ASTI - Ireland's main second level teachers union

<- Back to: Press Releases

 

Kieran Mulvey, Chief Executive of the Labour Relations Commission and former General Secretary of the ASTI, this evening launched Unlikely Radicals: Irish Post Primary Teachers and the ASTI, 1909-2009.

Written by historian Dr John Cunningham of NUI Galway and published by Cork University Press, the book provides a social and historical account of the ASTI’s role in the development of second-level education and the teaching profession in Ireland.

Speaking at the launch, ASTI President Joe Moran said:

“The work and achievements of ASTI members over the past 100 years have benefited pupils, teachers, the education system, and society as a whole. As this book recounts, these achievements were won by thousands of ordinary men and women teaching in classrooms all over the country who understood the importance of education and who believed in the rights of workers to decent salaries and fair treatment. This book is a timely reminder of what trade union solidarity can achieve not only for workers but for all of society.

“Much of the media reporting of trade unions, in the past as well as today, has dealt with industrial unrest, and in particular strike or threat of strike. This means that the public is presented with a narrow and somewhat misleading picture of trade unions. Trade unions are democratic organisations whose policies reflect the real concerns of the men and women who are their members. The work of trade unions in improving the lives of the most vulnerable in our society – through protecting and improving working conditions and campaigning for investment in and access to public services - is often ignored. This book will improve our understanding of the role of the trade union movement in our political, economic and social development.”

Commenting on the publication of the book, ASTI General Secretary John White said:

“The ASTI has had a noble and, of course, an occasionally turbulent history leavened with some victories, the occasional setback, and robust engagement both internally and externally.

“Because education is so intimately linked with human and, indeed, social development, the ASTI’s history is interwoven with the major movements in Ireland’s broader social history. Thus in this book we find the ASTI featuring not only in the great struggle for improvement in the terms and conditions of employment of trade union members, but also in the contestation between Church and state for control of education, in the great move for economic expansion assisted by the introduction of free second-level education in 1968, in the debate on cultural identity and the Irish language, and in the development of Ireland as a modern European state.

“In this time of recession, we have good reason to be concerned about the well-being of our education system, but I have no doubt that the ASTI will face the challenge and continue to work for education”.

The ASTI celebrated its Centenary Anniversary in 2009. Unlikely Radicals: Irish Post Primary Teachers and the ASTI, 1909-2009 was commissioned as part of the ASTI’s Centenary year activities. The book will be of interest to current, former and future ASTI activists as well as educationalists, trade union activists, those with an interest in Irish history and those undertaking study in areas such as education, history, and trade unionism.

The ASTI has over 18,000 members working in 75% of second-level schools in Ireland. Founding members of the ASTI included Thomas MacDonagh and Eamon de Valera.

Unlikely Radicals: Irish Post Primary Teachers and the ASTI, 1909-2009 is available from Cork University Press (www.corkuniversitypress.com) and book shops – ISBN 9781859184608.

Ends

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John Cunningham is a lecturer in history at NUI Galway. His previous books were Labour in the West of Ireland, 1890-1914 (1995), St Jarlath’s College Tuam, 1800-2000 (1999), and A Town Tormented by the Sea: Galway 1790-1914 (2004).

 

For further information contact Gemma Tuffy, Media/ Communications Officer.  Tel: (01) 6040172   (M): 087 243 47 48