Teachers to strike - 30 June

[meditrina]

breaking now on SKY

Overwhelming vote by 2 teachers' unions (92%)

www.j30strike.org/ This tells you lots of useful things about supporting public sector workers.

So it's you who's in the service industry then - your customers pay you, and you serve them. And if your customers are public sector workers, then your taxes pay their wages, then they pay you, and you pay your taxes. A neat lttle circle.

'On June 30, up to a million workers across the country will be striking in defense of their pensions. The Education Activist Network is calling upon all students, teachers and educationalists to strike the streets together, and turn J30 into a day of rage and anger against the Tory-led coalition.

Pensions are not some add-on benefit. They are a hard-won right that everyone should be entitled to. In France, the dispute over pensions saw thousands of school, FE and University students blockade their institutions, and raise the slogan ?Today?s students are tomorrow?s pensioners?. Here, we need to make sure that June 30 is a step of escalation leading on from March 26 when half a million trade unionists, pensioners, unemployed and disabled activists took it to the streets.

The events in Spain and Greece show that this could be a year of European revolt. Play your part and strike the streets of London on June 30!'

Quote from the website encouraging us to support the strike. I was quite supportive until I saw that load of claptrap. Pensions for everyone yeh and the toothfairy exists! France have a problem with no employees over the age of 50 wanting to stay in employment so they are losing all their skills. Greece and Spain are on the brink of bankruptcy, yeh, how their strikes have worked. Sorry but what a naive statement to put on a website.

I've not read the website but I suspect they haven't made any proposals about how to pay for the pensions which "everyone should be entitled to".

I think they just assume that "someone else" will pay. Except "someone else" is skint.

Niveguy - well said. Who pays?

"So it's you who's in the service industry then - your customers pay you, and you serve them. And if your customers are public sector workers, then your taxes pay their wages, then they pay you, and you pay your taxes. A neat lttle circle."
But if they aren't happy with my work, they don't pay me. And they have a choice of locksmiths to choose from in the first place. Public sector operates under an outdated system where everyone has to pay, and there is little or no accountability for the services. There are too many incompetant people working in the public sector that if given the choice, people wouldn't choose to have working on their behalf.

and there is little or no accountability for the services

There is a huge amount of accountability in teaching, through Ofsted, SATs, performance management linked to pay scales on the upper pay spine, targets, observations, etc.

Q...."and there is little or no accountability for the services

There is a huge amount of accountability in teaching, through Ofsted, SATs, performance management linked to pay scales on the upper pay spine, targets, observations, etc...."

In the health care sector, once the government have found a way of privatising the NHS, you'll look back on these as the golden days of accountability. Joe Public would be astounded at the complete lack of transparency and accountability in the private health care sector. You would be lead to believe your HCP was as qualified as the NHS workers you'd been used to but what you wouldn't see is how low the government has allowed the new private providers to set the bar on 'qualification' in its desperation to get the private 'service providers' on board.

A couple of years ago, to pre-empt a pending investigation into standards, a private company who were subcontracting services (complex scanning) to the NHS employed some private individuals to test a cross section, 100 of their employees for competence. All of these employees had allegedly been vetted by the national registration agency.

Of the 100, 8 were so incompetent, the testers felt morally obligated to report them to the registration agency to ask how on earth they'd passed? It was obvious these people had never had any training- yet the private company had happily employed them and continued to do so- until they were kicked off the register.

Such people wouldn't even have got an interview in the NHS, or had they managed to get a job (unlikely!) they'd've been found out by NHS checks and balances in 5 minutes flat.

"There is a huge amount of accountability in teaching, through Ofsted, SATs, performance management linked to pay scales on the upper pay spine, targets, observations, etc."
But it's all meaningless. It's all controlled by other public sector people. The reality is, schools are churning out kids that are basically unemployable, and incapable of functioning within the adult world. Regardless of what GCSEs they have.

My Son's school, despite having NUT and ATL staff has decided to stay open.
Do not yet know about daughter's school
but I think that the teachers on the ground - if not their overpaid Union bosses (10% payrise and pension uplift anyone) - know that the parents will not support them in this matter.

RobF, if kids are incapable of functioning in the adult world, then their parents need to have a good look at themselves. Schools employ teachers, whose job if is to help students get qualifications. General functionality in the "real world" is not the sole responsibility of teachers.

I agree with EvilTwins, parents have to take some responsibility for the fact that their children can not function in the real world. It is often (not always), poor parenting skills that leads to terrible behaviour within the classroom and if parents refuse to support the school when they try to find a solution then obviously the pupil will leave school with few qualifications and life skills.

TalkinPeace1 - I am a parent. I support the teachers and all public sector workers taking action to defend terms and conditions and our public sector services in general.

I am a parent and i dont support this strike.

Who do you think is going to defend the public service that matters to you then? An injury to one is an injury to all.

Alice, it doesn't surprise me you'd support the teachers and the strikes.

What would surprise me is if you could explain where you think the money should come from to pay these clearly unaffordable pensions.

1. As I understand it, the government is "negotiating" (in quotes, because Danny Alexander's comments imply that they have already decided) to change the TPS without waiting for the latest study into the TPS to be completed - so they do not have the evidence they need. They are prejudging the issue, which is one of the complaints.
   Another is that as the NAO says, the %cost of the GDP for the TPS is falling in line with the plans put in place in the last TPS change. The NAO then says that it needs to be agreed what is meant by "affordable". This is something that has not been done - the government have just unilaterally declared the pensions to be unaffordable.
   They maybe - but the evidence is not yet complete, nor has a definition of "affordable" been come up with. Is 1.0% of the GDP affordable? 0.5%? 0.0%?

2. As you know, the TPS is unfunded. That was a decision taken (presumably)by teh governement when it was set up by the government. As a result, for DECADES the TPS surplus went back into government coffers and was spent "subsidising the taxpayer" in a sense. Sadly I have no idea how much money this was (nor what the equivalent would be today).
   Yes, the TPS is now in deficit.
   And it is likely that the past surplus would not make up shortfall (before you point that out) - but it would take a lot of work to calculate what would have happened if it had actually been invested (and of course, it would depend where the investments had been made). I note however that the local government scheme which was invested is still nicely in surplus.

And if one more person says that teachers can't do maths I shall scream. I am a physicist by training. Rather more numerate than most of the population.

We are all having to change our lives around. My business has been turned upside down. All my savings are going into restructuring to maintain my 60 staff members. I shall be retiring atleast 6 years later than I had hoped. My pension contributions are restricted by my income. I don't have weeks and weeks holiday each year, I have weeks and weeks of childcare to cover, never mind teacher training days. Sorry, I have no sympathy. Just get on and make the best of it, just like the rest of us. Stop putting other people's livelihoods and weekly budgets at risk.

Aaargh, for crying out loud!! An unfunded pension scheme cannot by definition be in deficit!!

There is so much ignorance about the way pensions work. Don't get me wrong these are hard concepts, but can people stop making statements about things they clearly don't understand !!!!!!!!

Trixymalixy, by deficit people generally mean for an unfunded scheme that less is being paid in by working members than is being taken out by the retired members. Happy? I am sure that people knew what I meant.

No, that is not the definition of a deficit. A deficit implies there is a fund in which there are not enough assets to cover liabilities which is clearly not the case in an unfunded scheme.

trixy - I think you and I must have worked in the same place !

I didn't say it was the definition of a deficit. I said that people would understand what I meant.

However as a fully paid up pedant I acknowledge that technically you are correct

Talkin, I'm sure you said somewhere you are an accountant, I have a far more boring job than that!!

I am seriously thinking of starting a thread giving a tutorial on pensions. It is frightening when mumsnet's demographic is middle class women with degrees that so much ignorance exists. The general population don't have a hope if mumsnetters don't understand pensions.

Fair point donki.