Teachers to strike - 30 June

[meditrina]

breaking now on SKY

Overwhelming vote by 2 teachers' unions (92%)

I really don't see the point of striking - not for something like this - it won't make a blind bit of difference to any resolution, rather just piss people off. Talking and negotiating as adults should enable a fair balance to be found, but public sector workers are going to have to accept there will be some changes to their pensions / T&Cs.

Having been a public sector worker in the NHS for c20 years before being made redundant, it is painfully apparent to me now that the NHS pension scheme was an extremely good perk. There is no way I can now afford to make the same level of contributions to a pension as that jointly put in by employee and employer in the public sector, nor get the same returns, and I fully accept that I will work longer than age 65yrs. It is not that old these days and I dont have a problem with it. Neither do I have a problem with children being taught by 68yr olds as an earlier comment queried - what a bizarre query!

No but you need to look around you and see how hard life is for so many in the country at the moment. Opt out or get yourself a private pension scheme one you can afford.... yours is heavily subsidized lets not forget that!

You are ALL missing the point
Teachers,
Army,
Civil servants
MP's
the lot of you.
Final salary pensions ceased being affordable around 15 years ago.
The private sector (who have to genuinely fund such things) scarpered about 8 years ago.
Now its time for the public sector to scarper.

And a career average weighted pension will help the lowest paid at the expense of the brown nosers so I do not get what the fuss is about.

And let's not forget that yours is completely and utterly free from any payments whatsoever.

I think he deserves that after spending 2 tours of Iraq and about to enter his 2nd tour in Afghanistan. What risk do you have to endure? Perhaps an irate 6 year old flinging themselves against a door or an angry teenager calling you a whore? At least you go home at night with at worse a little ink down your top.

Again - why are you turning this into a daft competition?

Half in France? On my salary? Ha! I get £750 a month take home pay so a holiday is something that we don't get - unless you count pitching a tent in our back garden.

Yes, teachers. They are in the profession to educate children, and that is what they should do. Likewise, doctors, nurses, the police etc etc.

I agree that they are not the only ones with a moral responsibility, but expecting any government of any political persuasion to act morally is something that we'd be doing for ever...

But you'll be able to enjoy that tent for weeks and weeks, what with all those holidays, Chilli

Or we could go home having been punched in the face, kicked, slapped and having chairs thrown at us. Not the same as the risks you face in Afghanistan or Iraq but not what you signed up for when going to a career in schools.

1. Final salary pensions could presumably still be affordable if the goal posts hadn't been moved. Changes to taxation rules and the amount of capital they were required to have in reserve were a bit factor in their demise. Instead of griping on here, we should be putting our considerable collective intelligence to thinking up a more generous model of provision, otherwise we'll be forking out a hell of a lot in benefits in years to come while people are living in misery in old age.

1. Pensions represent deferred pay for a lot of people. For example, many public sector workers in the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s were working on comparatively low salaries, but trading off that against the deferred benefits of a pension in later life. Now that trading off will have counted for nothing, a double whammy of disbenefit. Meanwhile their private sector counterparts in similarly sized organisations were able to benefit from all sorts of enhancements to basic pay that were denied the public sector - depending on the organisation, this might include some or all of such things as share options, annual or performance related bonuses, product discounts, subsidised meals, subsidised private healthcare and health checks, company cars and so on (I am just listing some offered by companies I worked for, but I am sure there are others as well). Even now it is very rare to get any of this in the public sector, unless you are in the top 2% of managers or so. People should bear this in mind when criticising public sector pension schemes, which support very many comparatively poorly paid people, offering average pensions of £5,000-£10,000 a year on retirement - hardly great riches.

1. The real problem is that certain less than ethical hedge fund managers can and do asset strip our country regularly, and that many people that work in finance see taxation as optional. Look also at the high charges you have to pay when trying to invest your own money for another example of how the 'little people' are hammered. Here lies the real problem and pension reform is, in my opinion, a weapon of mass distraction designed to obscure some seriously damaging behaviour that continues to affect our collective wellbeing. Instead of being nasty to each other, we should be seeking to remedy this situation via some sort of uprising IMVHO.

As you were.

That's as maybe, but it's not going to cut the mustard when my own children go back to school and listen to all the others talk about their two weeks in Egypt/France/Florida/Australia etc etc.

They are missing out on experiences because of my salary, experiences that nearly all of their peers get to experience each summer, sometimes more than once a year.

Chilli, I meant to put a after that. I know. Me and DS go camping 30 miles from home. No complaints though, we love it.

o deer,
Let them strike i would do a better job at home to be honest.

Igo2Work4arest
I am not claiming that the risks of teaching are anything comparable to those of the army.
However, I did not sign up to be assaulted.
2 of my colleagues have ended up in hospital this year after being assaulted by students......
Please do not make glib comments about how easy life is for teachers.

o deer, Let them strike i would do a better job at home to be honest.

Yess, cleerly u cud. Rofl!

Boffinmum

Point 1 : such pensions only worked when people died within 10 years of retiring - the retirement age was set at the mean death age ....

Point 2 : Public sector salaries in the 1970s and 1980s were indeed lower than in the private sector but that is no longer the case. People aregetting their rewards in the today and want them in the tomorrow too...

Point 3 : Only whenleveraging debt ceased to betaxdeductible will those bar stewards be stopped

The rest of you - stop nit picking over individual jobs - look at the real issue for YOUR children

haha indeed

I think this applies to all sides sadly

"A man convinced against his will
Is of his own opinion still..."

or to put it another way

?Reasoning doesn?t have this function of helping us to get better beliefs and make better decisions ... It was a purely social phenomenon. It evolved to help us convince others and to be careful when others try to convince us.?

here

o deer,
Let them strike i would do a better job at home to be honest.

You muppet!! LOL I assume you are having a laugh!!

:)

I totally support the teachers in standing up for something they don't want to lose- the pension scheme is one of the positives in a job that has many negatives.

BooBearboo I totally agree and on facebook I was ganged-up on because I was against the strikes. My DH is a private sector worker who earns his money by working his fecking socks off doing 8am-8 pm sometimes and then having to pay 40% tax and now more Nat Insurance.

We have a University aged lad who we support as he doesn't get the full grant ('they' at HMRC assume he earns too much) and our 17 yr old is soon to go into university education and in 10 yrs our 9 yr old will be doing the same probably. I work as a childminder and a dinner lady in the school kitchens for an hour a day.

We don't go abroad on holiday, all 5 of us go in our old car to campsites in UK, with 4 adults its too expensive to go on a plane.

Stop complaining about your pensions teachers, its got to come from somewhere and its US who pays it!!! I have no pension, I am self-employed and cannot afford to pay into one, because I am a casual dinner lady I cannot pay into one either.

My dad was a teacher & no, he wasn't still teaching at 68 - but only because he died at 66.

It might not be the point of this thread but it is one of my main sources of heartbreak in life that, after about 40 years of working damn hard doing what is (IMHO) a very difficult job (especially in secondary school, if you do it properly), he never had the opportunity to enjoy the retirement he had been so looking forward to.

68 is simply too old to "have" to work until for many people. My mum, on the other hand, is 69 & still enjoys working (albeit in a different job) - but that's her choice, nothing to do with pension entitlement. There should be a choice.

Is there going to be any cut in the (generous) final salary pensions of public servants who are already retired? I think they did this in Ireland. My parents are retired civil servants on final salary pensions and they are in clover, travel constantly (cruises to Alaska, ski-ing, yada) and will probably both live for another 30 years (all those healthy walking holidays). They both worked very hard but there must be so many people like them that I don't see how the country can afford it.

(Long may they live, of course )