Teachers to strike - 30 June

[meditrina]

breaking now on SKY

Overwhelming vote by 2 teachers' unions (92%)

Niceguy2 - I'm delighted you're not surprised, and encouraged that my political position is clear and consistent. You are absolutely right to assume that I will never seek to make ordinary people responsible for a situation created by uncontrolled speculation by bankers. You want to sort out public sector debt? Talk to the bailed out banks.

Longevity is not the fault of the banks.

No, but not investing the excess income the TPS had (when working members contributions + employers contributions exceeded pension payments to retired members) was the governments fault...

(I hope that my more wordy, but more correct use of terms meets with your approval Trixy )

I agree, unfunded pensions are craziness, but you can't expect the taxpayers to pick up the tab when things are going badly, but not take the excess when things are going well. That's just the way unfunded pensions work.

Surely the whole point is that they did take the excess when things were going well, and now don't want to pick up the tab when things are going badly....

Donki
Sorry, when did that happen?
ther never were "employers contributions" in the TPS
it has never had a "surplus"
as there is no bucket of cash

Rubbish TalkinPeace
Of course there were (and are ) employers contributions to the TPS.
I deliberately did not use the word surplus in my last post.
There was an excess of income over expenditure - which the government used as income.

Donki,
please find me the link
there is no "TPS" there are no "employers contributions"
it is an unfunded scheme
there has NEVER since the early 1980s been an excess of contributions over expenditure
look up the NAO report : the taxpayer is in hock to the the of £233 BILLION

That's funny TalkinPeace - I get letters from the TPS - and in it they define how much I pay and what the employers contribution is.
I know that in recent years there has been no excess, nor have I claimed otherwise.
There was however a long period when there was an excess - and it was pocketed by the government and not invested.
The decision that the scheme be unfunded was presumably the governments at the time it was set up.

Oh - and you can google TPS as well as I can - I promise it exists.
(And I have read the NAO report)

"employers contribution" - show me that in the school budget ( i'm an ex governor BTW)
the scheme was set up as unfunded at the same time as the MOD - in the early 1950's
they aimed to work you into the ground

nothing on the TPS site I can find shows funding statements : link to DFEE or treasury please

Night all
I wasn't going to strike, but comments like TalkinPeace have persuaded me otherwise....

Donki
all I have asked you to do is support your assertions with evidence.

Why is that worth making up to 1500 parents have to take unpaid annual leave on June 30th

Here is a link to a Govt briefing note on teachers' pensions. The current employee contribution is 6.4% and employer 14.1%.

Incidentally, the contributions include both SCR and a supplementary element - the latter being a variable which could rise if actuarially necessary. So the increased contributions are not "reneging on the deal signed up to", they are already part of the terms of the scheme.

www.nao.org.uk/publications/1011/public_service_pensions.aspx

but there is no "employer contribution" as there is no "fund"
I see no actuarial valuations on the TPS - I look forward to the links - with numbers

Hi Alice. Yes, your position is clear and consistent. That said, so was Arthur Scargill. But it didn't make him right either. (I was going to say Hitler but felt the analogy would then be a bit insulting and I didn't want to insult you)

The pension timebomb is definitely not a fault of the bankers. You can lay a lot of blame on their door but I doubt you can on this particular one. If you want to blame someone, blame the successive government's who have promised what they cannot deliver and shirked making the tough decisions for political expediency. Make them pay!!! Wait...the government has no money....it has to get it from the taxpayers! That's you, me and our kids!

Interestingly enough, I was talking to my 14 yr old daughter tonight. One of her teacher's had explained to them that they were going on strike because the government wanted them to "...pay £100 more per month for their pension and work longer." My daughter understandably felt this was unfair.

So I explained to her that the problem is that the teachers don't pay enough into their pension scheme so the money they are taking out must be paid for by the taxpayer. And that SHE would be the taxpayer which the teacher's are expecting to pay extra taxes so they can enjoy the pension they've not funded. I asked her a very simple question "Do you want to pay more taxes so the teacher's can enjoy the pension they've been promised?". The answer was "No."

I bet if the teacher's actually explained that what they want is their students to pay more tax so they could enjoy a pension they didn't contribute enough for, I wonder how many of them would also feel this is not fair?

That's effectively what we're saying isn't it? Someone else should pay my pension. And that someone else is our kids and grandkids.

Niceguy, yours are posts I always read and I find them informative and well-thought out. Most times I agree with you and nod my head. But can you please stop put rogue apostrophes into the word 'teachers'? It isn't a possessive, it's just a plural. (Unless you mean to be ironic?).

Sorry. I know I'm pedantic but I had good teachers who beat it into me.

stop 'putting', not put. I did have good teachers, honest...

Niceguy - Arthur Scargill wasn't right - in what respect? NUM conference democratic decisions to respond to pit closures with strike action? Historical fact, NUM did make, and act on, those decisions. Scargill's opinion that the mining industry would be finished in consequence of Thatcher's policy - again, correct. The fact that you don't like Scargill's politics doesn't make him wrong.

Abra1d, thanks for the correction, I hadn't even noticed! lol. I guess your English teacher did a better job than mine

Alice, without meaning to drag this off too much of a tangent, Scargill was wrong in that he expected the government (aka taxpayer) to subsidise a loss making industry exactly like the teachers are expecting the taxpayer to subsidise their pension. That is what I meant.

For the record, I think his politics were wrong too but that is best discussed in another thread since this one is about teachers. (did I get that one right, Abra1d??)

Teachers need to realise that there are thousands of people that could do their job as good, if not better, for less money. That's the reality of the situation. It isn't 1971, when there were plenty of well-paid jobs in the private sector, which mandated teachers being compensated with job security and lucrative pensions. Teachers know (or they should do) that they would be very unlikely to find a well-paid job outside of teaching. So why on earth are they striking? Do they really think the government are going to back down?

Teachers need to realise that there are thousands of people that could do their job as good, if not better, for less money. That's the reality of the situation.

Not likely, with 50% leaving the profession with 5 years.

within

RobF, you really are an arrogant little turd. I could do plenty of other jobs, thank you very much, if I wanted to. DH is a management consultant. His bonus this year was about the same as my yearly salary. I could do his job, if I put my mind to it. He could retrain as a teacher, too, if he wanted, and do my job. Teaching is a profession. It is hard work, and can only be done well by those who are really committed to it. I think you'll find that there are NOT plenty of people who would do the job for less money- teachers need to be intelligent graduates. Why would an intelligent graduate work for a paltry salary? Why SHOULD they? Your brand of inverted snobbery is highly frustrating and an obvious sign of your own lack of intelligence.