Teachers to strike - 30 June

[meditrina]

breaking now on SKY

Overwhelming vote by 2 teachers' unions (92%)

In the early 1970's people of 60 were expected to live another 18 years.
Its now 28 years.

The cost of teachers pensions is estimated to rise from 5 to 10 billion by 2015.

Should lower paid taxpayers in the private sector retiring on much smaller pensions be expected to fund these generous pensions?

VictorGollancz that was my point, there is not a private public sector divide on this, Rather a divide between those of us who are wondering how on earth we can make ends meet and those who seem unaffected.

It is the interest of the "haves" for all us "have nots" to be so busy tearing lumps out of each other that we do not spot the real culprits.

I am not saying that there will not have to be changes to the pension, to be honest I am too tired at the moment to discuss this properly. As I have said above this is not a selfish point by me, I have no real pension to speak of and probably will not have one when I go as I will not last in teaching beyond another ten years. My concern is , are we going to get the best graduates in the country to sign up for working at least 15 hours a day, often with difficult students, willing to be attacked constantly in the popular press, willing to work for much less than they would get in careers such as medicine, law and banking and now on top a mediocre pension?

Being selfish for a moment I do not want my children to be taught by the mediocire, by those who could not be bothered to do anything else or those who could not do anything else. I want the best.

Right now I feel pissed off with everyone, pissed off with the last government for getting us in this mess, pissed off with this government for using this mes to follow its own agenda, pissed off with the unions for turnign the public against us and mostly pissed of at myself for being so pissed off because when I block all this crap out and focus on me and the kids I teach I am like a pig in muck.

I am off to drink a bottle of gin.

Imagine how much gin we'll need to drink in order to cope with all this when we're 68...

@johnnyfan

The teacher's scheme is not self supporting. It is an unfunded scheme, and the employer (ie the LEAs ie the taxpayers) currently pay in >14%

The unions are rightly concerned that there has been no proper actuarial evaluation of liabilities since 2004 however most actuarial estimates are that liabilities have more than doubled since then.

If teachers have to pay more in to a currently unsustainable pensions scheme, so be it.

I work in the NHS. Was made redundant last autumn and ended up after three months' unemployment in a post that pays me two thirds of what I used to earn. It only just covers my part of our outgoings. My husband's (private) sector is also being squeezed as I mentioned above. If I have to pay a bit more into my NHS pension because we are all living longer, I wont like it but I will understand the reasons and have to manage. Striking wouldnt make the pension scheme any more affordable for the tax payer so I dont see any point tbh.

Self-supporting??? What a joke. I am seriously concerned - how can teachers be so ignorant about the real world?

"but to be forced to pay more to have less when I retire is wrong."

Welcome to the world of living longer and falling stock market returns. You are paying for 30 years of retirement as opposed to 20 years when these schemes were devised. Of course you will get a lower level.

I worked in pensions in the early 90s.

BACK THEN the elephant in the room was the fact that none of the schemes were actually going to be able to pay out for an ageing population. BACK THEN a few brave souls were suggesting we might have to work more years, and being shouted down.

My husband is a teacher. Selfishly I guess I should support the strike. But privately I just feel we all need to wake up and smell the coffee. I look at my teenage kids and think they will be very grateful for a permanent, secure job with ANY kind of pension, and if I say to them 'will you work till age 66 or 67?' they will leap at the chance, not go out on strike.

Sorry, twinklypearls, I clearly misread your post.

coffeeaddict Your children certainly will get a job with no pension if we don't stand up and start fighting. It's horrifying that future generations could potentially be conditioned to accept working conditions in which they face no pension after years of work.

It's very likely that as the years go on, the vast majority won't WANT to retire until their late sixties or even later. There's plenty right now that want to work past the current retirement age. Both my parents do, for example. But to accept that we will work as long as it takes, with no pension?! Employers will be rubbing their hands in glee that we buy this 'oh, we can't afford it'. They do it about EVERYTHING, just to see if we buy it.

They said the sky would fall in when the minimum wage was introduced. Didn't happen. Remember the shrieking and wailing from them when the rise in NI was mooted? 'We can't afford it; tax on jobs; blah blah blah'. Anything that they have to pay out is vigorously opposed. And that includes our pensions.

'standing up and fighting' doesnt put one penny more into the pension pot though. Seriously, if the current public sector pension schemes are unaffordable, how is striking going to help? In fact, it will make things worse as there will be one less day of contributions going in to the pot.

Some pension schemes are already in desperate trouble, the introduction of the minimum wage is irrelevant to this.

Could you tell us how you would resolve the issue if there isnt enough money going into public sector schemes to pay everyone when they retire?

The teachers scheme is UNFUNDED. Why do people find this so hard to grasp.

I wonder if some peoples attitude to our right to strike will change now others conditions are being altered?
When I lose child benefit and if I'm asked to pay more pension I may not be able afford my childcare so there's another 2 unemployed ( myself and childminder)

Sorry I dont get that at all. So if you cant afford your pension and childcare you will give up your job

What would you live on then?

follyfoot I don't believe that there isn't enough money. The money has not run out. What the government is saying is that the costs are going to rise, and they don't want to pay it. There is no 'pension pot'. It's not 'unaffordable'.

But these costs haven't come from nowhere! Given that the Teacher's Pension Scheme is notionally funded (ie there is no fund, there is no 'pot'), the teachers and their employers pay the Treasury throughout their working lives, and then the Treasury administers the pensions when they retire. What the government is paying out NOW is being paid out to teachers who have retired under agreements that are much older, and are much more generous. Like final salary pensions, things like that.

From what I can see, it all got much less generous in 2007. The govt is not asking teachers to pay more for THEIR retirement; they are asking them to pay more for those who are CURRENTLY retired, because they don't want to honour the agreements made in previous decades.

Those who are retired, right now, are the very tail end of what might optimistically be called the golden age of public sector work, in which the benefits were a replacement for much lower salaries than what they could earn in the private sector. Contemporary teachers still get paid less than similarly qualified graduates in the private sector, and they don't get anything like the pension compensation for it.

Im more worried about those of us with no pensions. Right now pensners like that get a pretty generous package. £110 per week in PTC plus rent paid, council tax paid, free prescriptions, eyes, dental and winter fuel allowance. A minimum package of roughly £10k a year.
What will happen to those with no pension or savings in twenty or thrity years tjme?

Is it right that there is no deficit in the teacher's pension scheme and never has been?

And that the average teacher's pension is £10k, so no where near the masive amounts being quoted in the media?

Also bear in mind that the average life expectancy of a teacher retiring at 65y is 18 months - so they are not even getting this pension for very long either (on average that is).

Also, bear in mind that to get a full pension teachers have to have paid in for 40 years. For many, especially female teachers, this is not likely to happen. So most don't get full big pesions.

The media stuff on all this is quoting the highest figures possible, nowhere near what the average teacher will recieve.

Not anymore hula, benefits such as pension are preserved while on mat leave and paid by the employer.

Thinking more of those who leave work to be a SAHM during a child's first few years or who return only part time hours. Getting 40 full years can be tough going, esp as most don't start teaching til their early 20s as it is.

That would apply equally to private sector workers though too that females will have lower pensions due tp such lifestyle choices. So the comparison is probably still valid although there will be a higher proportion of teachers that are female compared to the rest of the working population.

I don't work therefore don't pay pension or childcare. And just in case anyone was wondering, have always worked just finished paying off student loans

Follyfoot technically as she's only 3 don't have to, think it's 7? Most of wages go to childcare so not much difference really. Husbands job covers bills etc

It is intensely frustrating not being able to read an insult directed at you. I wish MN would let you know when someone is rude about you.

It was an advert for a website selling fake Nike trainers twinklypearls, not an insult!!

I don't think anyone means to offend. Whole situation is so frustrating that we're told every week something else is being cut. I know I'm lucky to have job but pay freeze, huge bills for everything are getting us all down. I will gladly lose a days pay if it shows government how we are feeling