To wonder how the strikes will end?

[Wingingit11]

This isn’t a thread about whether you agree with strikes as a concept or not (there have been soooo many) but to question how you think the strikes will end?! To me, the longer they go on, the less likely there is to be movement on either side ?

You think that teaching strikes impact nobody? Cool.

Where in Scotland are teachers down a weeks pay?
You only lose pay if you are part of the union that is on strike - EIS have had the most strike days, which equates to three days of lost pay so far.
I don’t know any teacher who is not going to continue to strike. Some are worried about the loss of wages, but the unions have a hardship fund which anyone can apply for to make up for some of the lost wages. I’m applying myself as strike days have fallen disproportionately on the days I work.

I think some pp have made some excellent points. Strikes have much less impact now to the economy than pre covid. Many can work from home and school pausing for one day doesn't worry parents the way it might once have done. The individuals in power all have private healthcare, pay private school fees and will not be in the slightest bit inconvenienced by the strikes. Public sector workers will vote with their feet and leave. I look at the USA model and see what we might be looking at in terms of public health and schooling.

So basically how will this end? The govt will continue to ignore the strikers and the strikes will stop and our socialist model will start to recede.

They aren’t going to pay their bills in the meantime by going on strike!

Re not as much impact I did a YouGov poll and was a little surprised at high number saying no or little impact.

For a lot of the stuff people adapt. And agree with pp re London paralysed in ore Covid days by strikes. But now wfh is easy for many

Inclusive of the planned days up to end of Feb my LOA primary teachers will have been on strike for 5 days. That’s a weeks pay.

And yes there’s an EIS hardship fund, but the max you can get per day is £60 IF you are eligible.

Why are you counting up to the end of February? Those days haven’t happened. They have lost three days pay max, over four calendar months. They won’t actually have the pay deducted for the end of February until March at the earliest, depending on when their cut off date is.

The EIS hardship fund covers around 50% of the take home pay of a teacher at the top of the pay scale. It’s definitely worth applying for anyone who is considering not striking for financial reasons.

I’ll tap out now as you seem to want some kind of argument for strike. This was a convo about future direction.

This.

The longer it goes on public support will ebb away and some strikers will return to work as they cant afford to carry on.

A general strike may tip the balance but otherwise their demands wont be met. It will be a climbdown of sorts on both sides.

The Govt is looking for total capitulation, they have refused point blank to discuss pay.

I think the only way for the unions is an indefinite strike, including the NHS & over exam periods, as pp have said, a day or two here and there doesn't make much difference to most people, so as people clearly don't give a monkeys, a mass walkout might make people care?

If the unions wont do that, then pack it in now, your current strategy wont work.

Your quote was “they are down a weeks pay already” which is categorically not true.

Your experience of knowing “a few” teachers is not representative of the discussions actually happening in staff rooms, on picket lines and at rallies. There is incredible support for strikes within the profession, and they aren’t going to stop, and they certainly shouldn’t stop. I’d encourage your friends to apply for the hardship fund if short term financial constraints are jeopardising their long term financial security.

IMO the strikes won’t end until the government offer a reasonable deal. I honestly don’t think the tories will do so. So we are in for a rough year.

What will be the final outcome? Labour will be voted in after the general election next year. We will then see some positive change and the striking will end.

In the meantime, the nhs will continue to haemorrhage. More staff will resign, more strikes will happen, etc. It’s what the tories actually want so that they can gradually excuse privatising it. I suspect that might be true for any public service + they don’t actually care about people anyway.

The strikes won’t stop until Labour take over. And things will escalate until then.

Attention seeking 😆

You know that's what a strike is designed to do, don't you?

In Scotland, the school strikes started pretty low key and are now intensifying - initially each strike was for a single day, but now they are having two day strikes over a rolling period of 20 days.

A lot of teachers are pro work to rule for the period between strikes, which will be far more detrimental to pupils than strikes.

I don’t know if it will necessarily improve under a non Tory government, given that we are seeing similar issues here in Scotland under a non Tory government, and both health and education are devolved. I don’t think labour will have the answer either, to be honest. I don’t think thing will end until the economy stabilises, but I also don’t think workers are going to back down on asking for 10% even if inflation drops.

If Labour were to get in now there’d likely be an expectation all pay demands would be met. I doubt it.

Given a GE is a while away it may have come to an end by then anyway.

I agree there might be an expectation but would any government always agree to all demands?

Definitely should not back down, but need to get more disruptive so an agreement has to be reached, however long it takes (for instance last year in my country it took a strike of over 100 days before the paper workers union finally won, but it was a very important win and so it was worth it)

I don’t think there’d be much between the parties other than the unions expecting Labour to meet demands. They wouldn’t have the funds either so not sure how that would go.

In the late 70s Labour were in at the time and Thatcher then won, decreasing union power in law and mines closed at some point.

Pay review happens in spring so that may be a factor.

Unions are asking for talks on pay, not give in to all pay demands.

Its not an unreasonable expectation.

Scotland Wales are not separate countries and shouldn't be compared to ones that are.
They have no control on immigration, on amount of students training, on capital build or as in the case of Wales, large numbers of retired going there to live.

Couldn't believe the age demographic in parts of Wales, as an average its also higher than England, big demands on care.

Where labour is in power, nurses strikes and now ambulance service strikes have been called off. Where labour is in power, we haven't had any rail strikes.

How can people argue that a labour government in Westminster won't help prevent strike action?

Labour is in power in wales.

Unions in Scotland (in teaching anyway) aren’t asking for talks on pay - the talks are happening. They want movement on the paltry 5% pay offer that has been made. They did receive a “better offer” which was also rejected (as it wasn’t really a better offer!)

Education IS completely devolved in Scotland, teachers pay and conditions are completely different here to in England (for example, we have contracted hours) so although Scottish teachers stand in support with their English counterparts; they are not comparable. They have different motivations, for starters. The Scottish strike is primarily over pay and conditions, whereas the English strike is also about where the money for the pay rise comes from.

I think the issue with public sector workers is that fundamentally the people employed in many of the roles are naturally caring/nurturing people (read:women!) and they want a pay rise, but they also don’t want to negatively impact other people too much to get it. That’s why - in education at least - they started off fairly gently before beginning to crank up the pressure gradually. I honestly don’t think the government truly expected these meek, gentle, caring people to actually follow through with their strikes, since teachers haven’t been on strike over pay in 40 years.

The people that are striking could always go and get a different job if they don’t like their existing terms and conditions, it will lead to higher taxes if they have a 10%. + pay rise, what about their lovely in job benefits, Pensions, holiday pay and above average days, sickness pay and often no questions asked,