FIRST the nurses, then the teachers.

Last week, as the sun blazed down on a grateful country, it seemed that we might be set not for a winter of discontent, but a summer of industrial strife. The nurses upped the ante in their fight for better pay and conditions while at the annual convention of the Association of Secondary Teachers in Ireland (ASTI) in Sligo, the mood amongst delegates was clear: the union is bouncing back after some very dark days.

As the 500 delegates voted unanimously to support the nurses in their ongoing pay-andconditions dispute, they recalled their own industrial action in 2001 that saw schools around the country close for a number of days throughout the school year.

The action failed to secure pay rises for teachers and last year the union voted to put an end to its period of splendid isolation and re-affiliate with the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu).

But at the convention, the 17,000-strong union made it clear that it did not re-enter the fold to be agreeable. It called on Ictu to renegotiate the pay element of the current social partnership agreement, Towards 2016.

And it unanimously passed a motion giving clear support to the nurses' right to look for pay negotiations outside the "inflexible" and "deficient" benchmarking process.

"We didn't join Ictu to be passive, good, well-behaved people, " said Dublin northeast delegate Margaret Moore to loud applause.

"We joined to shake it up."

The Teachers' Union of Ireland (TUI) passed a similar, if slightly less strongly-worded motion, but the all-powerful Irish National Teachers' Organisation (INTO) stayed quiet. However, the ASTI remained outwardly unconcerned.

"We have never taken our lead from [the other teaching unions] and we never will, " said Moore.

On the rise once more "Trade unions must stand together or fall together, " added delegate Joe Moran, suggesting that the ASTI could either be "passive or active" in its stance on the benchmarking process. Last week, the teachers chose activism once more.

After all, as outgoing president Michael Freeley pointed out earlier in the week, 82% of the ASTI's members rejected Towards 2016, which it felt allowed for pay increases well below the rate of inflation.

Unfortunately, as a member of Ictu, the ASTI had to go along with the majority vote of other unions to accept the deal. Now that the nurses are attempting to break free, the restless feeling that characterised the group in 2001 is stirring ever so slightly again.

"We are faced with a situation where others can decide to worsen our conditions of employment, " Freeley told the convention on Tuesday.

"This is completely unacceptable and should never happen again."

The events of 2001 are something that should also never occur again. The industrial action taken by the ASTI left it isolated from the other unions, divided amongst its members and vilified by the public. The convention that year was punctuated with bitter rows, late-night secret sessions and bar fights.

This year, there was none of that. According to general secretary John White, this is the best convention they have had in several years.

Since the disastrous industrial action, the conventions have contained an irrepressible air of pessimism and inertia.

But the ASTI is rising once more and, with the nurses taking action, it has never been more united or hopeful for change.

In the bar of the Radisson Hotel late on Wednesday night, the unification of the ASTI was likened to the Northern powersharing deal. "Whoever would have thought it, " said one delegate, gesturing to a bunch of teachers at the bar.

Five years ago, there would have been a punch-up by then. Instead the former foes (mainly Dublin teachers against the rest of the country) were clinking pints at the bar and dancing gamely to 'Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds'. "Remarkable, " the delegate said, shaking his head in awe.

If Bernard Lynch, one of the ASTI's most outspoken critics of the benchmarking process, had been elected as vice-president last week, the possibility of the union going swiftly back down the road of industrial action would have been strong.

In the end, Cork-based Pat Hurley narrowly won the vote after a closely-fought election, undoubtedly to the collective relief of the Department of Education. All the same, he said if it came down to teachers needing to take industrial action, he would not hesitate to do so. Meanwhile Lynch immediately let it be known that he will run again next year.

"We rejected this pay deal and the benchmarking process and it didn't make a blind bit of difference, " he said last Thursday, advising the union to "think hard" about its affiliation with Ictu. "Participation in this process has created ideal conditions? for the avaricious, the rich and the greedy to thrive."

Both the Irish Nurses' Organisation (INO) and the Psychiatric Nurses' Association (PNA) agree. They have insisted that their dispute will not be resolved until they have received a 10.5% pay increase and secured a 35-hour working week for all nurses.

The government has insisted that doing this could lead to the breakdown of the entire benchmarking process - whereby public servants are given extra pay increases every four to five years on top of the national annual pay rise.

Taking a lead from the nurses Although a second benchmarking exercise is taking place in June, the nurses have refused to take part in it.

"It is simply incorrect to say that benchmarking is the only game in town, " said Liam Doran of the INO. "It remains our firm conviction that this pay issue can be addressed? without in any way dismantling the overall public service pay machinery which now exists."

In Sligo, the teachers insisted that they are effectively working under a pay cut. As Dublin delegate Philip Irwin outlined how young teachers could not afford to buy a home in the catchment area of the schools in which they worked, David Begg of Ictu told the union he was carefully monitoring the rate of inflation.

But this wasn't enough for the ASTI, which called for a 10% pay claim under a renegotiation of the benchmarking process. Its demands were soon underpinned by the announcement during the week that the annual rate of inflation for March had gone up to 5.1%.

In the busy reception of the hotel on Wednesday morning, the receptionist was somewhat perplexed by a request she had received from a delegate looking for the English version of the Irish national anthem.

"Sometimes it's best not to ask why, " she said diplomatically.

In the convention hall, delegate John Molloy was probably wishing he had done the same.

His suggestion that, because the ASTI had voted overwhelmingly to join Ictu, it should perhaps not be seen as being unsupportive of the benchmarking process, was met with stony silence.

But when the teachers weren't being militant, they were having great craic. Like the students they teach, the majority sat down the back of the classsroom - a couple even resorting to using paper airplanes for communication.

When delegate Kevin Bronan talked about students with part-time work falling asleep in class, he was unaware that a couple of hungover delegates were having a little snooze as he spoke. One delegate lost her voice from all the fun, while more than once, teachers lamented the fact that there was no grand piano in the hotel. Last year, there were sing-songs until the wee hours of the morning.

Perhaps Larry Flynn from Fingal summed up the mood best when he told fellow delegates, "We are a gallant little band of societal warriors."

The battle was lost in 2001, but perhaps the war is not entirely over. With an army of nurses paving the way, it's not impossible to believe another teacher uprising may yet eventually occur.