To think teachers are actually better off than those in the private sector

[coco44]

(Mumsnet Bosses
Please may I rephrase the debate in a more measured way)

[PurpleGirly]

Oh and your building friend who has a building degree has obviously done well for himself, but I am sure he would not manage a class of 35 top set Year 11 pupils wanting an A* in English, just as I could not build a house.

[janey68]

Purply- Retro said on this or one of the similar threads that she used to teach. I can't for the life of me understand why she's not still doing it as she thinks its such a fabulous deal and would love to be paying hundreds of pounds a month into a pension plan only to have the goalposts moved constantly. Not to mention the continual messing around with the schools, funding, exams and the curriculum (any one else got key stage 4 children who have just had the goal posts moved YET AGAIN wrt GCSE exams?)

[Retropear]

Who said he could?

Nope certainly don't hate teachers,I was one and mot of my friends still are.

I simply don't agree with this strike.

[tethersend]

"Grennie These employment rights are imposed by the EU"

Don't be absurd, pixie; the Annual Holiday bill was introduced in 1936.

[Retropear]

Time to move on,been in the school environment my whole life.

Wasn't aware one had to teach for life.

[Maggietess]

Wow I knew this debate would be difficult but suggesting another poster is a prostitute because she disagrees with your viewpoint is a new low for me. That's pretty uncalled for.

And for what it's worth I know plenty of professions who have "clients", accountants and lawyers being two of them.

[Retropear]

My charity worker sister refers to clients.

I've been shocked re some of the bullying,nasty posts from teachers to some posters on threads.Had pms saying the same.

Thankfully I know from RL it isn't a true representation of all teachers(and their supporters).

[Grennie]

Women who are prostituted do not deserve to be used as an insult.

[sashh]

Greenie I am not using it as an insult.

[janey68]

There's disagreement but I haven't seen any bullying- apart from a few really nasty inaccurate threads started by people who seem to have too much time on their hands and a personal vendetta against the teaching profession

[Retropear]

Vendetta - bollocks.Do you know the meaning of the word?

Posters are allowed to query/ disagree the teaching strike and what it stands for.MN is for mothers,to support,it has an education section and posters are free to ask for advice /support / question re their dc and education as much as they choose throughout the site.

The way anybody who disagrees with the strike or voices upset/asks for advice re their dc's education are getting accused of being teacher haters and running vendettas atm is quite frankly at best immature and at worst plain nasty.

Also the pack mentality,belittling,mocking,nasty posts to said ops and other posters was not pleasant to read.Going by pm I wasn't alone in thinking that.

[janey68]

You think the threads started by coco44 are seriously about debating important issues...?
Dream on ..

[Retropear]

I actually had 1 pm from a poster too scared to post but thanking me for voicing what she feels.


Not MN at it's best to be frank.

[AmyMumsnet]

Ahem
www.mumsnet.com/info/netiquette

[chicaguapa]

^^

Retro I'm not a teacher, but I do think some of your posts have been deliberately goading. Not what you're saying (because as you say you're entitled to an opinion and to disagree with the strike), but the tone and the brevity of some of your responses do make it seem that you are deliberately being provocative.

I think it has been established that the teaching profession has changed a lot over the years and it seems that even having been a teacher means that it's not completely possible to understand what it's like for teachers now.

For those who say they signed up for whatever working conditions, pay and pension they have that is worse than the teachers', fair enough. But the point is that teachers did not sign up for the working conditions, pay and pension that are being proposed, so they are fighting against them. Whether or not you agree with whether the proposed changes are reasonable is moot. You are not doing the job and therefore do not have the right to say whether they should be accepted by people doing the job.

There are a lot of double standards on this and other threads about this issue. Apparently it's not ok for your DC to miss a day off school but it's ok for their education system to be ballsed up and the teachers to sit around and do nothing about it? It just doesn't make any sense.

[Retropear]

Sorry any poster has a right to say they don't agree with striking. Some posters may think they are justified,others don't.Considering how few teachers themselves actually voted to strike it's clear many in the profession don't agree with it,none of my friends do.They are perfectly entitled to say why without being accused of all manner of things such as goading.

Posters also have a right not to be accused of views and beliefs they don't have.

At the moment any poster who disagrees with the strike and posts on threads saying so is accused of teacher bashing.

Oh and my dc haven't missed a day off school.

[janey68]

Well if you can show evidence of 'stirring, belittling, mocking and bullying' in my posts, show it!
Thought not .

[youretoastmildred]

We have to stop this infighting. Wouldn't it be nice if we could all have a better working life and good pay and pensions? If you are working your arse off in the private sector, have no job security or pension and earn £25000 there is no point gunning for the teacher working his / her arse off for £27000 with some pension. Everyone is at real risk of burn out, everyone is doing their best, everyone is facing the very real possibility of not making ends meet or getting some permanant long term healthy condition, and what then? That's what we're all scared of. None of us is secure. We should be, we work hard in a rich country. But we can't be, because security would impact the profits of those who use our work and own the properties we rent or buy from them.

I am tired on a personal level of some teachers - the ones who think everyone else has a cushy life because the office supplies teabags - whining. I am also tired of pathetic right-wing-propaganda fuelled whining about the public sector. Open your eys and see you are being used when you fall for this, just like when you parrot whines about the NHS and the BBC - this whining you are parrotting isn't going to lead to making them better, it is going to lead to them being closed down, and then everything will be a lot more shit.

I support the teachers' strike because I support all action by workers to protect a decent deal. I wish everyone was unionised and I wish everyone could do it. If teachers win, you aren't worse off. You should be inspired, not envious.

I work for a company with a US office and when I went back to work after mat. leave when my daughter was 11 months old, all the mothers in the US who I spoke to said something more or less obviously bitchy about my long maternity leave. Would they have liked it? Yes, that is why they were bitching at me, they were envious. Why? What purpose does that serve? By reproducing a negative attitude to long mat leave - an implication that I was spoilt, or lazy - they were playing into the hands of those who won't let it happen in the US.

when will we all bloody learn?

[Retropear]

There is no money and we're living longer,that is the point.

If money was unlimited there wouldn't be an issue.

[Retropear]

Janey read the thread"fart arsing about in fields sticking your hands up cows arses", capital letters,deleted posts,the group baiting,the derogatory comments......

[youretoastmildred]

rubbish

there is money, this is propaganda

"The annual Sunday Times Rich List yields four very important conclusions for the governance of Britain (Report, Weekend, 28 April). It shows that the richest 1,000 persons, just 0.003% of the adult population, increased their wealth over the last three years by £155bn. That is enough for themselves alone to pay off the entire current UK budget deficit and still leave them with £30bn to spare.
Second, this mega-rich elite, containing many of the bankers and hedge fund and private equity operators who caused the financial crash in the first place, have not been made subject to any tax payback whatever commensurate to their gains. Some 77% of the budget deficit is being recouped by public expenditure cuts and benefit cuts, and only 23% is being repaid by tax increases. More than half of the tax increases is accounted for by the VAT rise which hits the poorest hardest. None of the tax increases is specifically aimed at the super-rich.
Third, despite the biggest slump for nearly a century, these 1,000 richest are now sitting on wealth greater even than at the height of the boom just before the crash. Their wealth now amounts to £414bn, equivalent to more than a third of Britain's entire GDP. They include 77 billionaires and 23 others, each possessing more than £750m.
The increase in wealth of this richest 1,000 has been £315bn over the last 15 years. If they were charged capital gains tax on this at the current 28% rate, it would yield £88bn, enough to pay off 70% of the entire deficit. It seems however that Osborne takes the notorious view of the New York heiress, Leonora Helmsley: "Only the little people pay taxes."
Michael Meacher MP"

[youretoastmildred]

And a bit more

"Dear George Osborne

Today you said that welfare was 'hugely expensive'.

You said this either because you are ignorant or because you're lying. You must know that what is 'hugely expensive' at the moment is that the kind of economy you believe in has ground to a halt for reasons that are part of how it works. That's to say, the bankers speculated and lost. The UK economy relies on the banking sector because your party took a strategic decision 30 years ago to shift the GDP away from manufacture towards the financial services. So the bankers' crash has impacted on us all in two ways: we've bailed out the banks; the banks are in such trouble they are unwilling or unable to lend money to firms that could or would start expanding - so there is little or no growth, which means that the government revenues are not sufficient.

On top of this the superrich go on working the fiddles which enable them to deprive us of their due tax: they do it through tax avoidance, tax havens and finding non-dom status for themselves or their partners - business or husbands and wives. On top of this, they have just received a tax cut on their personal incomes, and get tax relief on their pensions.

So you say that welfare is 'hugely expensive'. Now, I wonder if you could calculate for us how 'hugely expensive' the rich are for us. How 'hugely expensive' has it been for us that the bankers could sell each other debt and speculate on foreign housing bubbles they knew nothing about? How hugely expensive per minute is it for us that the superrich avoid paying so much tax with dodges and tax relief?

You are doing all you can to separate the paying of taxes from the welfare that most people in society want and need. You are trying to do all you can to dismantle the means by which we care for each other. You think that you can leave the business of schools, health, social care and pensions in the hands of the kinds of people who speculated the system to a standstill.

This would be the most 'hugely expensive' gamble of all, because it gambles with people's lives and leaves people destitute and defenceless in the midst of your friends' phenomenal wealth.

More and more people can see the dangerous and nasty strategy you're working to. In the end, they will see that your policies and indeed, you yourself, are 'hugely expensive'.

from
Michael Rosen "

[janey68]

Oh you mean irony, on a thread which was started purely as goading by coco44- who then admitted that she was out of order! I see.
Anyway, this personal following me around and latching onto my posts is getting a teensy bit tiresome...