Teachers on strike

Alpherah said:
I have to say, the government has done a really awesome job of pitting the public and private sector's at each others throats... really nicely played.
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Exactly my thoughts all along. Divide and conquer - it's how empires are maintained whether they be collections of pink countries on maps or financial entities. And all the while the inequalities in wealth distribution widen.
 
Forde said:
Personally, I think teaching is undervalued. I've seen many, many teachers and the great ones much SUCH a difference to children - a difference that echoes along a person's life. The great ones should be rewarded and the crappy ones got rid of. How to implement that, though...
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In Scotland the General Teaching Council regulates standards and they do sack teachers for incompetance if they fail to improve after an 'improvement program'. The GTC(Scotland) have as far as I remember helped set up a GTC in England to help with standards.

One of the first things Cameron was to get rid of the GTC in England.

Shooting yourself in the foot comes to mind given his stated aim of improving teaching.
 
Minto said:
I'm a teacher on strike today. The reason I voted yes is purely financial, and that's because I was promised a career path with suitable remuneration for my skills and qualifications.

The teachers pensions were renegotiated with union cooperation only a couple of years ago to make them self-funded. That means the tax payer does not pay for peoples pensions as they claim them in retirement.

Currently we have been subjected to a pay freeze (amounting to almost 8% pay cut over two years of massive inflation)and an effective 10-15% cut in my pension total from the change in inflation uprating. That is quite enough already thanks - I've done my fair share of cost cutting for the government!

This latest change is an ideological one from the government, and to increase my payments into the scheme by around £100 each month (effectively a £1200 a year pay cut as I get no benefits from this that I do not already get) whilst at the same time changing the agreed standards upon which pension values are calculated (average salary) will mean that over my career (I'm only 2 years in!), including some promotions, I am liable to pay at least £60-70k more in pension contribution than is in my contract, and even putting aside the inflation losses, I will still lose a couple of hundred thousand from my pension when i claim it (assuming i end up with a decent position in a school - which is my career plan). I know that sounds like a huge number, but spread over 30 or 40 years, but it is really just 4-6k a year - important, but not un-affordable for the scheme.

The thing that really gets on my nerves is the people who say that we are already well paid enough. I have a first class physics masters degree from a Russell group university. I am currently earning around £24k pre-tax. If I had not trained, but had gone into the private sector, I would be on a salary over £40k in defense, nuclear, finance, technology, oil, renewables, or any of the other employers that would have valued my skills for what they are worth. If you are suggesting to me that you think, in addition to the existing cuts we are subject to, that it is fair to unilaterally alter our contracts such that well qualified teachers such as myself no longer have any reason to stay in the profession then I can only assume you are happy with the bad teachers that so many of you insist pervade the education system (of which I will admit there are a minority - though they will not get promotions, and so would not get a large pension even under the existing final salary scheme).

The last thing I should point out is that as I already said, currently the teachers pension scheme is self-funding (i.e. contributions cover payments without taxpayer intervention). If the proposed changes go ahead, a large proportion of existing and new teachers will opt out of the pension scheme in favour of private pension arrangements (according to union surveys and analyst predictions). This will result in an overall reduction in payments into the scheme, and as such for the remaining life of the scheme it will require taxpayer support to pay the increasing number of pensioners over time, from the every decreasing number of working contributors.

I hope you can understand at least a little of the reasons for teachers striking now (though I am not happy about other unions piggybacking on our cause)
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Very well said!
 
Biohazard said:
Approx. 7,500 final salary schemes are still on the go in the private sector.
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And most of them will be attempting to close them, as their accounts will all have FRS 17 disclosures in there showing the massive hole in their schemes and what they are having to do about them, like making massive one-off contributions, or trying to buy people out of the schemes and into defined contribution or personal schemes.
 
Admiral Huddy said:
I never mentioned Private or Public.. Merely pointing out then everyone is in the same boat. The only difference it would appear is that the public sector use the industrial clout they have behind them.
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Fair do's. We are in the same boat but it's not a feeling generally fostered by both sides. While obviously there will be distruption today primarily down South the 'clout' is a shadow of it's former self. That is why PCS has piggybacked on, because civil servants can't have the operational effect they once had due to movement to online systems etc. The rug is being slowly, structurally, pulled away from the power base, ie jobs.
 
LOAM said:
Seriously, there’s your red herring right there. My mother was a maths teacher, probably one of the best ones in the whole area. I know exactly how much planning and preparation work goes into being a teacher during the “holidays”. I saw it first hand for 21 years.

The fact is being a teacher is an insanely rewarding career, its why you do it. But lets not try to kid everyone that you spend your entire end of term time buried in prep. It simply doesn’t happen.
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The holidays make up for the long hours term time, which I have seen first hand as I went out with a girl for 2 years and her mum was a physics teacher.

ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE FIGHT!
 
vonhelmet said:
And most of them will be attempting to close them, as their accounts will all have FRS 17 disclosures in there showing the massive hole in their schemes and what they are having to do about them, like making massive one-off contributions, or trying to buy people out of the schemes and into defined contribution or personal schemes.
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:confused:

Where on earth are you getting your figures?

They are in a collective suprlus. But by all means don't let facts get in the way of a good argument.
 
vonhelmet said:
And most of them will be attempting to close them, as their accounts will all have FRS 17 disclosures in there showing the massive hole in their schemes and what they are having to do about them, like making massive one-off contributions, or trying to buy people out of the schemes and into defined contribution or personal schemes.
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Correct, the banks and FI's in particular have enjoyed Defined Benefit in the past but as the Banks dump their risk, they are slowly being switched, including ours as we speak.
 
do_ron_ron said:
In Scotland the General Teaching Council regulates standards and they do sack teachers for incompetance if they fail to improve after an 'improvement program'. The GTC(Scotland) have as far as I remember helped set up a GTC in England to help with standards.

One of the first things Cameron was to get rid of the GTC in England.

Shooting yourself in the foot comes to mind given his stated aim of improving teaching.
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I regularly go out for drinks with a bunch of teachers, they all agree its basically impossible to get sacked in this country, as a teacher.
They've worked with some truly awful teachers, all that happens is they get moved to a different school, department .. whatever, until they pull standards down there, then get moved on again.
So yes, removing the GTC, was stupid. The excuse of its not actually doing anything, so lets remove it, was unbelievably daft. How about you make sure its doing its job instead?
 
Minto said:
The last thing I should point out is that as I already said, currently the teachers pension scheme is self-funding (i.e. contributions cover payments without taxpayer intervention). If the proposed changes go ahead, a large proportion of existing and new teachers will opt out of the pension scheme in favour of private pension arrangements (according to union surveys and analyst predictions). This will result in an overall reduction in payments into the scheme, and as such for the remaining life of the scheme it will require taxpayer support to pay the increasing number of pensioners over time, from the every decreasing number of working contributors.
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This is the part where you've admitted it's a pyramid scheme.
 
Gaygle said:
This is a very good post.

Both my parents are/were teachers and to say that the holidays are long and the hours are good is a complete joke.

The holidays might be long - but if a teacher wants to go abroad on holiday they have to pay twice as much as everyone else because they can only go when school is out. And they can't choose their holidays like other professions.

Then they have to organise school trips, do risk assessments, parents evenings, report writing (took my mum 2-3 weeks of staying up until 2-3am to finish all of hers), sports days, write special reports/attend meetings about children with family or behavioural problems, marking, planning and preparing for OFSTED's.

Not only this but teachers get abused on a daily basis - verbally and physically.

I think there is a huge problem with 95% of the population not knowing what it's like to be a teacher at all and just think that they get long holidays, work for 5 hours a day and get an awesome pension when they retire early.
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Very true.
 
Biohazard said:
:confused:

Where on earth are you getting your figures?

They are in a collective suprlus. But by all means don't let facts get in the way of a good argument.
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Where am I getting my figures? The sets of accounts I see day in day out, which all show FRS 17 disclosures to show the liability the companies hold in their pension scheme.

Yes, some are in a surplus position. Many are not.
 
vonhelmet said:
The holidays make up for the long hours term time, which I have seen first hand as I went out with a girl for 2 years and her mum was a physics teacher.

ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE FIGHT!
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Yeah because 8 - 3:30 is such a bind. Give me a break. I work 80 hour weeks. Does a teacher know what an 80 hour week feels like?

Is my pension protected from economic down turn? My god. In the last year alone I have had to increase my pension payments, why because nothing is performing well at the moment. And seriously don’t cry about pay freeze’s have you looked out the window recently? I don’t know a person who hasn’t had a salary reduction or is facing redundancy.

Come back and demand change when there’s an economic situation that warrants it, not when we are all on our knees.

oh and 21>2 ;)
 
Alpherah said:
Except teacher's pension is sustainable and self funding.
Only a few years ago teachers had their pensions altered to make them so, but now they are lumped in with all of the public sector?
how about the government actually does the fair thing, and takes all the public sector pensions self funding on an employment by employment basis, and alter them like had already happened with the teacher's pensions?
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It is self funding and what Minto said is accurate. But sustainable, no. Teachers used to be underpaid but with the promise of a lucrative pension. Under labour teachers have protested for salary increases. Today they have very reasonable pay for their work. Their pension system has not adjusted to reflect this.

The teachers of today have to pay for the teachers of yesterday. This is not a sustainable scheme. As people live longer the pension demand is going to out grow the funding potential of today's teachers.
 
LOAM said:
Seriously, there’s your red herring right there. My mother was a maths teacher, probably one of the best ones in the whole area. I know exactly how much planning and preparation work goes into being a teacher during the “holidays”. I saw it first hand for 21 years.

The fact is being a teacher is an insanely rewarding career, its why you do it. But lets not try to kid everyone that you spend your entire end of term time buried in prep. It simply doesn’t happen.
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Why do the Govt have to keep bribing students/graduates to be teachers if it is such a cushy number?
 
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