Discussing the third-level education sector, Kieran Mulvey – who was appointed the first General Secretary of the Irish Federation of University Teachers in 1975, when he was aged 24 – said: “I believe we have always placed a tremendous value on the provision of education in this country. I am not an advocate of the introduction of multinational business practices within third-level education, nor do I believe in the Professor Ed Walsh school of “edunomics” or the creation of “management clusters” around University Presidents. I believe that performance and achievement indicators are necessary and that the highest benchmarks are to be achieved. Third-level institutions are seen as centres of excellence and indeed privilege at times. They must continue to deliver on the public expectations of them.

“Irish society, its political system and its institutions of Government need reform. We have to get it into our collective national psyche that we are not down and out internationally” said Kieran Mulvey. “Amidst the potential collapse of trust, respect and confidence in what was generally accepted as the pillars of society, Irish society is seeking to establish new standards, new values and more enduring moral political and financial benchmarks.

“Of concern for those of us who operate in the public service milieu is the abject and almost complete failure of the “light” regulation model, deficiencies in corporate governance standards and the lack of appropriate oversight in some state institutions. We need to see more transparent and effective action by the Office of Corporate Enforcement, disciplinary action by the professional bodies and the disbarment from directorships by those who corporately approved, signed off, or oversaw and supposedly-regulated corporate and financial failures.

“A real and thorough cleansing of the Augean stables is necessary. In this recession we can change from a society of greed, the accumulation of property and wealth and a culture of ‘me-féinism’ to a more-inclusive and less-vacuous society, with more redeemable, tangible and shared values. The one change I would advocate is the constitutional right of the people themselves to periodically vote on matters of national interest/policy in order to inform the legislature of the will of the people. It works in other well-established jurisdictions – most notably Switzerland.”

The IFUT Press Release is available in full here. Kieran Mulvey’s speech is available in full here.

“While recognising that there are some positives in the proposed agreement, the offer of a blank cheque for the renegotiation of staff contracts, with fundamental and far reaching implications for educational standards, is simply not acceptable,” IFUT General Secretary, Mike Jennings, stated.

The Executive of IFUT also decided that the conditions of employment of its members will not be subject to aggregated vote by other unions on the proposed agreement and reserved the right to make whatever decisions are necessary if members’ jobs and conditions are put in jeopardy.

The matter will be put to a full ballot of the union’s members following its Annual Delegate Conference on 24 April next.

The IFUT Press Release is available here.

These contributions are in addition to the costs of substantial, well-staffed Human Resources Departments. In addition, it should be noted that the State, through the Labour Relations Commission and the Labour Court, provides a free service for the resolution of disputes between employers and employees.

Despite this duplication of costs, whereby universities employ substantial numbers of HR staff and then go on to pay IBEC ‘for advice’, the universities also routinely incur massive legal costs for the hire of lawyers to deal with employees.

“IFUT has expressed serious concern over recent years that universities are using needlessly expensive legal teams to deal with industrial relations matters. Not only does this involve huge avoidable cost to the university – money which could be better used elsewhere – but also, we believe, there is an element of trying to intimidate staff against raising grievances even of a relatively simple nature”, said Mike Jennings, IFUT General Secretary.

The IFUT Press Release is available in full here. The fees paid by the Universities to IBEC are available here.

Responding to a proposal by Labour Senator Brendan Ryan, Minister for Labour Affairs, Dara Calleary, said that he was “sympathetic” to retired people having “a facility whereby grievances arising from their former employment relationship might be examined on their merits”.

IFUT General Secretary, Mike Jennings, said the current situation “represents an unjust anomaly which has allowed unfair treatment of older employees to go uncorrected”. The anomaly arises because of a ruling 30 years ago by the then Attorney General that a retired person could not be regarded as a ‘worker’ and so could not bring a claim to the Labour Court.

“We welcome the Minister’s commitment to removing this anomaly, but it is important that his expressed sympathy for retired workers be converted into effective amending legislation without delay”, Mike Jennings said.

The IFUT Press Release is available here.