to ask if you agree with the teacher's strike upcoming

[AuntiePickleBottom]

i am on the fence about it, due to not understanding pensions.

Totally agree with strike even though sorting out childcare will be a massive pita. If school was open, I would not cross a picket line.

I think teachers obviously do a valuable and sometimes difficult job, but honestly a good 80% of the primary schoolteachers I know honestly would struggle to earn over £20,000 in the private sector. Most of them would be in admin or low level accounting job, retail etc. They are mostly incredibly nice people with loads of patients and mediocre intellects. I know two who have come in via diplomas (I know its all degree now) who struggled to get a c at maths and English at GSCS. They are however the two best SN teacher
s I have ever met but they are not intellectual giants, one struggled to do a 10% calculation in her head at a recent Body Shop Party.

I think they over egg themselves and many are not really aware of how tough it is in the private sector at the moment or just how privileged re child care the holidays makes them.

I also think they need to take a long look at Greece and understand they are pushing us one step closer to that situation.

Sadly I agree that a lot of teachers would struggle to earn £20000 in the private sector (unless they have specific skills in science/engineering/IT). I earned 36K when I gave up teaching in 2001. I earn just over 20K in the voluntary sector now. I've been looking for promotion for the last 5 years, I'm bloody good at my job (I'm consistently told so) but there's no money for a regrade with redundancies left right and centre and tough savings to be made (I was made redundant and switched projects in 2008). I don't think teaching is poorly paid, but the day to day conditions in many schools are dreadful. No way would I go back, for twice the money.

It doesn't alter the fact though that Gove is a liar:

"I think that there will be a change for new entrants in the future (teachers pensions). But I also think ....we shouldn't alter the terms on which (existing teachers) entered. It's part of the broad contract that you (as teachers) expect. You came in on a certain basis. You should proceed on that basis." (April 2010)."

TalkinPeace2

GPs have self-employed status in respect of their "practice business" but the practice's income comes from a contract to provide services to the NHS and superannuation is deducted from this income, they receive an NHS superannuation pension when they retire.

Doctors working 100% in the private sector in the UK have usually been an NHS employee whilst training/working up the ranks in the NHS and therefore will also receive an NHS superannuation pension.

Get your facts right folks, it's making MN look like a hotbed of ill-informed knee jerk reaction harpies.

Rotten
I'm not a harpie - here is why I was (slightly) confused :
The employer contribution comes out of the partnership income before assessing the GP's taxable share
www.hmrc.gov.uk/pensionschemes/esca9.htm#2

My post re self-employed GPs includes the phrase "superannuation is deducted from this income" so we are basically agreeing aren't we ?

The GP makes fixed contributions based on income and receives a defined level of benefit at retirement. As far as I am aware, any poor performance of the pension fund will not reduce the amount the GP receives at retirement whereas a friend's private pension statement this year shows that his fund has basically been reduced to the same value it was 5 years ago - his last 5 years of contributions wiped out. This will affect the value of his pension when he retires and he may need to work longer to make up the shortfall if, when he gets to his planned retirement age of somewhere between 65 and 68, it is insufficient to meet his needs.

14 years ago Gordon Brown's stealth tax on pensions affected private pension schemes and workers had to increase their contributions (thereby reducing their net disposable income) or accept they would have to pay in for longer or retire on a lower projected pension. No affect on public sector pensions as naturally any shortfall comes from increased revenue derived from tax payers as a whole. Yes that includes public sector workers too but not in addition to them having to bolster a private pension out of their income.

This is the point re public sector pensions, no matter how badly the market fluctuates the amount you as an employee currently get out has been defined and therefore any shortfall is subsidised by taxes raised on all tax payers (public and private) when private sector pension schemes perform poorly, the private sector worker has to up their contributions or work longer to try and maixmise the return at retirement age, at the same time paying sufficient levels of tax to ensure the government can meet its commitment to public sector workers' pension payouts.

Indeed,
GPs are in a DB scheme as is the whole of the public sector.
Us poor saps in the real world are on DC or nothing - apart from a few lucky souls who are still in the DB schemes of big companies
oh yeah and MP's who have the most generous DB scheme of the lot

This rubbish about teachers not being able to earn more elsewhere... I certainly would have done.

I have an Oxford degree and subsequently a first in psychology. Many other staff at the secondary I taught at had Oxbridge degrees and/or Phds (state grammar).

Most of my friends went on to do very lucrative careers but I wanted to continue within my subject and enjoy teaching.

If I'd realised how difficult life would be and that my partner would be relatively low-income I might well have made different choices.

Blimey, those pay scales are alright aren't they?!

Sorry, but as someone who works my ass off in the private sector for less than £15K and will never be able to afford a pension I find it all a bit insulting

Emsies - with a 1st perhaps your reading should be better ? I said primary school teachers - many secondary school teachers as you are aware have primary degrees in specific subjects which do make them more employable in the private sector. Though some of them are are is such soft subjects I would probably add them to the sub £20000 pile. And also allot of female secondary teachers would be or would have had to work part time in the private sector and would have suffered from stalled careers and much reduced pension pots.

Would love to know actually what percentage of Oxbrige 1st go on to teach as well, as there seam to be millions teaching in schools and I have yet to meet one.

Don't think you have to be an Oxbridge Grad to make more than a teavher though; my BIL trots out the line that they couldnt earn more elsewhere yet he got a third on his 3rd resit at a Poly and makes over £100k. DH made teahcer wages without a degree and his managers- all grads but not from uber universities-were all higher grade pay as well.

And yes teaching pay is OK; but whilst many jobs can be worked up to, by law you need a degree and post grad to work as a teacher in state schgools (I think) so you will acquired a fair debt that someone who has taken the option to work tehir way up has not got around their necks.

Not a teacher btw. Did the whole 'climb the ladder without a degree' thing until I hit a glass ceiling at 30, at which point I was on pushing £16k part time and had a fair way to go so it clearly is possible- though I gavce up and did my degree instead.

Gotabookaboutit - Have a look at the prospectus of most private schools and you will see Oxbridge graduates abound. Mine was just a state grammar but we still had a fair smattering.

I got a 2:1 at Oxford but a first with OU afterwards as I was planning on retraining as a psych at the time!

(apols fpor typs which are always terrible in my posts anyhow but have a splinter in pointing finger today- ouch.)

Peachy I agree - I don't have a degree by choice and make more than a teacher but do get psiied off at the ''we could earn so much more if we didn't sacrifice ourselves on the alter of your children's education'' when in truth many have no idea what working in the private sector is really like, have fairly crap degrees and would be in fairly crap jobs, or how many people who work just as hard and are just as right/committed face penury in their old age. I just wish on the thread about teachers holidays I could remember who said all us moaners should have become teachers - I would now be saying perhaps, They should all come and work in the private sector if they could earn so much more with so much better pensions than they face now !

wherea I make no pretence that I chose my profession for two reasons
I'm good at it
it pays well
everybody public sector bod who says "ooh I could earn this much, blah blah"
fine, get off your arse and go do it
then I wont have to pay your salary out of my taxes any more

Ahh, another 'teaching is cushy' thread. My DP has an open invite for anyone who lives in the midlands to spend a couple of days in his inner city secondary school in order for them to see what teachers have to do.

You could even come home with him and watch him working all evening/weekend.

And then we could have the conversation about how pay and conditions (including the pension issue) are being eroded...not just with the education bill (eg lifting the limit on the number of lesson obs per year etc) but with the move to academies, where essentially teachers have no voice in how their terms of work are altered.

Not to mention the constantly shifting goal posts announced on a daily basis by Gove.

When DP qualified as a teacher it took him 5 years for us to get a point where we would not have been better off on benefits. And that was during the golden days of 'the boom' when people in the private sector were getting their bonuses, wage rises, company cars and gym memberships.

We've never been able to buy a property, go on foreign holidays or buy a car less than 20 years old. And I work too.

So all you private sector teacher bashers can either PM me to take DP up on his invite or consider yourself sent to isolation for the rest of the day to have a good long think about your behaviour.

I do not say teaching is cushy.
DH has his Secondary Science PGCE and works in schools most days but is not a teacher.
He found the 'social work' side too much.

What I do say is that Teachers will get bugger all sympathy for going on strike about their pensions being cut by 10% - to still be 100% more than many of the rest of us have got.

I don't think it's cushy.

I just think our idea of 'retirement' will have to change because it's unsustainable.

Well some of you lot could make a fortune being obtuse and annoying for a living that's for sure.
I teach, and enjoy it. I will not be striking because I can accept that sometimes things have to change. But if you think a huge amount of teachers can't or won't see this then you are very blinkered. Most teachers that I know (and obviously we who work in schools have more knowledge than those of you who "have a SIL who teaches") are not thrilled but are accepting.

What I find annoying are the small minded insults and short sighted comments from some of you. Most secondary school teachers did fairly academic degrees at reasonable universities. Therefore, obviously now they would have to retrain, but at the time of graduating they would have had options just as anyone else did. Most people who have been in one job for many years would be in a similar position. What is different is that we have no choice of our employer, unlike say an accountant or a lawyer. So we often can't make a slight change or change company.

The argument about all teachers just went into it for lack of being able to do anything else is also deeply insulting.I say the same about law and accountancy to be honest. Everyone I know just did law in lieu of anything else, but you don't get that argument levelled at it all the time. All builders and tradesmen like to rip people off and pay little tax, and work really short hours. All nurses stand around and chat all day. People in offices just shuffle paper and drink tea in the warmth. We can all make crass generalisations if we want to, based on some of the people we come across, and they are really annoying.

Equally, I don't know teachers who whinge about pay. At all. Everyone thinks it's fine. Don't think it deserves "OMG look at that amazing pay though" Lets save that for the people earning £70,000 . Very few people deserve that IMO, if anyone. Teachers do moan about some of you, who whether you think it or not, probably pass their uncharitable attitudes onto your children. We've all had the child who says "why should I do what you say, my Dad pays your wages". They don't get those ideas from nowhere. As for holidays, they are great. Really great. But they have been like this for a long time. You made a different choice. Tough.

So, by all means, don't support the strike. But you don't need to widen that into a general have-a-go. Instead support the people who look after your children every day, at minimal cost to yourself, actually care about them overall and want the best for them, despite the obstacles.

Expat, I've read your comments on this thread and others relating to the teachers strike.

Teachers (like my DP with a good degree from a RG uni in physics) signed up to a deal. The deal was poorer wages in comparison with the private sector, accountability, public scrutiny BUT job security and a decent pension...which now have gone.

Despite my DP's hard work, despite him jumping through OFSTED/govt hoops..despite him doing the very best for your children (eg, never going off sick/taking time off despite him being being very ill or caring for sick parents) he is being shafted.

If you think teaching is so great, do the degree, do the professional practice, do the job with tens of thousands of pounds of debt around your neck and then rejoin the debate.

The offer from DP still stands, no one has taken it up yet.

You say poorer wages in comparison with the private sector
sorry, that just does not wash and has not for the last ten years or so.
"Perks" in the private sector have been so eroded since the pension crisis started in 2002/3 that public sector salaries (once pension, holiday, sick pay, training, travel etc allowances are taken into account) now routinely exceed comparable private sector jobs.

Look at how the post Viagra droop is hitting job prospects and perks at Pfizer as just one 2500 job example

Unfortunately the very generous terms of their existing pension arrangements are not sustainable so I don't support their actions

Why not widen it ? Just because someone teaches my children does not make untouchable or uncritacisabe - and if they think it, does no wonder we have so many craps schools. .

We are not Finland more the shame and there are quite a high percentage of teacher with poor degrees.

And I will say again 80% of the primary schoolteachers I know would struggle to make £20,000 in the private sector