To support nurses and teachers who strike over 5.5% pay offeroffer

[Shardonneigghhh]

When the junior doctors were awarded 22%?

I’m on £35k(ish) and I’ve been offered £1290, along with all other council staff. I’ll be voting to strike if the offer isn’t improved, as will a lot of my colleagues. If the people that educate kids are worth 5.5%, and the people that maintain the health of those kids are worth 5.5%, then the buggers like me that work in social care and keep those kids safe from harm are damn well worth 5.5%.

This will depend on timetabling. PPA is only 10% of teaching time as non contact time. If you have 45 lessons and 5 free periods a fortnight, but all of your non contact is period 2, 3 or 4s, you're not going anywhere. All your WFH will continue to be in your own unpaid time.

A better change to conditions would have been to remove the clause that says teachers can be directed for 1265 hours a year and must also work as much extra time as necessary to discharge the duties placed upon them. Or to acknowledge that 6 minutes allocated per hour's lesson doesn't allow teachers to plan, prepare and assess without working mornings, evenings, weekends and holidays!

It often is what many people are on. All but 1 of our B7's are top of salary band, and have been for many years. B8's are hard to get as very few posts, so many will become a B7 after 5-6 years post grad, and then stay on that potentially until retirement. I have been top of B7 for 10 years, and unless I get a B8, I will stay top of B7 for the next 25 years until I retire. Our B3's and 4's and our 8 have also been top of band for several years. 5's and 6's there may be more people on lower or mid band though.

As are all part time staff.

It’s still more than 2%. Forget tax, NI and pension, we all have to pay those.

If that’s 2% then it’s equivalent to FTE salary of 60k+. It doesn’t matter that it’s pro rata. That’s how pay rises work everywhere.

I was open to a change. But these guys seem like they brought in a load of work experience kids to run the goverment.

3 weeks and not one positive thing. I shall await the greatness of Starmers labour and hope it arrives soon. Maybe it's on a summer holiday!

Also I haven't yet seen if these pay rises are fully funded for both NHS and education. If not, well thd we're all quite frankly, fucked. Our trust has indicated any future pay rises that aren't fully funded are going to cause major problems (redundancies).

I won't be striking for more pay. But also i'd like an option to say I don't accept it because I don't think we all need it. Sadly union greed means that option won't be put to us.

So the offer for you amounts to 3.7% which is still an above-inflation payrise. It doesn’t work by saying, ‘well, that public sector body is getting more so I want more too!’

Be grateful. And be pragmatic. Can you ever recall a time when the LGA pay offer has been increased by the efforts of either GMB, Unison or Unite? In my experience their involvement serves only to delay the implementation of the pay award until November, which then leaves those in receipt of UC with a nil award in December (which then had the double whammy effect this year of rendering some ineligible for the final cost of living payment in March!)

I’m sure you do a great job, but you’re woefully naive to think the council pay award will increase this year.

My (pre tax) pay will only increase by £50 a minth as a teacher due to the rise being pro rata but it’s still an increase of 5.5%? So if it’s still roughly £1000 extra a year for each TA, that must still be an increase of about 6-8% increase of their normal annual wage?

They have more expenses like keeping up with training / travelling / exams/ student debt etc. As others had pointed out it's not really 22%..

Wait ignore my maths - 5-7% not 6-8% - it’s been a long day 😂

I’m also on 35k ish, civil service HR. I would be happy with a 3.7% pay rise. Of course I’d like more (who wouldn’t!?), but 3.7 is more than I’m expecting. Like you say, have to ve pragmatic about it. No one is going to die if I go on strike.

I’m a nurse and last time we were told to contact hr if we were on UC to ask for it to be spread across how many months we wanted to minimise impact to UC, was that a possibility for school staff?

It’s not going to be £1000 because TA’s don’t work full time and aren’t paid for holidays, it’ll work out about £630 a year/ £52 a month for TA’s working 25hrs a week before deductions.

We’ve had years of below inflation pay rises. If the money is there for some of the public sector that’s fantastic — but it has to be applied across the board.

Yep, full time! My pension, NI, tax and student loan from a previous degree knacker me every month!

I don’t work unsocial hours anymore, used to do nights and weekends as a band 5 and was far better off financially 😂

If i'm honest i'd rather forgo my 5.5 percent pay rise and allow elderly people in need to feel warm(er) this year.

On the other hand I'm pleased my teacher daughter will be getting a 5.5% increase, even though my husband and I will no longer receive the winter fuel allowance.

Are you bottom of your band?
because I was speaking to a colleague last week who said her pick up was 2575 on band 7 ( after tax, NI and pension)

and this is Monday to fri 9 to 5

Yes, bottom band 6, only got my promotion in Feb.

That’s not how it works though, is it. And it’s worth pointing out that for the last two years council staff have all had £1925 per year (over 5.5% for you based on what you salary would’ve been at the time) so, again, I’d say to be grateful for the 3.7%, it won’t be changing.

Whilst I appreciate your counsel, I’ll still vote to strike for a pay offer that brings my wages closer to where they should be. Thanks though.

You seem to have misunderstood; I wasn’t offering advice. Rather, I’m telling you that you’re wasting your time based on what’s gone before. I could care less what you do with that information, it’s not me that’ll be losing out on a day’s wages.

All the best.

Your support is appreciated :)

But nurses pay lagged behind for many many years

There won’t be strike action from nurses. The 5.5% will be accepted.

The £1290 is based on a 52 week contract and doing 37 hours a week.

Most support staff do do either of these do you need to prorate the hours (eg 27.5/37), and then you need to reduce it depending on what TTO % is worked (eg 85.54% is term time only no training days).

Also, there was meant to be an additional day of annual leave as part of the deal, but that seems to have been an early casualty of negotiations!