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

[AuntiePickleBottom]

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

no I don't support their actions at all. not one bit.

(I work in the third sector, pretty low pay, no pension, 25 holidays a year).

It's rubbish to say that they went into that profession expecting a final salary pension for life. So what?! things change. they have to.

sorry 25 days holiday a year. Not 25 holidays a year!

Criticise the individual rubbish teacher then Gotabook, if your kids have one. We don't have so many crap schools either. We have some crap schools. In general, I think teachers don't give up on pupils like they used to. Social factors make it much harder to get the job done sometimes.

Gordon Brown stole the tax relief on the dividend interest in my personal pension plan as one of his very first actions as chancellor. I can't remember people thinking I should strike about it then: it was just considered myand others like me who had personal pensionsbad luck.

Nobody wants to work for longer to get the same amount of pension.

goinnowhere -I was only criticising the hypothetical teacher who thinks they are uncriticisable because they teach my children and basically talk as if I should just shut up and be bloody grateful !

The latest reports on secondary school aren't that great are they either ? We have quite a lot of crap schools and a lot of only just adequate - which is surprising if all these highly qualified,working 24/7 people are teaching in them !

I'm not really critical of teachers - they mostly do a great job but the world is changing and so must they.

Nobody is saying that is right either Abra1d. The whole pensions issue is frankly a mess. I just really object to the general generalisations that go on as far as teaching is concerned. Lets have a go at someone else for a change. All the private versus public crap is rubbish. Neither one would do well without the other. Everyone, and I mean everyone in my circle of family and friends, in the private sector, are doing just fine. No redundancies, pay cuts, longer hours. Still getting benefits, bonuses, cars, rises, and still have pensions. I think it is actually more accurate to say there is inequality with those working for large organisations versus small.

'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.'

That's happened to loads of people, not just teachers. The goalposts changed. The money isn't there anymore. You can't get blood out of a stone. It's gone. No one will be able to stump up for it, so DEAL. Now.

Most of us don't even have the job security anymore. That is too bad. That is how it is. It's something that's here to stay. Like the car.

This 'If it's so great, become a teacher' argument is weak, too. Because competition to get in now is so great there are countless newly qualified people who can't get permanent FT jobs in it.

My own sister had a hard time getting into the profession.

You have to move with the times and for me, the writing's been on the wall a long time.

Anyone my age, 40, or even 50, who thought they were going to get a babyboomer type pension was fool-hearty.

Even my own father, a Great Depression baby, lived like that. 'Don't ever think the rug can't be pulled out from under you, expat. Don't live like that.'

He was right.

Ahhhhh, things change do they? So someone like my DP who signed up to state teaching 15 years ago has to just wear the fact he is now working for an 'academy' and the fact his pension is fucked without a murmer? He was the kind of graduate that could have written his own pay cheque, but had a passion for teaching science 'properly' and after his RG physics degree did a PGCE.

Not to mention that for every year he has been teaching there has been massive curriculum change, the constant scrutiny of OFSTED...oh, and the good will from him which means that that he does way more, at least 50% more, than the 1265 hours he is actually paid for?

Still no takers to observe life in an inner city academy school...wonder why?

The vast majority of UK schools provide the vast majority of their pupils with a perfectly good education.
But that story does not sell newspapers.

I have gripes about a few teaching issues but the standard of teaching is not related to this strike.

The greed of current teachers at the expense of the pupils they teach is why I do not support it.

Expat where have I said that I don't expect to support myself between 60-67? I have said a number of times that there are things other than teaching that I want to do. I simply said that I will not be teaching. I suspect to be honest I will have given up teaching well before then.

Remember most are not striking. Many more do not want to. However it is ill advised to teach and not be a union member.

Yes expat, twinkly makes a good point. Many teachers have made provision to support themselves in their old age by paying into a pension pot. But now that provision has gone.

And if you think you could teach after 60 or so...as I said, you have an invitation.

alistron
the provision has not "gone"
only a DC scheme can "go" and NOBODY is suggesting that for teachers.
THey will still have a pension related to what they earned and for how long, it will just be 10% or so less

still 100% more than I will ever get

Nobody is saying that it's fair to move the public sector pension goalposts.But then we are all being subjected to things that aren't fair.

Then it's gone.

That's life.

'And if you think you could teach after 60 or so...as I said, you have an invitation.'

Great! My father taught in his 60s. A paradigm shift made that possible. It made it possible for my sister to enter the profession in her 40s.

Let's make it possible! Let's lobby for that instead. Let's put an end to our idea that you have one career your entire working life.

That's what is needed. REAL support for a shift to enable people to work longer, to change careers big time.

An end to age limitations for apprenticeships and trades. Serious ramifications for age discrimination. Such things.

Because retirement was never meant to last but maybe about 10 years. And people are living longer and longer.

Let's get real here, even early baby boomers were expected and could work real jobs from the age of 14 or 16 onwards.

Let's make that possible again.

That I'd support.

Your 'retiring' at 60 I won't. Because it's my children who will pay for that, and the way things are going, that's not going to be possible without severe hardship for most or emigration.

"fivegomadindorset Thu 23-Jun-11 07:58:33
No, and being self employed will lose a days pay"

so will teachers

I applaud expats idea.

Alistron, maybe you arent aware that a job in actual physics research pays very poorly and often with no pension. Dh could have been a teacher. He went into research 20 years ago after his phd. He is paid much less than teachers, 4 weeks holiday a year and the sort of pension that vanished.

We need to stop this mindset that oh, you're 'old', you're disabled, therefore you're useless for any sort of paid employment.

Oh, what a patronising load of crap!

THIS is our voice, not pay us a 'retirement' and we'll just go die, forgotten in some home maybe we get a Dispatches episode.

WE have something to give! We want to. We are still valuable to society. And we're here, we're together, we have a voice.

Riven, my DH was an academic researcher. Sat on his arse in a library for a decade whilst I worked to provide for us all, and felt like it was an honour to support a Great Thinker. Then I came to my senses and told him to get a proper job that helped provide for his children.
I felt like a fishwife, shrieking and lowering his gaze to the mundane, but it was unsustainable as a parasitic existence.

I'm not buying this load of bunk.

This is our chance, us 40 and 50-somethings. To change things, not just for ourselves, but for our children.

To challenge old mindsets, that a person goes into one career and that is it. A career that is chosen when you're, oh 18 or early 20s.

That a person becomes disabled and oh, that's it, on the state forever. Useless scrounger.

Sorry, but I don't accept that.

Dh works his bollocks off and is bloody good at what he does. It just pays poorly. And is private sector.
Course, wont be an issue soon. Lots of redundancies and they will be looking at the guy who takes most time off. Cos dh is a Carer too. And will have to take 2 days off next week for inset days 5 and 6.

Its the lack of training and funding expat. I wNt to retrain but jobs that used to be direct entry are now degrees. I cant get another loan. Its fustrating. But now Dave and co claim apprenticeships are for all whatever their age i shall be applying for one.

I want to see it possible, for a person like Riven's daughter, to be PM.

Because to me, she stands for what needs to change: the idea that the 'elderly' and disabled are just there to subsist on whatever the greedy state wants to award them.

Exactly, Riven. That is what must change. That a 40-something can and will change careers radically, and should be enabled to do so.