Asking teachers & doctors...

[PolkaDotMankini]

Would you rather:

a) Be paid more
b) Have your working environment fully resourced, with enough time to do everything well in standard hours, the right number of staff, decent equipment, computer systems etc.

The rules on strikes seem to force strikes to be about pay when actually pay would be ok if it wasn't for the awful conditions. Conversely, IMHO no amount of dosh is going to make up for a terrible working environment and ridiculous hours.

Obviously both would be best, but am I right?

100% b - I'm a teacher and would be quite happy with my pay if it wasn't for the fact that I work a 50-60 hour week in term time and still can't get everything done.

Teacher and 100% B.

This.

Thanks for the responses. Lots of food for thought.

It's sad that people saying A seem almost embarrassed about it. There's nothing shameful in wanting to be paid fairly.

The problem is the conditions are so bad at present.

The hope is if pay is better there would be fewer recruitment issues and conditions may improve.

But until the government place value on the public sector services it wont work.

B. I was a teacher. I didn't leave because of the pay! I make less now but my life is much less stressful.

@Singleandproud I'd love to know what line of work you've moved into? Teacher too, find working around dc's really expensive

B and I work in a small independent school (that pays below the state sector).

I’m a TA.
B all the way. I don’t earn much but I still end up buying bits for kids at school that we really need. And when you can’t help all the children that need it because there just aren’t enough adults to go round it’s depressing. You feel like you are failing all the children. You end up resenting the child with a behaviour issue because he could do the work but is disrupting everyone else, so even though he doesn’t have a 1-2-1 you end up acting as a 1-2-1 just so he is ‘managed’ which gives everyone else a fighting chance of learning something. But then you look at the kid with possible dyslexia who is missing out on extra support and you feel bad you aren’t helping, and then you look at the kid who lost his granny last week and you can see he’s barely holding on but there’s only one of you. And then you look at the kid with behaviour issues, and remember he’s behaving like that because he hasn’t been able to get on the list for assessment, or you remember something of his home life that breaks your heart, and you feel awful for thinking badly of him. But with not enough staff you are sometimes so thin on the ground that you can’t go to the loo because there’s no one else to watch the kids while you do, let alone actually help all those that properly need it.

@noblegiraffe definitely C too. I want the resources and staffing to be able to meet the needs of the children I teach and the pay to be able to meet the needs of my own family.

B. I’m SLT (non-teaching now) and would definitely prefer less workload and better resources over more pay. To be fair, workload in my school is much better than in many but could still be improved. I’d like to move school to be closer to home but I’m terrified about what I might find!

I’d like to be a head one day and have an image in my head of the kind of school I’d like to run - I have no idea how I’d achieve that though with the way things are going.

Junior doctor

For me B, but I’ve been around a while so have a good salary and I’ve paid off my loan. I’d wager that a lot of junior docs on mumsnet are similar.

The current cohort have graduated with astronomical levels of debt, are being paid a pittance per hour and working in the nhs currently is hell. I suspect many would say A.

Personally I think that unless wages keep pace with childcare costs we will lose doctors or they will be forced to work really limited hours.

Teacher - B. The lack of everything mentioned in B is what ultimately causes many teachers to crack, burn out and end up leaving the job. Me included. Yes, a higher salary would be nice but I'd happily continue to do this job if all of the conditions in B were met.

National strikes can only be about pay. However, strikes at a more specific level can be about workplace specific issues.

Teacher- definitely B

Teacher
B

Teacher. B. I've taught for almost 30 years. My pay is fine. My workload and working conditions are making me ill. I can't afford to leave, sadly.

Doctor (consultant),

A

I want pay restoration. Or you won't be able to recruit. If the pay when I entered medical school sat where it does now in relation to equivalent professions I'd have done something else.

Loads of my peers outearn me in considerably less stressful roles.

another teacher and another B

I moved to the private sector - secondary ed. I am actually living option B... If I were paid less I would still work here. My Sunday blues have disappeared and stress levels have dropped. It's to do with having more time,more admin support, and no behaviour to manage. The lesson goes as you planned it and the students are respectful of their environment and the opportunities they have. Teachers aren't in the job for the money. They want to be able to do a good job and make a difference. All those factors you mention stop them from achieving what they set out to do and it's ultimately soul-destroying and unsatisfying.

Teacher here.

B all day long. I’d like more money, who wouldn’t, but I’d like the children to have pencils and glue sticks more.

B of course.
to be very honest I’m at a stage in my career where that would be an utter dream and providing that mean that the press didn’t whip up the continued hatred against us as they do at the moment , I don’t it for less money - cos I can manage on less. I actually did go into it “ to help people “ even though it’s the stock answer for med students.

I retired early and B was a factor. But it's easy for me to say B because I was at the top of the classroom teacher pay scale and mortgage free.

However my DD is about to leave teaching as soon as she can find something else. A wouldn't change her mind at all (even though she has a mortgage which is about to dramatically rise) but a sizeable B probably would. She likes teaching, but the stress of it has taken a huge toll on her.

Doctor - A. Because B is never going to happen. It would cost far too much, there has been no IT investment in decades, no investment in buildings for decades, we pay so badly for central London that the only administrators and low to mid-level managers we can get are people who can’t find work doing anything else… which causes further problems with working conditions.

And wages, for nurses, doctors, AHPs, maintenance staff and everyone else, is so far below what you need to live a normal life in London. If you want to be a nurse, why do it in London when you will be living with your partner and two kids in a two bedroom privately-rented ex-council flat in zone 5. When you can be a nurse in Exeter or Sheffield and buy an actual house on two Band 6 salaries, and have a shorter commute and decent quality of life?

by the way teachers have ALWAYS subsidised state education out of their on pockets .
my parents teaching from about 1950 something to the early 80s would often take resources from home - all my old toys and books for a start, but music resources were often dads etc.
my rocking horse only came home when mum retired as I asked for it for my kids …