to say this to all the teachers who are striking next week

[Memoo]

As a parent I am 100 % behind you.

I really appreciate that you put your life and soul into your job and im sorry more people don't get just how hard you work for the benefit of our children.

Don't let the bastards grind you down!

surely the real worry should be that pensions are becoming or being portrayed as unaffordable for both the private and the public sector average worker.

I worry that the current economic climate is not encouraging anyone to save for their own provision in their retirement. If you take into account the unemployment in young people who the heck is saving and putting into the general system let alone a personal pension? What the long term effect of this might be should be most concerning for everyone.

Teacherwith2kids, do you feel that we should suck up all the proposed measures or fight for negotiations to make it fairer. E.g lower employer contributions for a lower level of pension. Or working longer for less. Or paying a bit more for less. Why do we have to go with all of those measures if it's just about contributions.

Try these links to the BBC which I consider to be pretty impartial and generally based on facts, rather than the DM or Guardian who have political axes to grind and so tend to bend the truth and speak with forked tongues.

Public Sector Pensions Report explained

As you can see from the graph, without any changes payments are higher than contributions and expected to keep rising. To be honest it's not a big surprise and the last few governments have been wise enough not to poke at it with a big fat shitty stick. The current government has no such luxury.

So changes are either inevitable or we raise taxes. I can't see how we can raise taxes enough to cover not just teacher pensions but nurses, police, firemen, bin collectors, etc. etc. etc.

The changes will ultimately involve a mixture of higher payments and less benefits. It's not a political problem, it's a mathematical one.

Pension Fact Check

I think the article speaks for itself really.

Teachers' anger at increase in pension cost

The table near the bottom is the most interesting. It would seem that a teacher earning £35k a year would have to pay just short of £30 a month more. Less than £1 a day then. For something which is undoubtedly still one of the best, if not THE best pension available in any normal UK job today.

No I don't support the strike. The private sector is taking a massive hit why should a public sector be immune. Just look at the state of our country and the debt it is in; let alone Europe. Unless debt is brought right down we are stuffed and a lovely pension is a luxury that most of us won't have, let alone a job. Get real. Yes it's tough but so is life.

I support the strike. YANBU, OP.

So the attack on public sector pay, conditions and pensions is because of the 'Economic crisis' is it? That same economic crisis that is seeing bankers continue to receive huge bonuses, that sees that luxury housing market in London continue to boom, that sees executive pay going through the roof - ?

And yet the government is still considering removing the 50% rate of tax for people earning more than £150,000 per year, at the same time as they wriggle out of contractual agreements with their employees, and attack citizens old age pensions by shifting the mechanism to calculate rises from RPI to CPI. And that's before we talk about the appalling attack on the sickest and most vulnerable in our society - through smear campaigns in the gutter press to slashing of state benefits.

And you still think this is austerity not ideology?

Get real.

And, for those of you who are bashing the public sector for voting for strike action - be clear that the government has continually failed to negotiate with unions, even those unions who have been willing from day 1 to engage constructively. The latest 'movement' in the governments offer still hasn't been properly explained or the detail provided. The government is still not properly negotiating with the unions - and that is why a number of unions who haven't historically taken strike action have made the unprecedented decision to ballot their memborship for strikes.

If you believe Maude - then you are gullible and quite foolish.

Sorry OP YADNBU and I support teachers and the wider public sector.

By your calculations lordlovely I'm paying for my Mums public sector pension. Am I happy about this?

Yes. Her final payout she recieved meant she could pay to get her house into something habitable. While she was working for the NHS she couldn't afford a new boiler or new Windows or replace her old kitchen.

My Mum was in charge of 10 people and worked for a number of consultants, however she earned less than a newly qualified nurse.

Her pension means she can heat her house in the winter and have a holiday once a year.

So if managing to live above the poverty line equals a magic porridge this country is in a worse state than I thorght.

State pension is also paid for by the next generation. Something else we will be short changed on I'll bet.

Er, NK6ee90ed4X1271ed1fb21 i don't call the public sector 'immune' at all. By the end of this year my organisation will have made two out of every ten people redundant. The size of the total organisation is 2,000. Ninety people will be receiving their redundancy notices in the week before Christmas.

How is that immune exactly?

Font, I don't quite know what you mean by 'fairer'.

Faiere for whom? Fairer for me? Fairer for the country? Fairer for the working population of the country as a whole, both those who are paid out of the public purse and those who create the public purse by paying taxes into it (directly and indirectly)?

I feel it would be fairer for all of us if the genuinely rich paid the same proportion of their income in tax as do the lowest paid. I feel it would be fairer in pension terms if there was parity between all workers from all sectors in how pensions are paid into, managed and paid out - exacly as the state pension was originally conceived, a single pension pot into which all contributed and all were paid, without disparity in contributions, management fees etc. I feel it is entirely fair to 'benchmark' pensions paid by the government against those paid by other employers and to ensure that as many workers as possible get a decent pension deal without having one group of workers subsidise more generous pensions for another (and that is not a private vs public statement - low paid workers subsidise more generous pensions for high pair directors etc as well). I feel that it is fair and prudent to keep revisiting existing pension schemes in the light of new economic developments.

i can understand the anger though amongst any sector against the change in pensions.

For years we are told to invest in our future. Manage your own destiny (unlike perhaps the generations like my grandparents who are now wholly dependent on the state). Ensure you have provison for your future.

You enter into an agreement thinking you are paying into one scheme and then suddenly the goalposts are moved and WHAM. Its not the outcome you were led to believe. Now you must pay in more and get out less. As an investor you are left thinking "whats the point?. Where does it stop?"

Where is the incentive for the 20 somethings to invest in a scheme? They already believe that they will work beyond their expected pension age. I started in the pension scheme believing I would retire at 60. 12 years on and its now 68. There is no assurance that in another 12 years it wont be deemed necessary that I cant retire until I am 76.

There are a few of things to consider:

First, teachers have a pay freeze, will now be working longer, have to deal with the rise in living standards as well and will be paying more into a pension scheme that is frozen. And more importantly, more is being demanded from them in terms of their time - time I am sure the Public sectors would be paid for. (And no, I do not mean that teachers would not be giving their time, I'm just pointing out that time being demanded and time being given is different.) For teachers, that is a pay cut. More is going to be going out then coming in.

Secondly, teachers did not profit in the boom years. Our pensions were not plowed into a bank in another country to gain extra interest. It has not been subject to the stock market. So only a few short years ago, when the Private sector were enjoying inflated pensions tachers did not.

Thirdly, IT IS NOT JUST teachers who are striking. Teachers have the luxury to strike, and I think are doing so partly on behalf of those public workers who can not... nurses and the police.

Nope, teachers are not over paid. I love the figures banded about telling everybody how much teachers can expect to earn. If you are a specialist subject like science, you may join the profession at a higher pay band. If you work inner London, you will have London weighting. That does not mean that all teachers are earning this! But, we seem to be missing the obvious. It's not just what comes in, but what goes out. Everyone, including teachers have differnt calls on their finances. Yesterday I listened to the radio, where I was informed that teachers have two cars and shop in Waitrose. Good for them if they can afford it. I'm going to guess though that they do not have their own children and have paid off their mortgages.

There seems to be a feeling of, "if i can't have it anymore, they wont". Why? What makes you think that teachers are having it? Cooking, shopping, raising children are unversal costs, surely.

Oh, and why bother striking? Its an old fashioned thing, and I am a child brought up in the late 70s/80s, but is this not how we can have our say heard?

Martin Niemöller put it simply, "Then they came for me -- and there was no one left to speak for me". I have no intention never to speak.

Teaching is a vocation as well as a job.

No one would wish their children to be taught by someone who thought differently.

Yes, niceguy we should be increasing taxes but not just to pay for pensions. Why does no-one ever want to do this or even talk about it any more?

Perhaps because previous governments all but destroyed British manufacturing and caused us to rely on consumer spending to keep things afloat so we need people to have enough disposable income to keep spending on cars and things rather than services, education and support for the sick.

They seem to manage higher taxes in Norway and they have less differences between rich and poor and a better society as a result. Probably fewer millionaires so I imagine the British reluctance to follow this model is possibly rooted in the thought that they would at least like the chance to be a millionaire themselves ignoring the fact that we can't all be one and they are very unlikely to be anyway.

I realise this is a deeply unfashionable view even in so called left wing circles (eg. new labour). But do you know what? I don't care!

If you think the Irish educationalists are the bee's knees, you definitely do not know your arse from your elbow, lovely.

Instead of fighting amongst ourselves....

"There are 73 billionaires in the UK - up from 53 the previous year, according to the latest Sunday Times Rich List.

Prof John Van Reenen, director of the Centre for Economic Performance, says you need to be making more than £140,000 a year to be among the top 1% of UK earners. (See the entry below on the 1%.)" - they are not on the whole PS workers.

link

I see nothing wrong with striking when you have no other way of opposing those in power. Pensions should be better for everyone who is on an average wage, someone linked to Topshop shutting stores, Green has not paid proper taxes and will only close stores to improve his profits. He will get rid of how many poorly paid workers, who have no strong unions to oppose him?

Public sector workers contribute to their pension funds, they should be protected - they are not guilty of mismanaging the economy and should not pay for it any more than any other ordinary working person in this country.

It's about £80 a month for most.
To get less, not to maintain.

Craigslittleangel.

No-one (sensible) is saying "If I can't have it anymore then they won't". What is being said though is "We simply can't afford this anymore unless we raise taxes or reduce spending elsewhere"

Affordable and fair are both relative concepts. We can "afford" anything we like...at the cost of something else. Fair is in the eye of the beholder. To the teacher's and other public sector workers it's very unfair. To the kids of tomorrow I suspect they would see being expected to pay for such a large shortfall whilst simultaneously not having the same pension schemes available to them when they retire as also very unfair.

No I don't support the strike. The private sector is taking a massive hit and it is going to get a lot worse. There is a depression coming and the state of public sector pensions is a piffle. Where do they think the money is coming from?? Private sector workers can't bear the burden of their overinflated expectations; why should a public sector be immune. Just look at the state of our country and the debt it is in; let alone Europe. Unless debt is brought right down we are stuffed and a lovely pension is a luxury that most of us won't have, let alone a job. Get real. Yes it's tough but so is life.

Thank you OP.
I was moved to post by the person who said teachers don't put life and soul into their jobs.
Visit a school on the verge of an OFSTED inspection or during the aftermath and you'll see just how much life and soul goes in to the job.

Years ago when the hours really were more like 9-3 and the teacher decided which topic they fancied, alongside maths which was self taught out of SPM workbooks and a bit of writing - marked 'lovely handwriting' 'could be neater' or 'see me' maybe teachers could have worked until they were 68. Likewise with 30 plus children in a class where a quarter have an additional need with 1 part time support assistant how exactly are teachers supposed to secure the educational progress for all without putting life and soul into the job. This is what schools and ofsted expect. Net effect = exhaustion and reduced health.

The goalposts have moved; teachers have moved with them or left the profession. Should those who want to stay really have to endure the triple effect of paying more, working longer and harder - the government hasn't finished messing about with education, and ultimately getting less back?

Personally I know teachers who are opposed to striking but are doing so in support of their union and colleagues. Unions are necessary because of the increased tendency of parents/children/employers to take action against teachers - sometimes rightly but also wrongly too.

Craig I disagree re more is demanded of teachers time.When I was teaching we didn't have non contact time.Teachers now have an afternoon off a week as well as 12 weeks holiday a year.

My dp got home from work again at 7pm and no like the maj of private workers he won't be paid for it. He's studying in his own time to keep up with the latest tech unlike teachers who go on courses paid for by the tax payer.

We're all living longer,there is less money.Wake up and smell the coffee.The rest of us have long since excepted this and are just getting on with it.I'm soooooo bored of public sector whining to be frank

Hmm, I live in an area that is suffering from the loss of manufacturing jobs. The areas that I cover for work are very much hit by the recession, it is right that there are geographical pockets.
I advertised a job for a receptionist.
I had over 300 applicants, from degree educaated scientists to school leavers.
I think we all need to get real here before we go the way of Greece/Italy/Spain.
Certain areas of Britain are massively struggling.

The links are nice

the first is already happening to the TPS for the teachers that joined after 2007.

The second relates to all public sector pensions not just the TPS and although all are unfunded are listed as different schemes (as I understand it)

The additional money that teachers may/will have to pay in in the third link is based on supposition as the government hasn't yet tabled any real proposals.

I will add, the strike will cost me money I don't have to spend. Times are tough...

Bloody keep fighting!!!! Strike!!!

I am 100% behind you all.

:) we should all be fighting for our rights rather than begrudging the few who've retained them.

what we should remember is that the public sector paid into their pensions with good faith. On information provided by the Govmt at that time. Effectively by people that were elected by the general public and that the general public put their faith in.

If public sector pensions have been mismanaged then this should be held accountable for by Govmt as with the Mp expenses scandal.