BS: Striking teachers should lose pay

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 02 Jul 11 - 07:34 PM

So fucking what Bozo?

McGrath.   Lord Denning had a view about that.

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 02 Jul 11 - 05:44 PM

A new client of ours is a maths consultant from Serbia - plenty more where he came from I'd wager!!

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Jul 11 - 05:19 PM

I'm in favour of working to rule generally. If that causes a problem, the rules need changing.

If you wait until the "negotiations" are over, and the terms that management have intended all along are imposed on you, before showing a bit of muscle, you're a damn fool. That's the point of a one-day strike and demonstration like this.

Our local swimming pool was crammed with kids on Thursday, and they were playing all over the place. They were having a great time, and I am sure their appreciation of the value of unions has greatly increased as a consequence of this.

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 02 Jul 11 - 05:08 PM

As a member of the National Union of Teachers, I can assure everyone that no striking teacher was paid any money by the Union for walking out on Thursday.

The teaching unions negotiated, reluctantly, a worsening of their pension provisions in 2007, in which they accepted, among other things, that they would have to wait until 65 before drawing their full pensions (instead of 60). Now, the coalition is proposing to impose an increase to 68, to make teachers contribute 50% more than they do now into their pensions, and for them to receive far less when they retire by dint of their pensions being tied to the consumer prices index instead of the far more realistic retail prices index, as now. None of this is on the negotiating table, in spite of what the ConDems, Miliband and the Daily F*cking Mail are insinuating. And all this guff about how unfair it is that the public sector should have better pensions (the average is £4000) than the private sector. The truth is that the private sector, when times were good, took pensions holidays instead of paying into the funds, and the beneficiaries of that were the shareholders with their inflated dividends, not the workers. Then when times got hard the good pension schemes all collapsed, courtesy of the gross mismanagement that was the routine order of the day. What should really be happening now is the private sector workers should be out out there on the streets, demanding that their pension schemes be reinstated to equal status with the public sector.

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: GUEST,strad
Date: 02 Jul 11 - 04:19 PM

I honestly don't see the advantage of going on strike. But I do see great advantages in "Working to Rule" You get paid but don't do a lot because eg there's no qualified first aider on site, or the fire extinguishers are due a check...etc,etc.

Imagine the effect on (especially) the UK if truck drivers stuck rigidly to the speed limits. Chaos would ensue!

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Jul 11 - 11:14 AM

I've never understood why "pension holidays" by employers are not classed as fraud and theft.

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: Cats
Date: 02 Jul 11 - 11:06 AM

'Public Sector workers should remember also that they have traditionally been in a very privileged position of having employer-supported-and co-funded pension schemes - many in the Private Sector didn't until the introduction of Stakeholder Pension Schemes five years or so ago'. I would hardly claim that I am privileged. Pensions contributions are no more than deferred salary. Public sector are now having to prop up the stakeholder pension schemes at the rate of £1 per public sector and £2.50 per private sector, which means the tax payers are paying MORE to prop up Private pensions than public pensions. Our pensions are NOT gold plated, final salary does not mean we get the same as we did when we were working which is something else I heard a memebr of the public say this week. as I said before, the Hutton enquiry said our pensions are self funding and had successive goevernments of all colours either ringfenced or invested them there would not be this problem. What they did do was when the private pensions haemorraged a few years ago because employers and government were not manging them they took the money to prop them up and bail them out from the public sector pernsions and never put it back which is why we are in this mess now. And if we are all in this together WHY has the government just awarded itself a masive hike in their ringfenced pensions to £28,000 per year after only one term in office, increasing after each term. If that is being all in this toggether I am happy to take it. That's nearly 3 times my pension.

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 02 Jul 11 - 10:55 AM

yeah.. New Labour definitely lost direction and sold out its soul & ethos
when Blair's cabal determined they should follow the advice and theories
of ultra conservative accountants and insurance industry consultants...

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 02 Jul 11 - 10:28 AM

And what about the millions of treasury money squandered by the labour governments on totally unnecessary CRB checks!!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: GUEST,999
Date: 02 Jul 11 - 09:18 AM

One of the problems with many teacher pension plans is that the plans were originally intended to be financed by a 50/50 split wherein teachers contributed x dollars and that money would be matched by government. HOWEVER, governments were NOT matching, choosing rather to put 'their' money in when people retired. Any interest from investments was lower because the government's part of the money was missing. Of course, come payout time the government then has to scramble for cash, and when LOTS of teachers retire near the same time, guess what? Yeah. The gov't needs money. What better place to get the money than from the damned people who caused the problem--the TEACHERS. At least governments would like you to believe that.

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 02 Jul 11 - 01:53 AM

"As far as I know BW the existing pension pots are being ring fenced and guaranteed pensions will be honoured."

I thought I'd heard/read that, Don, but I wasn't sure - my memory is starting to play tricks on me in my advancing years. If so, that's good and I'm glad for them.

"All changes should, I agree, be applied to new joiners only, but the trouble is that there is already a shortfall of about nine billion, rising by almost four billion a year if changes are not made."

That's precisely the reason for my comment in my earlier post that "they do need to understand that the day of the defined benefit pension scheme is over, and that they need to move to a defined benefits structure which is, simply put, much more affordable",/i> and "Whilst I sympathise with the above groups regarding the retirement age issue, I think they need to join the real world where pension provision is concerned".

Despite someone in a later post claiming that these pensions are more-than-adquately funded, the fact is that they clearly are not and, in an age of increasing longevity, they need to be modernised in order to ensure their sustainability for future generations.

Public Sector workers should remember also that they have traditionally been in a very privileged position of having employer-supported-and co-funded pension schemes - many in the Private Sector didn't until the introduction of Stakeholder Pension Schemes five years or so ago.

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 01 Jul 11 - 09:39 PM

See Paula T's post above:

"The National Audit Office reported recently that because of the changes we made a few years ago, our scheme is sustainable."

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 01 Jul 11 - 07:32 PM

""And I agree on the contract issue - if someone has paid into a scheme for many years based on a specific contract and scheme-type, they should benefit from the scheme they contracted in to. But there needs to be a new set-up for more recent scheme-members and new joiners, which more accurately mirrors the kind of scheme that the majority of private-sector workers are now stuck with.""

As far as I know BW the existing pension pots are being ring fenced and guaranteed pensions will be honoured.

All changes should, I agree, be applied to new joiners only, but the trouble is that there is already a shortfall of about nine billion, rising by almost four billion a year if changes are not made.

I remember, in 1971, overhearing a conversation between two elderly ladies about decimalisation of money.

"It's all very well dear" said one "But I do think they might have waited till all us old 'uns have died before doing it".

If only real life worked that way...........

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: Cats
Date: 01 Jul 11 - 06:31 PM

Some unions have a political fund which they use to fund industrial action of whatever kind. It ids very rare for any union to pay workers to gom on strike. as I said before in the previous post, if you are put at hardship after being out on strike for a continual period then you can apply fpr benevolence which is not assured but not for m ad hoc 'pay' from the union. It just doesn't happen. Believe me, I know. Today I have been in an all day meeting at my unions hq first sitting on the Education Committee then on the National Executive. My union is still talking to the government but we are in for a long haul.

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Jul 11 - 04:03 PM

On the subject of strike pay, I am certain that no striking teacher will receive salary for that period on strike (however long), and anybody who believes otherwise is misinformed.

So bonzo, were you misinformed, or merely attempting to misinform?

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 01 Jul 11 - 03:53 PM

Where, I wonder, were the unions when Gordon Brown was ripping off five billion from our pension funds, or do they only object to us being robbed by Tories or LibDems?

On the subject of strike pay, I am certain that no striking teacher will receive salary for that period on strike (however long), and anybody who believes otherwise is misinformed.

Strike pay from their unions, however, is part of what they pay dues for, and is nobody else's business. Nor should it be!

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 01 Jul 11 - 03:38 PM

And who do we have to thank for that?? Yes you've got it...the labour government.

For education in the US, boko?

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 01 Jul 11 - 03:32 PM

"Our educational system forces and perpetuates mediocrity and makes us pay top dollar for that service"

And who do we have to thank for that?? Yes you've got it...the labour government.

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: pdq
Date: 01 Jul 11 - 11:17 AM

"If you can read this thank a teacher."

What bunk.

My sister could read a newspaper at age 3.

The families I know that home-schooled their children had scholastic aptitude test scores that humiliated the average public school kids.

That is not a knock on teachers. They work hard and often teach in dangerous school conditions with kids who are forced to be there and don't even try to learn.

Our educational system forces and perpetuates mediocrity and makes us pay top dollar for that service.

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 01 Jul 11 - 11:02 AM

"If you can read this thank a teacher."

I can read that, for which I thank my mother. She taught me to read before I entered kindergarten. Likewise, I taught my son to read early.

Bumper sticker slogans are really silly.

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: GUEST,Cats
Date: 01 Jul 11 - 09:56 AM

Teachers do not get paid if they are on strike. If they are in financial hardship caused being an continual strike they can apply for benevolence but it is never assured
the point about teachers pensions is that they are expected to pay another £100 per month towards their pensions work longer and get less pension at the end of it. The teachers pensions would be self financing if it had been invested but it is a notional fund. For every £ I that taxpayer put in to public service pensions as a top up, we put £2.50 in to the private sector top up .Remember, teachers are also tax payers. teachers pensions are not 'gold plated'. when I retire after 40 years my pension will be just under £10, 000 per year. Don't get taken in by the governments spin. they have just awarded themselves a minimum pension of about £28,000 after just one term in office.
It also needs reinforcing that not all teaching unions were on strike yesterday. My union has a mandate from our members to negotiate with the Government until we have totally exhausted that avenue before we ballot for industrial action up to and including strike action which was a motion passed at our 2010 and 2011 National Conferences. But, if we have to, we will . mean while we will do nothing to under mine the legitimate industrial action of another TUC affiliated trade union.

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: GUEST,kendall
Date: 01 Jul 11 - 09:47 AM

If you can read this, thank a teacher.

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: jacqui.c
Date: 01 Jul 11 - 09:47 AM

If you can read this thank a teacher.

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 01 Jul 11 - 09:45 AM

Dum de dum de dum de dum..................

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: GUEST,punkfolkrocker
Date: 01 Jul 11 - 09:03 AM

Despite the pressures from Govt most Head teachers are being subjected to,
I'm begining to suspect my wife's Head is actually a tory
and relishing her new sense of unrestrained post national election power ???

It would certainly account for any personal ethos and agenda
informing her recent inept unsympathetic and duplicitious negative management methods
to attempt to motivate her staff.

Whatever results she imagines she will achieve for the school
is at the real cost of establishing a workplace environment
of anxiety and paranoia;
permanently undermining the confidence and self esteem of her teachers
and lowering staff moral to an all time low...

I can see the pernicious effect of this unnecessary extra stress
mounting up in my wife's increasing emotional fragility
and slowly deteriorating health
[sleepless nights, loss of appetite at mealtimes, comfort eating cakes & chocolate..]

It must obviously be affecting & destabilising her performance at work.

At what point would I need to risk everything
by making a formal complaint about this Head on my wife's behalf...
and what good would it do anyway with all the odds stacked
against her...???

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 01 Jul 11 - 08:32 AM

No, Bozo will like it. TO "appreciate" something is to evaluate it for its true worth.

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: GUEST,livelylass
Date: 01 Jul 11 - 08:14 AM

Bonzo will appreciate this story..
Striking teachers crush innocent schoolgirl to death with a tree!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2010193/Teachers-strike-Sophie-Howard-13-killed-falling-branch-school-closed.html

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: kendall
Date: 01 Jul 11 - 08:00 AM

Let them eat cake.

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: paula t
Date: 01 Jul 11 - 06:28 AM

The argument that our pension scheme is unaffordable is a non-starter. The National Audit Office reported recently that because of the changes we made a few years ago, our scheme is sustainable.

The government has always taken money out of our scheme, because it was started purely for that purpose.It was started and originally compulsory because the government needed more cash.

The government has decided it wants to save a certain amount of money and their changes have nothing whatsoever to do with making up a shortfall.There isn't one for our scheme.We have already put into place a safeguard against this.

If we don't do something now, then we will be finding it very hard to recruit young people into the teaching profession very soon.Many schools are already having to appoint executive headteachers to cover more than one school, because fewer and fewer people want the stress of doing that job. To attack the pension scheme will merely worsen the situation.

I would like the media to do a little more research before merely churning out the same old rubbish about, "Poor and lazy teachers,falling standards and generous pension schemes." I would like to see Mr.Gove shadow a teacher for a few months (although a week would probably be enough) to see what we actually do.Perhaps then he might be working from the point of a taste of reality before launching his ridiculous ideas and talking pure nonsense!

Sorry to sound so bitter and twisted - but many of us have had enough!

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: theleveller
Date: 01 Jul 11 - 03:30 AM

Bozo rightly highlights the fact that the education system isn't perfect and never has been. There will always be those who fall through the net and finish their education as ignorant as when they started. Bozo demonstrates this failure every time he tries to string a coherent sentence together.

Don't despair, Bozo, remedial help is available (but be quick before the government axes that as well).

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 01 Jul 11 - 03:17 AM

The Tories really are b******! Their divide and conquer approach to the private/public pension issue is despicable! But, of course, to be expected from that lot.

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 01 Jul 11 - 03:08 AM

http://falseeconomy.org.uk/blog/this-is-not-a-pension-reform-it-is-simply-a-pay-cut

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: Penny S.
Date: 30 Jun 11 - 06:45 PM

Someone mentioned life expectancy. I well remember at a union do someone referring to research on retirement ages of male teachers. If they retired at 65, they could, on average, look forward to living two years before they died. If they retired at 60, they would live well past 67.

So, raising the retirement age above 65 should ensure that barely any pension would need to be paid, and perhaps some will actually die in harness, thus reducing the widows' pensions, since there will not be full service.

The Treasury undoubtedly has actuarial advice. So the government is not just playing fast and loose with contracts, it may be seeking to encompass the early death of public servants. I include the police, firefighters, and health workers in that, too.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Jun 11 - 05:33 PM

As for Ofsted - that was set up under John Major, who, as I recall, was some kind of Conservative Prime Minister. Reorganised in 2005 to cut down the long advance warning of inspections, which was seen as screwing-up schools, by encouraging them to fiddle their timetables and so-forth to get a better inspection result.

It's still a pretty crappy way of running an inspection system. One thing unites all parties - they think they know something about teaching, and they don't.

Those who can't teach inspect. Those who can't inspect tell inspectors what to do.

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Jun 11 - 05:22 PM

Is bonzo planning to apologise for attempting to mislead people by falsely claiming that teachers are paid by their employers for any days they are on strike? Of course not.

I was right, wasn't I?

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 30 Jun 11 - 03:47 PM

I'll jump to the bottom here, after listening to news today about this unrest and various strikes. This thing with teachers, it is just another symptom of the bigger problem of not collecting enough revenues. The middle class are being asked to give up more and more while the rich GOP here in the US insist that the rich shouldn't pay as much because they create jobs. Well, they don't. They just hold onto that cash and watch everyone else scramble for diminishing funds for public services that the rich also use.

Look at the things subsidized in the U.S. - roads (those who can, drive), airports (those who can, fly), agriculture (agribusiness rakes most of this in for their investors), but things like railroads (rapid transit such as passenger trains, subways, light rail), health care, struggle for funding. Teachers struggle for funding. The rich send their kids to private schools, they drive, they fly, they can afford to pay for their health care out of their pockets. Scroll down to the bottom of this article for a Bureau of Labor Statistics and Tax Policy Center graph . It correlates the years of higher tax rates on the rich with the actual amount of job creation during those years in the last 60 years.

Instead of all of this bickering over the diminishing funding, it's time to raise taxes on the rich and stop pouring money into the coffers of rich corporations. That's what teachers need to start teaching their students, so they grow up to be responsible and thoughtful voters.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 30 Jun 11 - 03:38 PM

Millions and millions of pounds have been wasted by labour on ofsted nonsence. I have former ofsted inspectors as clients who all agree that it has become little more than an excercise in labour induced political correctness - safeguarding humbug - that's where much of your pension money has gone.

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: Arthur_itus
Date: 30 Jun 11 - 03:35 PM

Yes, but WTF are they doing taking a billion out of the funds. No wonder there is a problem now.

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 30 Jun 11 - 03:21 PM

"Bonzo is firmly planted in the school of ' I'm alright Jack, screw you ' tory type politics"

Really gets to you lefties!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 30 Jun 11 - 03:12 PM

Bonzo is firmly planted in the school of ' I'm alright Jack, screw you ' tory type politics.

Dave H

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Jun 11 - 02:09 PM

So what? I suppose that arguably that might be of some marginal relevance if Labour were actually supportive of the strike, but they aren't.

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: Arthur_itus
Date: 30 Jun 11 - 01:39 PM

McGrath, I heard on the telly today, that Labour took 1 billion out of the pension coffers at some point.

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: Darowyn
Date: 30 Jun 11 - 01:34 PM

As a Point of Information, Mr Threelegs, striking teachers will forfeit a day's pay today. Not only that, but they will also forfeit a whole years of entitlement to redundancy pay, since a day missed by strike action means that they will not have been in continuous employment for this academic year.
Can you begin to see that draconian regime to which this group of people who are entitled to professional status by virtue of their qualifications and responsibility for our future, are being subjected?
The thin end of the wedge passed by years ago- this is the thick end now. I'm supporting my children (teachers) and my grandchildren (at school) when I support the strike.
Dave
Retired Teacher, lucky enough to be too old to be in education now!

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Jun 11 - 01:03 PM

Is bonzo planning to apologise for attempting to mislead people by falsely claiming that teachers are paid by their employers for any days they are on strike?

Of course not.
.........................

This is not a strike to get more money or better conditions, it is to defend existing pension rights which have been guaranteed by previously negotiated agreements, which were specifically underwritten by both the Conservatives and their LibDem allies before the last election.

When you are mugged it is reasonable to try to hold on to your possessions. That is effectively what the teachers are trying to do.

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: GUEST,kendall
Date: 30 Jun 11 - 12:34 PM

Yup, screw the working person, works every time.

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 30 Jun 11 - 12:07 PM

Keith A:
Teachers who choose to strike will have 1/365 of their salary deducted.
There is not to be union strike pay.
Teachers in their final years who stike will have a slightly reduced pension because it is calculated on the final years of salary.
That hardly seems fair. They could strike for 200 (approx) days a year and be docked 200/365 of their salary and end up being paid almost half their salary for doing nowt.
Surely the money stopped should relate to the number of hours not worked, compared to the number of annual hours contracted for!

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: MikeL2
Date: 30 Jun 11 - 11:49 AM

Hi

Not being a teacher I do not know whether they get strike pay from their Unions or not.

What I do know is that in the Company I last worked for ( some years ago ) this situation occurred.

After much discussion and argument it was decided that any employees who went on strike would not be paid by the Company.

In fact what happened was that the cost of stopping the pay was much higher than paying them. So they got paid.....and to my knowledge still do if the same situation arises again..

Cheers

MikeL2

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: theleveller
Date: 30 Jun 11 - 11:46 AM

Oh, and Bozo, you have my sympathy - I can see why you need personal protection, living a crappy place like Croydon. Personally, I wouldn't set foot there without full body armour and motorcycle outriders!

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: theleveller
Date: 30 Jun 11 - 11:32 AM

"Firing on all guns are we Leveller "

Rather an unfortunate turn of phrase given my post, Bozo. But then, a grasp of the argument and erudite expression were never your strong points. Obviously the hard work of your teachers made no dent on your unassailable ignorance!:0

Subject: RE: BS: Striking teachers should lose pay
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 30 Jun 11 - 11:23 AM

Actually we have an excellent Safer Neighbourhood Team so I worry not the slightest. However, some dog handlers it seems leave a lot to be desired.

Firing on all guns are we Leveller - couldn't keep away!!