Teachers to strike - 30 June

[meditrina]

breaking now on SKY

Overwhelming vote by 2 teachers' unions (92%)

Feenie the turnout in May 2010 was 65.1% thats a big difference

I thought this was interesting "The turnout was actually 40% NUT turnout (92% in favour) and 35% ATL (83% of voters in favour"
In the past I have ignored ballots from the NUT because I either haven't cared or have disagreed with them (yes I know some of you will think this is the wrong attitude) so I wonder if the 60%/65% who didn't vote were in that camp too. In which case obviously less than 50% do want to strike.
There was no mention of it at work today.

As a teacher I in no way think we have cause to be striking and will certainly not be doing so (will be leaving the union because of this)

1. The strike will not hurt the people it is aimed at (the govt), it will hurt children and their parents. I know one day of missed education isn?t a massive problem but it?s a pain for working parents and on 30th June my school has a lunchtime fete, a charity cricket match and a big play rehearsal ? the children will therefore miss out in other ways and don?t deserve that.

2. Teachers do get a much better deal than many other public sector workers. The changes are negative yes, but big deal, so are everyone else?s prospects at the moment.

3. I have to work till 65 anyway. So does any teacher who started work after December 2006. 3 extra years don?t seem worth making a huge fuss over.

4. Teaching is not the horrendous job that so many people think it is. I work between 55 and 85 hours a week in termtime BUT I work for probably 10-15 hours a week in the holidays. They pay off is totally worth it. Teachers get to spend time with children, family and friends in holidays and work to their own flexi schedules in a way few other people can. I?m on half term at the moment and, although I?m in the staff room printing end of year exam papers I?m also browsing mumsnet (clearly!) and my children are outside playing on our adventure playground ? not exactly a hardship is it! I wouldn?t go so far as to say that teaching is a cushy job but it really isn?t up there with the hardest.

5. I think our salaries are pretty good. 5 years post graduating and I earn £26000 ish. I don?t believe I deserve any more for what I do. I love my job and sometimes find it hard to believe that I?m actually getting paid to have so much fun.

And I?ll freely admit that I certainly couldn?t cope with a job as a banker. Apart from being nowhere near organised enough or clever enough with maths and logic, most bankers are completely burned out by 40. The stress is unimaginable. One of my best friends is a banker; he leaves his house at 6am, gets back at 8pm and is in bed by 9.30pm. He spends a large percentage of his expensive foreign holidays jabbering down his blackberry trying to stop his section of whatever he does (I don?t understand it!) collapsing in his absence as nobody covers their desk for them. Yes, he makes millions but his kids barely know him and he is on medication to help him stay calm. Not a deal I?d be willing to go with.

i will be very dissapoined if all the teachers as my school do not strike.

Im a nurse. I want a payrise. I want a decent pension.

When can I strike?????

I presume the heads will let parents know with plenty of warning exactly which schools/classes will be affected?

manicinsomniac, I'm thinking in very much the same way as you.

I feel the government is probably quite happy with the strike action, they can suggest that teachers don't want to 'do their bit', remind us that 'we're all in this together' and public opinion of teachers is often not very supportive. Divide and conquer.

I know I work hard, I know people in the private sector work hard. Pitting one group of tax-payers against another (which is what this feels like to me) will do nobody any favours. I entered the teaching profession because I am passionate about the subject I teach, and its value in society.

Changes, two things:

1. The private sector has NOT seen huge pay increases in the past few years; in fact the opposite. Pay freezes, fewer working days, in some cases pay CUTS. And job losses. That's the reality of a recession; the money isn't there so we have to accept it. THe alternative is to pay you out of the nation's credit card and your children will pay it back. I'm freelance now and my income has halved in the past two years. I've just had to accept that this is how things are right now.
2. Pensions change, as circumstances do. No one is going to take away the pension you have accrued SO FAR. It's the future contributions/benefits that will be different.
3. The pensions crisis may have been exacerbated by the credit crunch, but that's not hte problem here. Labour wanted to reform public sector pensions years ago when money was still sloshing around but they didn't because of the backlash. It's because the state cannot support final salary pensions anymore, just as private sector companies can't. The teacher's pension scheme is not self funding. No way near. All pensions liabilities are paid for by the people working at the time. So if nothing changes, when you're 80 and healthy and likely to live until you're 100, it'll be the 20 and 30 and 40 somethings whose tax bills will be going through the roof to pay your pension every month. Ageing population is the problem. The current deficit is just making it more important that the problem is addressed sharpish.
4. Okay, I lied. I have four points to make, not two . My husband is a teacher. My parents both were, too. This isn't about whether teachers are good/valued. It's about economics and demographics and just being realistic about the situation.

Lifestyle it affords!!!! Golly! Is that the lifestyle that means I works evenings and weekends? Or the one that means when I was f/t I never, ever got to see my own children's sports days or Christmas productions? Or the one that means my holiday restriction (great as they are) means that I cannot take a day off when my children are ill and therfore need to resort to unpaid leave.

Or maybe it's the one that goes hand in hand with me being better qualified than my DH yet he's the lawyer for an international bank earning a six figure salary.

With 3 good Alevels, an RG degree, a PGCE and a masters I bloody well could have been a banker, thank you. Or quite a few other things. What in hell posessed me to become a teacher? I was a bloody good teacher but the 'lifestyle' was crap so I've given it up and now work as a TA for minimum wage. Whose loss is that?

therefore

SpottyFrock What subjects are your A levels, Degree and masters in?

I would suggest the NUT have shot themselves in the foot with this. Teachers wanting to leave, low turnout. The problem was the promotion of the strike ballot was badly worded and full of suppositions about proposals that had not been proposed. The Treasury has not actually released any proposals. The strike was too early. They should have waited until Autumn to get the Public onside. Now they are going to look like they are not in the real world. Even Lord Hutton has commented that they should have waited. They have played straight into the Govt hands.

New union rules please!! Unless over 50% of the members vote, a motion should not be carried. Both teaching unions had a low vote - one was only 30+%!!

Isitreally - I agree. The teaching unions are going to do themselves serious harm with this and lose all the legitimate and perfectly respectable and necessary power they have to protect teachers from unfair treatment.

I also think that there wil very likely be an election in the next 12 months and that there will be a much more right of centre Conservative Govt in its place. The Lib Dems are moving to the left and the Coalition is on its last legs already.

We are definitley back in the 1970s both economically and politically.

I must admit if I was David Cameron, I would take this opportunity. He has already said he is happy to be leader for only one period. It is now or never to sort out pensions. Labour did not have the power to do this as employment was too good and the party was too heavily involved with the unions. With this strike Vince Cable has sufficient cause to curb union powers for the public sector. Greece has just been downrated as their cuts were not sufficient. There is no chance the UK Government will want that to happen in the UK.

They will let the strikes happen and unfortunately I very sorry for you teachers over this because the TUC are using the teachers to push their agenda because other public workers such as the Police are not allowed to strike. Teachers will therefore get all the flack for very little reward. I have no doubt pension reform will happen anyway, there is too much at stake for it not to now and the Public will support this. The only people that seemed to benefit with the Miners Strike were the Union leaders and the Government of the time. As mentioned previously if you asked the Rover workers if they would rather have jobs or pensions, you would probably get a better answer.

Please have a look at the NUT presentation if it is still there and then look at the Hutton Report. For me the NUT presentation that was on the website prior to the ballot looked extremely unprofessional and quoted loads of points, not in the Hutton Report and caveated this with a question mark so they could not be accused of giving false data. It was shocking. I would not blaim teachers for striking if the union has voted in favour as you are in a difficult position if you do not and are a member of the NUT but I do believe it will also affect their effectiveness in the future.

This maybe something for the other unions to consider and feedback on. What result is it really going to achieve? Is there a better way?

The Government have been very clever in getting a labour peer to put the report together which makes it very difficult for Labour to find them if they do not like the proposals and that is why the unions are trying to be so strong, but it may come across as 'look how strong we are - you can't mess with us' only to be answered by 'not all of your members agree!'

Sorry, had to do school run. Alevels are English, history and Politics. My degree is history and my masters, which I did later, is relating to my career.

My degree is a 2:1 from a university often cited as top 5 in the country. With my degree and Alevel grades I could easily have gone into law. In fact, DH says that history is one of the most common subjects sudied by students who then go on to do a law conversion course.

I wasn't saying I'd make a very good lawyer; it wasn't what I wanted to do. I was simply saying I could have chosen that path if I hadn't desperately wanted to teach.

I do support the teachers but I wish there was another way to resolve the problems instead of going on strike during a school term. School terms are short enough as it is and I am sure teachers and working parents aren't going to be the only ones who have to sort out the childcare issue if the pupils can't go to school on that day. But I do feel teachers have been under more pressure in the last few years. Of course, the politicians and civil servants who make the decisions on these things probably have nannies (the PM does) so they won't be affected by it.

manicinsomniac you talk a lot of sence! There are advantages and pitfalls of every job.

What always gets me is the automatic assumption of a pay rise. I have never worked anywhere where you didint have to justify or request a payrise. Even in the good times it just wasnt done on a yearly basis and this does nothing to compare the good from the bad. SO really what they are saying is that every public worker should get an annual payrise no matter what they do and the standard of their work???????? that isnt going to improve the standards is it?

If my employees demanded a pay rise at moment we'd well them to bugger off - as there isnt the work out there and until they suddenly improve the income of the company then the profit margins arent there.

Oh and I can spell both therefore and possessed.

I wonder if all this strike action will upset people enough that is pushes more people to vote tory?

I do not support this strike. And I am toying with making my views known to my children's teacher.

tiredemma - more bank shifts! Please say you've signed up for them already!

SpottyFrock - couldn't you do tutoring? Your skills and qualifications can't be getting a good airing if you're working part time as a TA.

(I know it's going off the topic a bit.)

Agreed Bacon, this is disappearing in the private sector and is being more and more replaced with performance related pay. Companies are using the recession to stay leaner on basic salaries and moving to total reward including training , giving up pay for extra days holiday which reduces the wage bill, extra cheap benefit instead of a payrise and performance-related bonus meaning you keep the people who perform and weed out those that don't by giving them no incentive to stay. This is the vogue way of remunerating people and I would say that there is a good chance this will find its way into the public sector within the next five years if it is not already creeping in.

It is harsh but why should person putting all the effort get paid the same as a person in the same job not doing it? Where is the incentive? I know working is not all about the money but this does appear to reward those why try the hardest. Some people would rather sit back and take less money and I have seen this happen. I believe this already happens in the public sector with people not going for promotion because the workload is too much and not remunerated by the extra cash.