Teachers to strike - 30 June

[meditrina]

breaking now on SKY

Overwhelming vote by 2 teachers' unions (92%)

We can only strike over pay and conditions, not constant changes the government impose on us 'to improve standards'. And most of us don't want to strike, we just want to do our jobs. Whichever bits of paperwork I am being told to fill in (and at last count, each student I teach generated 17 separate sets of paperwork), the reason I do my job is the children.

i get on the defensive about teachers and get annoyed at teacher bashing. I know how hard DH and his colleagues work and the hours they put in.

for those of you saying that we cannot afford teachers pensions:

"According to Decent pensions for all:
The cost of providing tax relief on private
pensions in 2007/08 was £37.6 billion,
according to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC)
figures, almost ten times the net cost of the
unfunded public sector pension schemes, which
are not backed by an investment fund.
This tax relief is heavily skewed towards the
better off. Treasury figures reveal that 60 per cent
of tax relief goes to higher rate taxpayers,
including 25 per cent ? nearly £10 billion a year
? going to the top one per cent of earners, on
more than £150,000 a year.
One of the standard arguments from those who
attack public sector pensions is to ask why
modest taxpayers who do not have a pension
should pay for the pensions of public sector
workers.

The reality is that taxpayers are spending £2.50
on reducing the tax bill of the top one per cent of
the population for every pound going towards
providing a modest pension to retired nurses,
teachers and all the other public sector staff who
make a huge contribution to society.
The problem that needs to be addressed is not
the public sector, but the wider problem of those
without decent pensions. Nearly two thirds of the
workforce in the private sector get no pension
from their employer. That is the real cost to the
taxpayer".

Hope that helps!

i have nothing against teachers, think they are great. but i think all professions have to pay more into pensions and work till they are older. it's just a fact of life. i know teachers work hard adn long hours but this is happening to everyone, and unfortunately, because it needs to happen.

Goblin is having a little break as she is having to type up 32 end of year reports at home as there isn't enough time in school.
I may have to have a shower before I go back to my finely-honed collections of euphemisms that I must use, as all must be positive and twinkling with many kind words about the lazy arrogant dynamic and creative pupils in my class.
I do a lot of editing and proof reading before the final version is unleashed. Takes a while.

I think some people forget that, as well as being teachers, many of us are parents . With the same concerns for our own children's education as every other parent has.

Oh Goblinchild, thanks you have just reminded me that I need to get on with mine too.
I don't know why but I couldn't write my 2 sides of A4 reports for each child [x30] in the 2 hours PPA time I got last week.

BTW the issue isn't the pension reforms as such BUT the fact the government has gone back on what it agreed 3 years ago.

AND agree with most other teachers on here - salary is OK but not great but the pension was the good thing

How can you be voting without understanding the issues.There are no proposals yet they are not putting them forward until the autumn.
Hutton has recommended that the current scheme is protected ,all benefits accrued to date will continue to be drawn at 60 as at present.The new scheme will then take over.

If the teachers go ahead with this I can safely predict that the teaching unions will lose all pubic support, especially if parents end up having to take holidays to cover strike days. Without public support, the teaching unions will be broken like the NUM miners union was and eventually its members starved back to work.

Teachers cannot continue to expect to retire a decade before people in other jobs on a huge pension.

My children go to private school and if their teachers go on strike I think they might need to bring in riot police to control the parents.

cazzybabs, you mean the changes that the unions didn't strike on in 2007? Sorry it's just I am sure that I read somewhere on here, that teachers strike over 'anything' to do with pay and pensions. You know, what with us just 'moaning' about nothing and everything.

I don't see how anybody can think that taxpayers can simply fund pensions indefinately whilst life expectancy continues to increase.

If you start your pension at 25 and retire at 65 and on average live to 70, the pension pot you have 40 years to build up has to fund the average lifestyle for 5 years or 1/8 of the saving period. If you retire at 65 but live to 85, your pension pot has to fund 20 years or 1/2 of the saving period.

So either contributions have to rise (say fourfold), the age of retirement has to increase or investment returns have to rise. Since you can't guarantee the latter then you have to pay more and retire later.

At least the teachers still have jobs. The Telgraph is running an article saying that up to 20,000 postal workers in the Royal Mail are potentially about lose their jobs.

A shot across the bows MWT.
Just to give fair warning to the powers that be and the rest of the country that this is going to be protested.

Lego - the rules on private pensions have ben dramatically changed to reduce the cost of tax relief from this year. That figure you quoted is now way out of date. Private sector pensions and tax relief are being slased and so must the public sector pension costs.

We all have our price I guess. I am willing to work for my salary in the main because of the immense sense of satisfaction that I get from my job. My family put up with a lot so I can do my job, I spend most of term time saying to my dd not now I have marking, planning etc to do. I am usually still working when my partner goes to bed. I often get up at an ungodly hour on a Saturday so i can work before people get up. I subsidise my classroom by buying materials, resources and rewards.

One of the reasons I do this is because I have always thought of teaching as a secure job, that is no longer true. I also looked forward to a relatively comfortable retirement. to me that is especially important as we cannot afford to pay into dp's pension at the level he needs. If my pension and retirement conditions change I will find it very hard to justify to my family why I keep doing the job that I do.

I am not a martyr or a saint, I don't think we want teachers with those qualities.

Delurking lots of schools are making staff redundant.

twinklypearls "we cannot afford to pay into dp's pension at the level he needs"

But that's the same problem as for everybody else in the private sector!
To get a £30000 pension for life at say 60, somebody in the private sector on a defined contribution pension would need to save around £1mm in their pension pot. How many people are capable of that?

Public sector pensions are still so very very much better. Yes, you will pay a bit more and get the pension later but compared to private sector pensions it will still be very generous.

Average teacher pension is £10,000.

Average private sector pension is £1750!

I appreciate all that teachers do & how hard they work ( DB & DSIL are both teachers in their 50s, so I've listens to their moaning stories long enough )

BUT

The simple fact is that people are living much longer & pensions schemes must change to take account of this in all sectors (most if not all private sector schemes have already been changed)

Perhaps we should give people a choice
either
a) keep your current scheme - but we'll only pay your pension until you are (say) 72 - if you are still alive after that you are on your own
or
b) change to a scheme that is funded to pay out for your whole life, whether that be 70, 80, 90 or 100.

Ditto what Morebeta said about tax relief on private pensions, I was about to post the same, the rules have now changed so that argument is no longer valid.

Oh well, hey ho, "at least I still have a job" [at the moment] and don't work for Royal Mail. I know, I will pay five times more into my pension, I am sure that will help to salvage some Royal Mail workers jobs.

I will be thankful and grateful for working hard and paying for myself to go to university [and thereby getting into debt] so as to have a professional job in a field that I love.

Oh hell, you know what, I'll do the job for free!

delurking, are you comparing like with like?
£1750 is the pension for which group of the population? To be a meaningful comparison it needs to be with a similar group of private sector workers.

I am not saying that it is not the case for everyone. But for my family with the issues that we face this decision could be the deal breaker.

When I say that we cannot afford to pay into his pension at the level he needs - we have only just been able to start paying in a minimal amount because I was promoted. I am not claiming that our pension is awful but as I said I made a balanced calculation when I entered teaching and then re entered teaching. That information is now changing and this could be the final thing that makes me think about choosing a different career.

If I am going to have to work into my old age I am going to choose something easier. If my pension pot is going to be reduced is it worth me slaving away, I may as well be skint but have had some quality family time when my daughter is young.

I am not in great health and therefore I have to accept that the longer I work the shorter I may live. It is pointless even having a pension if I don't live to see it.

All of us have to make decisions based on our life circumstances.

I'm still waiting for evidence that teachers will lose the huge amounts of goodwill and respect that they engender in every heart if they strike.
It's a bit like telling me that if I am bad, the little angels will weep.
I have seen little evidence in the public domain over the last decade of any of this respect or goodwill.
Did we start the arse kicking contest? I don't remember doing so.