Teachers on strike - do they usually name names?

[hester]

Just had a letter from dc's school, warning us of strike action at the end of the month and listing by name those teachers who will be on strike, and those who won't. They will close the classes of the striking teachers, and keep open the others.

Is this normal practice? I would have thought it would expose individual teachers to some irate parents? I also expected that they would treat it as a whole school issue, provide what cover they can, maybe suspend lessons and hav a games day in the hall. And if they couldn't do that, close the whole school?

sun1234 yes accountants etc can be and are members of trade unions in addition to being a member of their professional body just as teachers can be a member of a trade union in addition to being a member of their professional body

I only ask because I never knowingly met anyone who was a member of a trade union in my professional life.

a complaint from a customer can be incredibly serious and damaging for any professional, not just teachers. Their firm may or may not protect themselves with insurance policies (although there is no protection from loss of reputation) but individual employees within these firms are very vulnerable to losing their job should they do something to warrant a complaint.

Or are you thinking that most lawyers and accountants are self-employed?

Most of my sons school are striking - but not his year as different union ( i think 3 classes are in) I won't cross a picket line so he's not going in....

the head did the naming thing in the letter as well - think they should have shut the whole school as the mix of some classes open and others shut is harder to manage for most parents...

So you are saying they join the union for one thing and then they find that they are getting something else? i.e. a call to strike.

If they feel that they are being unfairly discriminated against as a profession then they should strike, in my view. But if they don't, then why not elect union leaders who reflect their views?

The fact is everyone is in the same boat when it comes to not being able to get the same sort of pension going forward that we were expecting in the past. Don't public sector workers see that? Or do they think that they should keep their final salary schemes at all cost (to their employers i.e. the taxpayers)?

This isn't a new thing. My Dad was a teacher and they got to a crossroads at one point, where teachers had to choose between 2 different pension schemes. My Dad's is worth NOTHING, but the people who chose the other scheme have pots of money. He's not bitter ......

Anyway. Still waiting for confirmation from my DD's Secondary School. I suspect they will have to structure classes for priority years, but I don't know who they might be now that the GCSE's are over. I can manage whether she goes in, or not, but what I don't want is a half day, so she can't use her normal school bus.

(NB: I will still send her form tutor a present, whether she strikes or not)

isitreally - I am sorry to hear that. You and your colleagues have enough to deal with without having to contend with being asked to strike too.

Isitreally,

You have described my opwn position perfectly. I felt strongly enough to resign from ATL as soon as it called the strike, as that was NOT why i joined them. I am temporarily a member of NASUWT but fully expect to in the end find myself a member of 'Voice' as that is the only union with an explicit policy never to strike. However, it is also a smaller, less well-funded and less powerful union so should I ever find myself in need of the union services I signed up for (protection against malicious complaints, support if I am injured or made ill as a result of my work, unfair treatment by my head or my employer) I will be in a weaker position.

Other professions, as stated, pay very high insurance premiums (doctors and dentists especially pay extremely high premiums) to obtain some of these benefits. Also, teachers in the state sector have a single state employer whereas accountants etc are able to negotiate with their individual company when it comes to T+C, pay etc. Collective, nationwide pay agreements tend to mean collective, nationwide pay negotiations = unions.

It does seem strange that teachers should get paid the same wherever they live and how ever well they do their jobs. In some places it just costs more to live and there is just no way anyone can say that all teachers are as good as each other.

Not sure what you mean - teachers are paid more if they live in London and, once past the threshold, have to demonstrate good performance to progress on the upper pay spine.

but it also costs more to live in the south east than it does, say, in Devon. There's always been a London weighting for all civil servants but there are more and less expensive places elsewhere too.

I didn't know that salary was performance related. So what would be the difference in pay say between two teachers in the same school each with 10 years experience where one really can't or won't teach and the other one is as good as it is possible to be?

sun, as I understand it:

0 if both are on the main pay scale (but this only goes up to M6 - 6 years of experience usually - after which the teacher may pass the threshold onto the UPS).

On the UPS, depends on whether each meet their targets.

It will also depend on whether one teacher has additional responsibilities e.g. subject co-ordination, SMT etc.

www.teachers.org.uk/node/12716

Again, as I understand it, teachers progress one point on the main band per year for the first years after they qualify (up to 6 years).

The teacher then remains at M6 UNLESS they sucessfully apply to cross the threshold
www.education.gov.uk/schools/careers/payandpensions/performancethreshold/b0077089/threshold-assessment-201011-round-11

at which point they will go onto the upper pay scales (but there are only 3 points on the UPS).

So a class teacher with no responsibilities after 10 years of teaching, who has not passed the threshold (which depends on assessment of their performance) will remain on M6.

Whereas another teacher who has additional teaching and learningg responsibilities (TLR) and has passed the threshold onto the UPS may after 10 years be on a much higher salary - if they haven't gone off to become a leader of some kind e.g assistant head or head in which case the leadership scale applies.

However, say after 3 or 4 years, pretty much every teacher will be on M3 or M4 and be on the same pay regardless of performance IYSWIM?

Sun1234
In reply to an earlier post

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 Asset liabilty study 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. In reply to a more recent post
   The teachers' pay scale for 2010-2011 is:

PAY STRUCTURE FOR QUALIFIED TEACHERS 1/9/2010 ? 31/8/2011
(OTHER THAN LEADERSHIP GROUP MEMBERS, ASTS AND ETS)

                     E&W 	In Lon        Out Lon     Fringe Area

Main Pay Scale £ p.a. £ p.a. £ p.a. £ p.a.
M1 21,588 27,000 25,117 22,626
M2 23,295 28,408 26,674 24,331
M3 25,168 29,889 28,325 26,203
M4 27,104 31,446 30,080 28,146
M5 29,240 33,865 32,630 30,278
M6 31,552 36,387 35,116 32,588
Upper Pay Scale £ p.a. £ p.a. £ p.a. £ p.a.
U1 34,181 41,497 37,599 35,218
U2 35,447 43,536 38,991 36,483
U3 36,756 45,000 40,433 37,795

You have to pass increasingly stringent performance management to access U1-U3
In addition, if a teacher is not performing satisfactorily, the governors may take the decision not to award the next increment on the main pay scale.
It is not common - but it can be done.

3. 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.

Sorry the formatting of the table (on which I spent AGES) has messed up because all the spaces have been removed. I hope that you can understand it.

I think I do... M6 is as high as you can go based on time served and U3 is as high as you can go based on results?? So, in the "fringe area" the most you can reach just by turning up each day is £32,588 but a exceptionally good teacher could get £37,395 (i.e. 14.8% more for trying hard and succeeding)??
In the businesses I have worked, success and hard work could make that % well into three figures.

I can understand that teachers are upset if the decision has been made before the facts are established. When is the asset-liability study due out? (and who said teachers cannot do sums??!)

I think what would be really useful to know is how much would an employee in the private sector have to save to get a guranteed final salary pension of say £20,000 at age 60 guranteed to pay out for the rest of your life.

I think this is the message that is getting lost. The final salary is so valuable. I have an employee who puts 14% of their salary into a personal pension and then our firm puts another 4% in after that. I don't claim to understand pensions but I did take the time and trouble to explain in basic terms how pensions work.

Perhaps if the government set out a statement saying "To earn XXX in a pension in a private pension you would have to pay XXX, this means your pension package is worth XXXX.

jolly - how is the stock market going to preform between now and 2041? If you could let me know then I will be happy to answer your question above

ivykaty is right jollydiane, investing is like gambling : you take a bet and hope it pays off. Pensions invest in a mix of bonds (rel low risk) and Uk equities (mid to high risk depending upon type) and internationals equities (higher risk because of the implicit currency bets).

Exactly ivy, the private sector worker knows what they will get back. I have to bite my nails and wonder what is going to happen in the stock market. I take all the risk. A final salary worker has the risk removed by the tax payer and that is why final salary pensions are so valuable.

If I put my mind to it I could properly work out (on average) how much I would have to save to get a pension of £20,000 assuming a moderate growth rate of 5%. I think the results would surprise you.