To think this round of teacher strikes have barely been noticed?

[Crunchymunchies]

I know it’s regional, but I can’t find a thread here, only a brief mention on the BBC and even the daily mail it is way down.

is this a bad or good sign?

@Springchicken75

99% of the problems you have quoted are poverty related! Instances of substance abuse, poor mental health outcomes, young pregnancies, experience of care, all these things happen more in low income and deprived families! Can money obliterate these things? Of course not. But it can help!

As for wanting more money - do you want your children taught by people who can’t pay their bills? And are experiencing the accompanying stress? Do you want to be on a train driven by a driver in debt who is suicidal? Do you want to be treated in our NHS system by a nurse who hasn’t eaten for 48 hours and is experiencing the related brain fog? None of the striking professionals in the UK are doing it for a bloody holiday home! Everyone needs to be able to pay their bills.

As for working with inconvenience, schools are there to support the children you so vehemently champion, not to be a convenient source of free childcare for the parents. I was one of those vulnerable children: were you? If not, I’d not comment on a vulnerability that you haven’t experienced. It’s offensive.

What total hyperbole.

Clearly you are the kind of blinkered person who thinks that all wealthy middle class children have perfect lives and none are exposed to drug addictions, alcohol dependency, domestic violence. It’s exactly this kind of very limited thinking and mindset that allows presumptions and stereotypes to continue. There are issues in every area of society and not just those on benefits/in deep poverty that are very clearly struggling.

I was indeed an off the radar neglected child, and school offered the only source of calm stability. I feel so sorry for vulnerable children having endured the awful pandemic and lockdown only to find themselves now ‘locked down again’ by greedy teachers.

Here’s a thread about vulnerable children going hungry, springchicken that you don’t seem to have commented on.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/guest_posts/4743312-800000-children-in-poverty-are-being-denied-a-free-school-meal-the-government-must-fix-this-injustice-immediately

@Springchicken75 My comment is hyperbole but you’ve just compared a 2 day strike to a lockdown? 😂

Of course problems exist in all walks of life, that’s why I commented that there are higher instances of these issues in poverty stricken families. Not no issues in middle/upper class families - a higher prevalence of problems where poverty is an issue.

And you haven’t answered the key question- why is wanting enough money to pay bills, feed yourself and your family and heat your home greedy? Everyone deserves that, every single person in this country, regardless of profession. Unfortunately some professions, like teachers, are having to strike to achieve it.

Why are we supposed to expect everything getting worse, year after year after year? I’m not just talking about teachers, I’m talking about all of us. We should not sit back and see our living standards eroded whilst companies hand out bumper rewards to shareholders. Why should we, the workers, suffer, when those at the top are getting richer and richer? The FTSE 100 companies didn’t suffer in 2022, but the people working for them in the ground floor did. The energy companies didn’t lose out in 2022, but we all did. Why did we have to pay through the nose so they could reap record profits? The fuel aid we all received - that was a loan, not a gift. And it didn’t really come to us, it went straight to the energy suppliers. How is that fair?

We’re not all in this together. We’re ruled by people with more money than we can even imagine. Ask yourself, why did some of these people want Brexit so much? It’s so clearly shit for us, but lots of Tory’s are still invested in it, even now. What’s in it for them? We’re run by people who make decisions that fuck over the country for their own gain.

What’s wrong with wanting a country that invests in the health and education of its people? Don’t be fooled that the money to have these things isn’t there. It’s there alright. Is just lining the pockets of the rich.

The world does not have to be this way. The way we change it, as workers, is with solidarity against those who would rather set us against each other than have us see them as the parasites they really are.

Yes, I’m angry. Our shelves are bare, people are dying queued outside hospitals, our kids have no Sen provision, no subject specialists, cover teachers half the time, stuck in bigger and bigger classes, with worse and worse behaviour in schools that are crumbling over our heads. Yes, it’s all lost in one big story that Britain is going to shit. Britain IS going to shit.

And whose fault is that?

@noblegiraffe these people won’t comment on those threads - can’t be blaming the Government 🤣 It’s the greedy teachers that are causing starving vulnerable children. 👀

@Nellodee Exactly! But it’s still the fault of the striking workers, according to some short sighted people, rather than the Government who are causing this shit show!

That’s the narrative that’s being pushed isn’t it? Those naughty public sector workers, wanting to push up inflation! Look at it another way - why they hell should the government be allowed to use teachers and nurses living standards as a tool to manipulate inflation. “It’s fine that we screwed over the country’s finances. We won’t pull it back by windfall taxes on the rich, or by any kind of wealth redistribution. No, let’s pull it back by screwing over health and education a bit more.”

There’s a point at which conditions in a job become so bad that not enough people want to do them anymore for the amount of money they pay. We’re already long past that point with teachers, nurses, care assistants, probably a shed loads more professions too. At this point, making the job less worthwhile also actively makes the service those jobs provide lower quality. Not enough nurses = crap healthcare. Not enough teachers = crap education. It’s very obvious.

Funny that the people fucking over our education and health service don’t actually use them anyway, isn’t it?

And whilst I’m ranting, there’s another thing people don’t seem to take on board. There’s a tipping point, a cascade effect. When you don’t have enough workers, and you end up with a department of 5 doing the work of a department of 10, it becomes like a last man standing competition. Who’s going to leave and work in the Arab Emirates next? Who’s going to quit their nursing job and work on the bank, or leave the profession forever? Who’s on long term sick now? And the people left paddle faster, work longer, get more and more stressed as despite all this, they are forced to do their job less and less thoroughly.

Until they just CAN’T anymore.

I’m under no illusion that this is only happening to teachers. Or nurses. Life is bloody hard right now for a whole legion of people.

We’re doing something, anything, because we’re protesting things being this shit. I’m on strike. I don’t feel like I’m striking just as a teacher, to be honest. I feel like I’m protesting against the whole fucking set up. We need to kick these bastards out of government. We’re need to remember what a fucking terrible job they’ve done and we need to keep them out of power for a generation (preferably forever).

They are never in power for our benefit. Only their own. The world has too many problems that need collaborative solutions that benefit everyone. We’re can’t afford, either in monetary or in absolute existential terms, to run the world for the benefit of a handful of billionaires.

Our schools aren't striking and didn't last time either. So very unnoticed here!

I feel like I’m protesting against the whole fucking set up. We need to kick these bastards out of government.

But you aren't kicking the government. Do you think Rishi gives a shit if you turn up to work or not?

You're kicking the care workers, the checkout assistants at Tesco, the self employed, the factory workers and the nursery nurses, who won't get paid if they don't show up.

That is who you are delivering a swift kick too. And they will not lobby their MP and complain and say "give these poor teachers more money as their strike has disrupted my life." They will stand in discontent crowds at drop off and pick up, they will mutter on WhatsApp and Facebook, their sympathy is not with you.

So are you are saying all of these pay rises won’t push up inflation for everyone else? 🤔

So are you confirming the strikes will be just two days?

Schools were closed for a how long during covid..if there's anything most people can do it's keep the kids occupied and/or wfh when schools are shut for the odd day. We already do it the other 14 weeks of the year they're not open...so the impact on the economy or working parents is not massively disruptive. The impact is mostly on the kids and teachers. So not sure how newsworthy it is, although I hope the teachers get what they need to do the job

I'm in Wiltshire. All three of my children's schools are closed, and the one I work at.

@Firstofmarch I agree with you mostly. And what of the teaching assistants? They're never going to be on £40k and many of them are fully qualified teachers. Never hear anything about them in the strike and many of them treated really badly.

@Springchicken75 it depends where you are, my school is closed for two days. This time. How many more times we do this depends on the Government. But to be honest even if it’s two days a month for the next year it still doesn’t compare to a global lockdown during a pandemic that killed people and that comparison is potentially very hurtful towards people who lost COVID victims. Your words matter.

@Springchicken75 if you cared about these children you'd care about any pay rise being unfunded.

Secondary closed here in the East Mids. Primary class was closed last time but not this time but may well be on the 15/16th

Back from today's picket line. Loads of public support, from a whole mixture of ages/sexes. Negative comments only from two passers by, including one in a BMW who didn't look like he'd be too negatively affected by the strike to be honest.
A pp mentioned the picket line near her being gone by just after nine. The primary purpose of the picket line is to do with workers entering the school building. They will all have been due in before then, surely?

@Yazo In Scotland, the members of the union of the school support staff (including what you would call teaching assistants) voted to strike several months ago. It was called off at the eleventh hour and they settled. In my setting and many others, teaching staff (including myself) were refusing to cross the picket line of the support staff if the strike went ahead. At the cost of our own days wage. Because we want everyone to have a fair wage and support the right of any union member to strike for that increase.

This is so much bigger than teachers. Everyone needs to be able to pay bills, feed and heat themselves. Only by showing our Government that we won’t accept this shit show will anything change.

I’d say it goes for women in other sectors too going by comments

@Firstofmarch Last month in Scotland we had massive public support on the picket lines. Lots of people insulting the Government and campaigning the right to strike for all workers My school had parents and kids on the picket with us bringing hot chocolate etc! Same yesterday. Don’t be fooled into thinking that no public support lies with striking teachers, that’s a media narrative that the Government wants everyone to believe so that we feel bad and get our arses back into our chronically underfunded classrooms.

I thought most teachers who are protesting are doing so away from the school gates? There haven't been any picket lines outside of school gates here. So once you have demonstrated your feelings to the teachers who are working in your school and the school kids, the vulnerable ones who are invited in and the ones studying for exams, are you just going home?

This must be a regional thing? As our TAs require very minimal qualifications. I was one until 2019 but upskilled and left for an office job.

My TA colleagues rarely had GCSE C or above in Maths and English.

But yes they do deserve a pay rise.