Teacher strikes "biggest drag on economic growth" - ONS

[noblegiraffe]

The UK economy saw no growth in February.

The BBC reports "Walkouts by teachers nationwide on 1 February and in some regions of England on 28 February had been the biggest drag on growth, the ONS said."

There were two further NEU national strike days in March, so that will have affected growth in March and there are two further planned for April/May and three in June/July. Two additional teaching unions are planning a reballot for strike action in the summer.

The government clearly doesn't give a shit about education, but the one thing that it is supposed to care about is economic growth.

So it should stop fucking around with teachers and get back round the negotiating table and come up with a decent offer, shouldn't it?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65250170

Of course they should be negotiating but they don't care about state students who are just future minimum wage, zero hours employees. Absolutely shocking that public organizations like schools didn't get help with fuel bills.

If teachers are normally growing the economy (which they must be if a few random days 'off' makes such a difference), it definitely makes sense to pay them better and generally make their lives easier!

Those posters on MN who were insisting that the teacher strikes hadn't had any impact perhaps need a rethink.

Ah yes none of the terrible policies, decisions and actions of the government have caused this economic shit show. But yes absolutely if they're saying teachers are this important to the economy then they should talk seriously about pay; of course we know teachers are essential for society in many other ways but sadly we know the government gives not one solitary shit about that.

Something else that is our fault...

Very interesting and surprising. I did think that the strikes were not really achieving much and that the govt. would just accept the disruption (not actually affecting their own children after all).
And of course teachers are doing their best to accommodate exam classes and vulnerable kids. I have not heard any suggestion of threatening more extreme action like the junior doctors? How would the govt. respond if teachers threatened to just strike for the next three weeks. Could exams go ahead?

they don't care about state students who are just future minimum wage, zero hours employees

This is going to sound like I'm sticking up for.the Tories but I'm really not....the country needs far more than the paltry numbers educated in private schools to take on key, professional roles across the country. Going to state school doesn't mean you're condemned to a life on minimum wage. Our universities are full of people educated in the state system. Most teachers came from the state system. I teach in an independent, I know it is advantageous. It isn't everything and everybody important or rich.

Spat my coffee out at that one. Ain't that the truth.

The country just can't decide whether we're important or not.
Clearly not important enough to have warranted any protections during Covid but a couple of days' closure and we're wrecking the economy.

With immigration curbed because of Brexit and vacancies in hospitality and retail, I think that the demand for low paid workers has never been higher.

My kids achieved good qualifications at comps but I see cases where being at school is just passing time until leaving age as there is no investment in kids who can't cope with mainstream.

It's also to do with the impact on parents who have to take time off work of schools are closed and so on. If NASUWT reballot and get over the threshold, a lot more schools will be closed and the impact will be even greater.

It's also potentially about students not traveling too and from school and spending money on the way.

It really is in the economic best interests of the country to resolve these strikes, and invest in education long term.

But Gillian Keegan seems to be enjoying her Easter holidays because she's not even trying to engage.

I think a lot of people don't grasp the wider impact of teachers striking - if parents can't work because their "childcare" IE school is gone, then it has a really widespread knock on impact on the economy.

And as the NAHT and ASCL get more on board, I really hope we see less schools doing everything they can to stay open.

But Gillian Keegan seems to be enjoying her Easter holidays because she's not even trying to engage.

She really did appear to think that she was doing teachers a favour with her shit offer. And the whole threat of 'now that you've rejected it, even the shit offer is off the table and you're getting nothing and no further negotiations' like we're children wanting a biscuit and have to tidy our room first.

Clearly Gillian should be taking us a bit more seriously.

In some ways, this is a non-story - iirc the measure used of economic output assigns a notional value to education (it isn’t a ‘real’ profit or loss or number of widgits produced, but it has a value, so the ONS includes a notional ‘output’ in its calculations ). Thus if education is unexpectedly closed, the output of that sector of the economy reduces, even if that has no ‘real’ economic impact in that particular month.

On the other hand, there are two impacts - reduced economic activity by parents and potentially lower long term economic activity by those who are currently in school - that are real, though the notional figure used by the ONS may not accurately reflect them.

Either way, it could be seen as egg on face for ministers refusing to negotiate in any public sector strike, as they directly affect the ONS figures. Or it could be seen as ammunition for why reasonable pay demands from unions ‘cannot be met’ because ‘the country has no money’.

If it's agreed that there is an economic impact from the strikes, then it's not a non-story, it's merely haggling over the details. Education clearly contributes to the economy, and if schools being open wasn't vital for the smooth running of the country, why all the fuss about staying open for keyworkers during covid?

I'm assuming that the government has already tried to lean on the ONS to fiddle those figures and I look forward to the BBC taking Gillian Keegan to task over them.

It would be a bit embarrassing for the government to try to dismiss as incorrect the same figures that they were trumpeting in January when they showed growth.

Do we trust the ONS stats any more as we've seen the mess the Census is?

I think you're referring to one particular question on the census, that seems to be totally irrelevant here.

I'm just seeing on my twitter timeline a bunch of Tory MPs tweeting about how 12.5 million pensioners are going to receive a 10.1% increase to their pension.

How can the country afford that? Don't they know there isn't a magic money tree?

Etc, etc.

There IS a magic money tree for the Tory voters...

Always.

I don't think many teachers and nurses vote Tory...

Interesting.

Watch how the Times spins this as lazy bastard teachers not caring about children OR the country. Unpatriotic, leftist etc etc

This. With bells on!

The government will never admit brexit has fucked the economy for years to come. They always find scapegoats to blame. Used to be the EU and immigrants. Now they just find new ones.

Don't be ridiculous. This is why people think the left are mad, tribalism just because you are a nurse or teacher does not make you a labour voter! As a teacher more like 60% are left and 30% right in my experience. 10% centre but all pretty central. Far left maybe 10%.

Teachers ans nurses voting tory are like turkeys voting for Christmas. Pretty much.