TEACHERS who have to take time off work to recover from being assaulted by pupils or parents are having the days taken from their sick leave, a Limerick delegate to the INTO conference has revealed.
Injured teachers are having their pay halved because they have to stay off work to recover from physical injury and mental trauma after being set upon in the classroom.
Brian Dillon, secretary of the Limerick East branch of the INTO said that cutbacks to hours for Special Needs Assistants (SNAs) is also adding to the tensions in classrooms, where there are increasing numbers of children with challenging behaviour.
Mr Dillon was about to speak on a motion demanding that injuries due to assault be treated differently from sick leave.
“Teachers sick leave has already been vastly reduced in recent years. Now time off to recover from an assault is being treated as part of that sick leave and being deducted from the number of days allowed. If a teacher goes above the number of sick leave days allowed annually, their pay is cut by half”.
Describing the situation as unfair, Mr Dillon said that as well as physical injuries, the psychological trauma of an attack can take some time to get over.
“We see these attacks as work-related injuries, not sick leave. As it stands, if a teacher is the victim of an attack, it goes on their sick leave record,” he said.
The reduction in the number and hours of SNAs is not helping the situation, as some children with special needs require a lot of attention.
“It adds to the pressures that build in the classroom,” he said.
The East Limerick delegate said the motion – which was expected to get full support from conference – was not prompted by any single incident but the union had many approaches about it.
