Strikes strikes strikes

[Rainyrunway]

So many people are striking at the moment. We're personally affected and having to change plans or appointments by 3 over the next few days (nurses, teachers and engineers at a theme park!) I'm not making a judgement call here btw just putting a personal perspective. Anyone have any idea how or when they'll all end? Obviously they can't go on forever but it feels like if one group reaches a settlement, another group starts.

Could not agree more with your there. Appalling.

You!

One thing I do think about the government is that they have underestimated the strength of feeling in groups like teachers and health care professionals. I think they believed at the start they could simply hold out and the strikes wouldn't materialise/would go away.

But that's not what's happening at all.

I think, long term, taking a hard line with the unions won't make the government look good. It'll make them look unreasonable/incompetent.

If they'd made a half decent offer to to teachers, we wouldn't be striking today, the same with nurses etc.

The might work for local authority schools but it won't work for academies. Academies are private companies run on a for profit basis.

Dd year 13 has to do a supervised piece of work as part of her final grade. They will not be given the information on the day the exam board release it as due to staff shortages, and a teachers resigning earlier in the year their teacher is now having to cover two classes. Usually, the year 13s are given the work and trusted to get on with it while their teacher covers the yr7 class.

This piece of work requires 8 hours of supervision, they will have 6 hours of contact scheduled in their timetable, so a quarter of the time needed is missing, this will contribute a large percentage of their final grade. We've yet to hear how the school plan to fix this.

This is why the teachers are striking and I am fully supportive.

Or the disenfranchisement that people feel with regards to the political process.

There's got to be an element of that. I'm probably as socialist as you can get but even I am unwilling to icrease my tax burden at the moment.

This solely due to the tories being in power as I'm utterly opposed to my taxes, which are supposed to be used for the betterment of society, instead being used to line the pockets of a selectiled few individuals, entrench inequalities, and sow division.

There's nothing the tories could say or do to convince me to change my views just now so I'm in a bit of a stasis period until the next election.

If another party are elected and pursue more progressive wealth redistribution policies I'll be first in line to sign up. If the tories are put back in power then I'm jumping ship and leaving the "great" British public to their continued decline.

The tax thing is interesting. In theory I'm happy to pay more tax (currently earn just under the 40% threshold). But I already pay a lot of tax and don't really see what it is for.
State pension - not really enough to live off so most people have to save separately
Out of work benefits - not really enough to live off
Healthcare - completely broken
Policing - completely broken
Transport - useless in my area
Education - falling apart
Social care - not enough to provide decent care with properly paid carers
Subsidised childcare - not enough for the nurseries to survive and still too expensive for normal families
In work benefits - only really available for exceptionally low paid people and those who have children, still not really enough to live off

I just look around me and see everyone struggling and getting little or no support at all from the welfare state. It seems to have been pretty much dismantled over the last 10 years or so. I guess my point is that I'm happy to pay more tax to rebuild it into something useful, but not happy to have the same group of charlatans giving my tax money to their mates.

I do, however, believe that there certainly is enough wealth to provide proper wages (reducing the need for the welfare state) and / or to provide proper public services. But there just isn't the political will to address the problem - businesses not paying staff and taxes fairly.

Public sector wages are not the cause of inflation though- inflation has shot up over the last couple of years despite a decade of real-term wage cuts. There are many other factors to consider- covid impact, war in Ukraine, supply chain problems (some of which are brexit-related), energy costs ( which weren’t helped by the government’s price/capping decisions) .

If teachers strike on a Monday or Friday they lose more pay (for reasons I don’t understand).

This is nonsense.

Although teachers are only allowed to strike over their own pay and conditions, the bigger picture is a protest against the underfunding of schools, which has got steadily worse over the last decade.

If the strikes are successful, the government will provide funding to pay teachers , rather than expecting schools (many of which are already in deficit) to magic the money out of thin air.

If the strikes are successful, there will be money to buy the books and resources that teachers currently buy themselves. There will be money to pay TAs and specialist SEN staff, so children with needs can be supported to learn. Schools might even have enough money to carry out building repairs and maintenance.

What complete and utter shite. Striking is the last defense against the bourgeoisie's constant attempts to exploit the proletariat.

Pay your workers fairly, treat them well, provide good working conditions, and listen to their needs and guess what.....strikes do not happen. This goes for both public and private organisations.

The only reason anyone would want to restrict the right to withhold labour is if they are looking to increase exploitation and abuse and increase inequality.

The strikes are supposed to cause
maximum disruption - turning them into a long weekend doesn’t achieve that.

I never thought Pat Cullen was taking bribes and believe it was v.lkely as suggested, that the governments prerequisites for talks was that their offer should be presented to the members for vote.

The issue being; the RCN heavily leant on it's members to accept. They didn't go as far as Unison who told their members to accept this or get nothing, or worse. But although the RCN didn't use such wording, the implication was clear.

I found it frightening to be honest. I couldn't understand why my union which I pay for, would have held votes to take unprecendented strike action, and some strikes happen because the government is refusing to talk about pay rise, when the union is wanting not complete pay restoration but a discussion around 10%. Didn't have to be 10%, Scottish nurses got 7.5 but it was a discussion to be had.

Then the RCN called off further planned strikes because the government was willing to 'get round the table'. Then the RCN came out with a shitty offer of 5%, 1.5% more than was planned and a very obvious one-off cash bribe from the government.

So I assumed something was going on that the government and the unions were hiding from us and was frightened into thinking that if the union was pushing it...maybe it's in the members best interest to accept.

That's why I did. And I'm sure that's why the vote only very marginally came out to reject.

Unite were clear from the start in recommending to their members to reject. Unison told their members to accept or get no other offer and the RCN massively urged their members to accept this offer even though it bore no reflection to what the RCN had said they were negotiating for on behalf of their members.

It is NOT the members that make the union if they believe they are a member of a trade union that has their best interests at heart (and they pay for it) and the union goes into negotiations with prerequisites dictated by the government.

And then come out from 'talks' with an offer far below which they'd said would be a reasonable offer for their members and then emotionally manipulative/scare their members into accepting.

It's absolutely not the case that Unions are working for the workers if they hold shitty negotiations with the government that are designed to benefit the government and then the unions frighten their members into accepting.

This. Especially the last paragraph. You could also include protest in there.

But it is the members who make the union- without the members, the union can't function. RCN members have told their union that their previous behaviour was unacceptable, and the have changed their tune from previously. Members can hold the executive to account, if they aren't behaving the way they want them to.

I'm not sure how the RCN is organised, but in the NEU, we have branches, and we have officers who are elected locally. Our branch officers can pass messages and questions on to the national executive, and it does influence policy. We can also vote for executive members who represent our views, and so on.

If you're unhappy with the way your union is being run, then talk to your rep, they will hopefully know who to put you in touch with locally.

I do think RCN members should be saying to their executive they are unhappy with how everything is being handled right now- it seems a bit of a mess!

Disruption to who?

The idea is to cause economic disruption- for the NEU this is indirect. It's achieved by closing schools and meaning that parents can't work due to childcare. This has impact because it affects a lot of different industries- maybe work is slowed down, maybe goods are a bit slower to move, maybe some shops etc have less staff available and so make less sales and so on.

I think potentially delaying the start up of some of these things after a long weekend could have economic impact.

But also, there are obviously traditional links to May Day for many workers movements- striking on or around 1st May is important to a lot of people. And it's also about putting pressure on around the local elections.

That’s not universal though. And you are more likely to get people with negative views call in than positive when it comes to these kind of shows.

I teach. Some of our classes are off. A third are in as their teacher isn’t in the affected unions.

The majority of our parents are very supportive and have spoken about this. We’ve had emails of support for example.

it helps as many of our parents work in medicine, universities, and other professions which has been striking recently.

Parents really should be concerned when the only pay offers teachers are given aren’t funded ones and have to come out of existing funds. That’s your children’s resources dwindling year on year to cover staff pay.

I teach in an academy. Academy trusts are not for profit. Perhaps you are confusing them with private schools?!?!

Academies are funded by the government. Same principle still applies - the school gets an amount of money per child on the register. If they have experienced teachers who need paying more then this eats into their funds massively so money needs to be taken from elsewhere or they need to use cheaper teachers.

Academies just have more flexibility on how to spend the budget.

If the strikers don't get the money they demand, everyone is worse off.

in the case of the teachers this statement isn’t quite correct.
if the teachers ‘gets its way’ and government are forced to actually fund the pay rises then pupils will benefit. Teacher salaries won’t need to come out of existing budgets so there will be more available for resources for them. Less cuts to staffing and resources will be possible. This definitely benefits pupils, not just the teachees.

Teachers

Perhaps you are confusing them with private schools?!?!

Most private schools in England are charities which means they are also not for profit as well.

I beg to differ. On paper the trusts may be not for profit but they are often not run that way. Money is extraced from the system via "consultancy fees" or "training fees" charged to companies owned by the same people who run the "trust". There are plenty of examples of this happening.

Not just that … some of the heads of these Academies earn way more than the headteachers of all the top private schools.

I support the strikes but I think it’s a really bad look taking an extra day just before a bank holiday (eg what some civil servants are doing)

🤣🤣🤣 You are woefully misinformed re trusts!

https://www.tes.com/magazine/news/general/revealed-what-big-academy-trusts-paid-their-top-leaders#:~:text=The%20big%20rises%20in%20top%20MAT%20pay&text=The%20trust%20paid%20its%20chief,£285%2C000%20in%202021%2D22.