aibu to think that all those striking on thursday are being selfish and greedy?

[hellospoon]

And they should be thankful that they even have a job?

In a day where thousands of people are unemployed and living in poor conditions surely these teachers should be thankful they even have a job!

Many parents are having to take leave, some unpaid I presume the effect that it will have on family's is ridiculous.

Yes. You are.

'anybody else'? For your average graduate manager type earning £55k plus in the 'beleaguered' private sector it would probably take far less time than for a teacher on £20k.

I've been thinking about people I know in the private sector who graduated at the same time as me from my university.

Not one of them is earning as little as I do (I left a far higher-paying sector, which I hated, to work in universities). They are all lawyers, doctors, directors, hedge fund managers, IT consultants, and blah. They earn bloody fortunes, the lot of them. And good luck to them with it. Just don't try to tell teachers that a. they deserve less than what they are getting, and deserve to have their contracts broken with it b. they would do less well in the private sector (and thus deserve to do less well now...a crappy argument if ever I heard one).

I suspect the average private sector worker coming out with a pension of less than £8k would have earned the same as a teacher for life, e.g 20-30 max k? And obviously depending on pension plan type etc? (Actuaries etc please correct me, I am genuinely interested). Is anyone seriously suggesting that the average skilled graduate (not the worst teachers...the better ones, who are the majority) would stay on that salary for life in the average private sector job? Really? because I think that is sheer bollocks frankly, and demonstrative of total ignorance about the level of teachers' skills.

To get a pension of £8k from the private sector on a salary of £20 to £30k the employees would have to put in a hell of a lot more into the pensions pot than teachers do. Very few people could actually afford to do that and still leave themselves with a decent standard of living. Nobody is putting the equivilent of 14% of a private sector worker's salary in a pot for them. Can you see yourself paying 14% of your salary into a fund to get £8k when you retire? That is what you think private sector workers are doing.

Just as a matter of interest how many teachers never progress beyond the main pay scale with the top salary of £31k? Surely over the course of a life time of working a lot of them acquire extra allowances one way or another?

I get 20,640 a year gross, I pay £140 a onth into my pension pot. Even if I had a private pension at this point it would be looking the same as a public workers pension. I am not expecting the government to pay for my retirement, i am doing that myself. BUT as a single parent it is a struggle and to be honest if any more comes out of my wages (tax / NI / student loan) I don't know how I am going to manage. may I remind those who think that teachers are being unreasonable of all those people who have no pension and are relying on the state to support them, that includes those who will never work a day in their lives. I work hard for my money and have worked hard to be here. If I was paying into a pribate pension would this issue even be discussed?

allegrageller - I have just picked this thread up again and Niecie - who, btw, I am nominating for cleverest person on MN - has made complete mincemeat of all you have said. Suffice to say, you are digging yourself deeper with every sentence.

Re extra allowances, not necessarily

Any extra pay has to be given for teaching and/or learning responsibilities, so for example, being responsible for a subject or faculty. They are not bonuses, or payment for being generally great, or sinecures. You are responsible for actual outcomes, which are actually monitored. A recent trend is for these responsibilities to be fixed term- you may be responsible for x this year, but not next, you may have to reapply, or the post no longer exists

In a secondary school with 70ish teaching staff, do you really think there are enough of these to go around so that all or most staff have them? Is everyone in your company an executive director?

allegraller. Your post referring to the "beleagured" private sector shows how out of touch teachers are. People don't generally advertise their salary. Lawyers, IT consultants don't all earn fortunes and an awful lot have had pay cuts since 2008. If you think anyone with a pension pot that will give them a pension of £8k has earned less than £30k you are in cloud cuckoo land. I have just had a pension forecast. It is considerably less than that despite the fact that I have been paying a huge amount for 21 years. The difference is I have never had employer contributions. Posts like yours are patronizing and make me lose any sympathy I may have for you.

This reminds me of going to the bank and asking what's the interest rate on your savings -

Only 1.5%?

That's not right - I'm not having that - we're all off on strike then!

YANBU but don't expect anything but thinly veiled insults for daring to say so.

Unions are doing their best to make a dire situation worse using bullying tactics while negotiations are still underway. It sticks in the throat of anyone currently struggling along that this won't affect the majority of the people out on strike but they think so little of the private sector workers we (who let's face it are not on these "much better than public sector wages") have to pay so much to foot their pension or else!

We seem to be getting away without much disruption in Scotland thankfully. As I said on another thread their darling Labour would have to be doing the same thing and should have tackled this issue much earlier.

Now I'll wait for the grammar, punctuation, spelling brigade to pick this apart for daring to have an actual opinion that differs.

I'd be more impressed if they marched into the financial part of London and straight to the door of the stuffed shirts who've caused pain for everyone!

Isn't saying "my pension is shit so yours should be too" missing the point a bit?

The fact is people signed up to these pensions - whether you like the terms or not the individuals didn't decide them - government did and now they're moving the goal posts.

My DH works in the private sector, he gets a car, private healthcare, bonus and rewards like mini breaks, all expenses paid parties and vouchers. He works hard, he is reward for this.

My mother works for the NHS, she gets her salary each. She works unpaid overtime, takes work home. No car, no perks, no bonuses. Her trust is actually in the process of downgrading entire bands of nursing staff to cut costs. They'll still be doing to same work, treating the same patients etc but for less.

Now she's being told her pension isn't going to be what she's worked for for the last 30 years.

I would feel it was more fair if they were changing the scheme for new entrants. You know what you're signing up for etc but to retrospectively change something is wrong.

My savings rate says "x% until this date and then standard % afterwards". I sign up to that, I know where I stand. It's not comparable to signing up to a pension that promises you final salary, your contributions are x and you have to work for y years before retiring. No small print saying "but we can change this if we feel like".

And lastly the public sector is shrinking at high speed. The civil service is looking at a reduction of 40% I think. That will also impact pensions in the long term. Fewer people to pay.

God, riddled with typos sorry. On my phone.

YANBU.
What makes public sector workers so special? Private sector pays more into pension and works longer yet you hardly hear a whimper....

Right Roll so because those people have no way of whimpering we should all have rubbish pensions, pay and conditions? I know, let's all go back to the Victorian days where workers were treated like scum and were expected to be grateful to the nice rich people throwing scraps their way

Take a peek at unemployment figures, dear ...

So because unemployment is high people should settle for shitty terms and conditions?

Why is unemployment so high? Certainly not due to any fault of the vast majority of people in the UK - public or private sector.

When the people that caused the economic downturn and resulting high unemployment that their share of the pain then I shall whole heartedly agree that we're in this together but right now, all I see is public sector pensions being used to plug a gap caused by people who are not being held accountable.

resulting high unemployment take their share of the pain

(can't blame phone this time either)

dear? ouch.

No sure what your point is TBH.

Can I point out that unemployment figures are actually going down? There are jobs being created in the private sector because they have been through their pain and are coming out the other side. The public sector is only now feeling the pain the private sector did. They need to start trimming down too and getting rid of all those public sector managers with nonsense job titles who earn fat salaries. Don't have a go at the private sector which is generating the wealth, have a go at the public sector wastefulness.

chibi - actually yes everybody is a company director in my company, although it is only me in a company of 1.

I was hoping somebody would provide some figures of the percentage of teachers on just the basic main payscale salary of £21k to £31k. My impression is that there are plenty of teachers with allowances though. The junior school my DS1 goes to are restructuring their school because too many have allowances and they can't afford it. It seems you are either an NQT or qualfied within the last 3 years or you have additional responsibility for something (head of year, currirculum responsibilities for key subjects like Maths or English, SN or G&T etc). My experience of secondaries is limited but we went to a secondary induction day last week, half of them were head of something, had a SN reponsibility or some other title that would give then an allowance or again they were very young and recently qualified.

It doesn't matter because my little sample of one is not really relevant. The point is listen to the teachers on here and you would think the whole world and his wife are earning more than them with the same qualifications. They aren't, they really aren't, and yet those people are expected to pay for teachers pensions. It is unrealistic to expect them to do that.

dirge - your husbands type of package is becoming more and more unusual and I doubt even his employer puts 14% into his pension.

Mablig - your salary isn't even on the payscale - I would complain.

Mdowdall - PMSL. I wish I was cleverer, then I might be earning as much as a teacher.

No. "Saying my pension is shit so yours should be too" is not missing the point. The point is someone has to pay for public sector pensions. As well as trying to fund my own pension you are asking me to continue to contribute to yours at a rate that is economically unsustainable.

Exactly ohnoherewego but there seems to be a rule about speaking out against it. And jobs with perks like that are almost unheard of now so do most public sector workers have this illusion of private sector workers?

We are grasshoppers running around, getting all these sweet benefits while not saving for the future. Meanwhile the little public sector ants are busy, busy, busy working so much harder on no money at all. 'Tis the other way around.

And saying we should all go back to the dark ages is just a ridiculous argument brought out when you don't have a point to make!

Exactly ohnoherewego but there seems to be a rule about speaking out against it. And jobs with perks like that are almost unheard of now so do most public sector workers have this illusion of private sector workers?

We are grasshoppers running around, getting all these sweet benefits while not saving for the future. Meanwhile the little public sector ants are busy, busy, busy working so much harder on no money at all. 'Tis the other way around.

And saying we should all go back to the dark ages is just a ridiculous argument brought out when you don't have a point to make!

funny how some of those in the private sector, who say it is ok for public sector to contribute 50% more into their pensions is ok, when they have absolutely no idea about what teachers get paid or what for!

I'm in the public sector - in a school - and don't think taxpayers should be made to fund 2/3 of teachers' retirement.

Teachers are being asked to increase their side of the contributions to almost - almost - match those of the taxpayer - yes I know teachers are taxpayers too..... but I do wish teachers would stop the general "it's our pension, you're changing something I've paid for" -when in reality the teacher has paid for 1/3 of it!

T&C change all the time - didn't see anyone striking when they put the taxpayer funded portion UP from 5%!!!