have poorly represented all teachers here and on often previous occasions but they also have merit is all.

@Jonathan Regan: if you dont like it get a new job.

@Jonathan Regan: So do the staff who pack the shelves in Tesco walk around in pope mobile like boxes all day?No they don’t, and in fact they probably come across more people throughout their shift than a teacher would. All this plays into governments hands, deflects from them.

@Jonathan Regan: Retail are exposed in many cases to a far greater number of people, increasing the chances of coming into contact with an infected person on a given day.

@Mark Kean: If you don’t understand why, you’ve been living under a rock. You saying nothing will help your side more effectively.

@Thomas O’ Donnell: No they’re not!

@Keith Dempsey: Teachers are not against retail workers getting vaccinated.

@Jonathan Regan: Due to redundancy in my career, I filled a gap and took on a part-time work in retail. Its a small shop with high footfall. Depending on the day, I may be within close contact with 6-700 people. Some don’t wear masks. Some abuse you when you ask them to put one on. There has even been a case where a customer deliberately coughed on on staff member after being approached. Of the 13 staff, 3 have got covid. I think your assumption of risk in retail work needs adjustment. With all that said, would I take a prioritisation over someone my father’s age? Absolutely not.

@Nick O Donnell: who said they were? We all have to wait in line and can’t hold the country to ransom over it.

@Nick O Donnell: and let’s be clear here..I don’t imagine many teachers actually want to back this..it’s the unions being unions. If they don’t speak for you as a group don’t pay the subs.