to think that the NUT advertising in the press about teachers' retirement age..

[wimblehorse]

..is a bit off?
The advert is asking people to sign up to an online petition that teachers should not have to work until they're 68 and if you agree to sign up to the petition.

It also says that they don't think nurses, police, ambulance drivers etc should have to work until this age.
Teaching is a stressful, demanding job and I can quite understand not wanting to do it full-time until age 68.

However I am not convinced that teachers warrant such "singling out" above other jobs. Of course the NUT is standing up for its members, however there are many other deserving (and undeserving) jobs out there and I would feel happier if we were "all in this together" and could have some sensible discussions about retirement age, gradual winding down of work etc for everybody.
AIBU?

leggyblonde - I have heard this quoted for other types of jobs too.

YABU - about the ad, anyone can take out an ad, the NUT have chosen to use subscription money to do this.

YANBU - to not want to work until 68 yourself. The difficulty is that the government when anyone protests about pensions sets public sector against public sector and all of the public sector against the private sector in the media. So that it is universally agreed and debated that we should all expect lower standards of work (all work till 68 or insert other crap term here). When I protest as a Unison member, I don't consider myself to require specialist treatment, I consider everybody should have the same standards icluding those in the private sector who can also get a bum deal at times.

I guess being part of a union is a way of challenging the government but they do tend to come under certain professions, maybe they should be widened out to create less divisiveness so that we could all aim for better (albeit realistic) working lives.

Don't want to whinge on about big bonus bankers as too much of an obvious target but I do wonder about their retirement ages.....

Why not attack the government rather than teachers?

This government wants everyone to work, the only way that there will be jobs, is for people to work part time and retire earlier.

Actually taking early retirement is a public service, it frees up jobs for the newly qualified.

Each union ooks after it's members interests, that is what the NUT is doing.

Because of the cuts in public spending other statutory departments have regular early retirement packages offered, teachers don't have this opportunity.

I think squirrel made a good point above:

"there are 4 choices to deal with the extra pension cost:

1. Take the pension later (ie retire at 68).
2. Increase pension contributions.
3. Make the pension pay less per month.
4. Fund from elsewhere"

I'm guessing the NUT only wants option 4. But where from? There are so many professions (in particular manual labour) where it's simply not viable to work until this age. Where does the NUT think the money is going to come from exactly?

I do feel sorry for them, but lots of people are in the same boat. I dont think I will be able to do my high pressure job, with lots of travel, much past 50. It requires me to analyse large very amounts of scientific information very quickly. I have to continually pick up and learn new areas of emerging science and I feel my brain is starting to slow.

I am hoping to be able to hang in there until my children leave school. FWIW, I was planning to become a science teacher!

Why don't teachers go part time then when they hit their 60's? Job share - that kind of thing?

Elastamum ..... interesting!

I think that maybe the issue is being stuck in the same career for too many years - we are all bound to become tired and demotivated by it.

So perhaps a career change in mid life would be refreshing for all of us.

There are so many questions about how we run our society when it comes to retirement.

There are some jobs (and teaching is one of them and affects the most amount of people) where people only live 18 months to 2 years after retirement - is that what we want?

We need to think about a more flexible work force and also think through the implications of retiring so many people on ill-health.

In the police authority where I worked police officers gradually retired after 25 years or took on more civilian desk jobs as active duty - the statistics for police officers after retirement (and service people) are much better than teachers - more than 15 years of retirement.

Instead of focusing on the word 'teacher' (which produces many emotive responses) we should instead be wondering why there is one job in our society done by hundreds of thousands of people where people die so soon after retirement - or retire so much on ill-health.

The most 'efficient' way for our society to operate is have people die quickly after retirement rather than be a burden on the NHS - society then gets as much out of those people for the smallest investment. Cold, hard, fact - and horrible for the families of those whose members are in the occupations that will suffer this. I don't want to be in a family that suffers those ill-effects. I want a retirement with my husband - more than 2 years, yes.

Jet- to me that is madness. We need flexibility. To me it makes more sense to job share when your children are young, not when they have left home.

We need a better strategy for pensions (and working) all round.

At least the NUT has got the media covering pensions again.

I feel as though i can now do my job more effectively, now my children are older teens. I am looking forward to the next stage of little responsibility and being able to work as long as i want.

Why not attack the government rather than teachers?
I certainly wasn't attacking teachers. I agree it would be difficult for most to carry on full-time class teaching into late sixties.
I was put-off supporting the NUT's petition because I feel it's divisive, setting teachers (and other deserving public sector workers) against others.

I think that teaching is a bit different to some of the other jobs described here (not that I think they can easily be done to 68). If you are a teacher you can't slow down a bit or the children will run rings around you. You can't have an "off day" and rely on your colleagues to pick up the slack as they are in a different room with their own class. I think we need to work on models that would enable older teachers to continue to work but doing more one to one or other things that enhance learning but aren't full time while class teaching. It is also important that stepping back a bit doesn't impact teachers pensions massively which is a problem when the pension is based on the last few years salary. This probably needs to be done for other professions too where continuing at full tilt isn't feasible.

I'd love to see the independent research that demonstrates that the average life expectancy for a teacher after retirement is 18 to 24 months. Certainly all the retired teachers I know are massively skewing that data so there must be legions of teachers dropping dead within days to make that the average.

Unions are not allowed to campaign on the behalf of non members. It was the government that made this ruling not the unions. Petition the government if you want the nut et al to campaign on the behalf of humanity.

Teachers have already agreed to increased contributions and a career average pension not a final salary one. This is on top of pay freezes. How else would you like them to contribute more to the public pot?

The "masses" don't have anyone to represent them, thanks to the destruction of the unions and agency working.

That doesn't mean that the NUT should stop looking after it's members interests.

This doesn't need to turn into a teacher bashing thread. Most of the classes at Children's Centres etc couldn't be run without retired teachers. Every centre that i have had to attended has a retired teacher giving a lot of their time to help.

You've just said that the NUT is looking out for its members. What do you expect them to do?

And I hate to break this to you OP, but some of us aren't all in it together.

Erm, my job is quite stressful but mainly involves me sitting at a desk, going to meetings, using my brain etc. I don't particularly want to work until I'm 68, but health permitting, I see no reason why I shouldn't.

Dealing with 30 reception children, on the other hand, would be physically demanding as well as mentally demanding, so I do think it's different.

My mother is 68. She could cope with a desk job like mine, but I think she would struggle in a classroom of small kids or unruly teenagers.

I don't think it is exclusive to teachers though. I'm sure there are many other physically demanding jobs which would be difficult for older workers. Nurses are one, binmen are another.

Personally, I don't want other people to have to do hard physical labour late into their 60s just because I have to sit at my desk for a few more years. But that's just me.

Laurie, do you have any evidence to back up your claim that teachers only live 18months - 2 yrs after retirement?? Thats a rather extreme claim!

I agree with breathslowly. Its what I would have put had i been more eloquant.

When can other public sector employees claim their pension?
The Police
The Army
Paramedics
Firemen
I have a funny feeling that it's after 25 years of service.
So, start work at 18, claim pension at 43.

Is that ok?

When can other public sector employees claim their pension?
The Police
The Army
Paramedics
Firemen
I have a funny feeling that it's after 25 years of service.
So, start work at 18, claim pension at 43.

Is that ok?

I don't know. I'm trying really hard not making judgements about who deserves to retire at a young age and who deserves to work until they almost drop.

But I would say that with a life expectancy of 75-80, to expect to be able to build up enough of a pension to support a retirement of 37 years through working for 25 years is not sustainable.

I'm not saying we should be sending 65 year olds into burning buildings.

I am saying we should be, and need to be, thinking of smarter ways for everyone to work throughout their working lives. Whether that is flexible/part-time work for those with young families, for those who are suffering ill health, or are older and cannot sustain an intensive (physically/mentally or both) job for 40 hours plus a week.

I accept IWBU if I was expecting the NUT to campaign for that on my behalf.
However I strongly dislike the way I perceived their campaign to be purely for the benefit of the deserving teaching and other selected public sector workers.

Of course the National union of teacher's campaign is purely for teachers. It's a teaching union.
The NUT believe teachers shouldn't work until 68 when the pension scheme they signed up for and paid into says otherwise.
The government have changed the terms and pension agreement many years after some teachers started paying.

If you want to support then support, if you don't, don't.

The government have changed the terms and pension agreement many years after some teachers started paying.

My employer also changed the terms and agreement of my pension after I had been working and paying into it for a number of years.

I don't want a race to the bottom, either in terms of pensions or retirement age.

I don't expect the NUT to campaign on my behalf.

I do feel put out by the way I perceived their campaign to distinguish between the deserving and the non-deserving (including me).
That has lost their campaign my support, which they may otherwise have had.

The proposal is that most public sector staff will only be able to claim their pensions at the same age as they would receive their state pension. So care assistants, bin men, nursery nurses, teaching assistants will in the main be 68 unless they are quite a bit older.

There are different rules for firemen as they required to be very physically fit. Not sure about the NHS though?

firemen as they required to be very physically fit.
No desk jobs for firemen then?

I do feel put out by the way I perceived their campaign to distinguish between the deserving and the non-deserving (including me).
where do the NUT say teachers are more deserving than people in your occupation OP?