Striking Teachers.....

[Bazj]

Not content with massive amounts of holidays (did I mention those before), good salaries and better pensions than 99% of the private sector..... these bunch of militant wastrels are wanting more......

 

Never again should they be allowed to disrupt the education of our kids; they should be forced on to no strike agreements......

[Lt Kije]

I do not agree with the teachers Baz, but I do agree with the right to strike

[Cleopatra]

Oh how I wish the teachers in my schooldays would have gone on strike, and often but the only striking those buggers did was with the cane!

[Lt Kije]

:lol:

Nice one Cleo

[wolfie]

Not content with massive amounts of holidays (did I mention those before), good salaries and better pensions than 99% of the private sector..... these bunch of militant wastrels are wanting more......

 

 

Eh no, they don't want more, they simply want to protect what they already have.

The last time Teachers pensions were reviewed was in 2007 and although teachers ended up paying higher contributions, the government got their agreement for a scheme that would be affordable for the forseeable future. The present government want to rip that up and force teachers to work longer and increase their pension payments by 50% and in some cases by 64%, so it can hardly be seen as wanting more.

In 2010 the average teachers pension was £9,806 compared to £20,000 of an mp (which they get after only one term in office), and in the latest review of mp's pensions an increase of only 1.85% on contributions has been recommended from April this year. Of course we are all in it together. :roll:

[inky pete]

I do not agree with the teachers Baz, but I do agree with the right to strike

 

I also support the right to strike, but not the right to a series of one day or short duration actions cynically designed to maximise disruption whilst minimising the losses suffered by the strikers - in many workplaces strikers have even been able to profit from going on strike by doing overtime to clear the backlog of work caused by their action!

 

Once a strike has been called then any return to work should trigger the requirement for a new strike ballot. If workers feel aggreived enough about something to break their employment contracts by withdrawing their labour then they should be prepared to stay on strike until the dispute is resolved and they've either won or lost.

[Lt Kije]

That would not work inky, as governments or companies could just starve them back to work

 

What would help would be make both parties go to ACAS before striking, or to make any ACAS agreements legally binding on both sides for a number of years.

[wolfie]

What would help, is government employees to be treated the same as members of the government. If a 1/60th, 7.6% contributory final pension scheme payable after 5 years is good enough for mp's then it should be acceptable for everyone else.

[inky pete]

A company or government could TRY to starve strikers back to work - but in the meantime they're not getting any work done. Maggie was only able to do it to the miners because Scargill took them out on strike at a time in the year when demand for coal was at its lowest and stocks at the power stations were high. The NUM signed its own death warrant by not opting for 6 months of work to rule and overtime bans to run the stocks down before resorting to striking.

 

Any company with its workforce on all out strike would rapidly come under pressure from its shareholders or owners over loss of profits, and the fear that customers will find alternative suppliers who they'll stay with even after a strike is over. A government would come under pressure from voters/taxpayers over the loss of services which they have already paid for.

 

One day strikes achieve nothing other than disruption for customers and those who rely on services. An all out strike results in a winner and a loser, but the dispute ends up being RESOLVED once and for all.

[wolfie]

One day strikes achieve nothing other than disruption for customers and those who rely on services.

Isn't striking meant to be disruptive, :unsure:

[observer]

The Tories are pursuing a vindictive vendetta against anything remotley socialist in nature, under the guise of tackling the deficit; hence the attack on public sector workers and the stealthy privatisation of Health and other services. Unfortunately in today's global society, striking can be a rather futile endevour, as (in the private sector) it usually results in the company moving abroad and/or going into liquidation and in the public sector, is used by the Tories to divide and conquer the plebs. Alas, revolution is the only remedy - a sort of UK Spring!

[Lt Kije]

Wolfie, I like your suggestion, but it's never going to happen!!!

[wolfie]

Of course it will never happen, because we never were all in it together and never will be.

[Cleopatra]

The Tories are pursuing a vindictive vendetta against anything remotley socialist in nature, under the guise of tackling the deficit; hence the attack on public sector workers and the stealthy privatisation of Health and other services. Unfortunately in today's global society, striking can be a rather futile endevour, as (in the private sector) it usually results in the company moving abroad and/or going into liquidation and in the public sector, is used by the Tories to divide and conquer the plebs. Alas, revolution is the only remedy - a sort of UK Spring!

 

The Brits aint got the balls for it. That's why they just sit and moan amongst themselves, whatever the government throws at them.

[observer]

Correct - we're ever so tolerant!

[inky pete]

Isn't striking meant to be disruptive, :unsure:

 

Strikes are supposed to hurt the employer - not members of the public who have no influence on the situation.

 

Ok, an all-out teachers strike would obviously inconvenience parents, unless they went on strike when the schools are shut - after all, teachers are forever claiming that they don't really get 12 weeks holiday a year because they say they have to work most days of the breaks, so there's no reason why they shouldn't simply refuse to do whatever it is they claim to be doing when they don't have any kids to teach. But an all-out strike would most definitely force a resolution one way or another within a couple of weeks - public opinion would force that as soon as ordinary people found that they'd had to use up half of their own annual leave to stay home and look after their kids.

 

Whether the teachers won or lost would depend on the public, and media, perception of the justice of their fight. If the people are behind them the pressure will be on the government, if not it'll be on the teachers themselves.

[inky pete]

The Tories are pursuing a vindictive vendetta against anything remotley socialist in nature,

 

The socialists have had their time in the driving seat for the past dozen years. They allowed spending on the public sector to spiral completely out of control - resulting in...........

 

the deficit;

 

hence the attack on public sector workers

 

....only, for "attack" read "end of the gravy train"

[Cleopatra]

You must admit, there is something to be said for kicking a few people off the gravy train. it was/is overcrowded, but, are they kicking off the right freeloaders?

[observer]

First of all Inky, your confused if you think we've ever had "a socialist Government", the nearest we ever got to it was in 1945. Second - I'd suggest your vision of "gravy trains" is somewhat myopic, just start at Brussels and work your way down, then look at the Boards and CEOs of private sector companies, not forgetting of course the Canary Wharf gang; there's quite a long list before we should be trying to take away the hard won conditions enjoyed by organised employees. Methinks you need to look above your station in life to gain a sense of perspective.

[Bazj]

Wolfie..... paying a few ex-MP's £20,000 a year is hardly going to break the bank.... paying thousands upon thousands of retired teachers over-inflated pensions (for which they don't have to be 65 to take) might well do.

 

 

and don't you just love it when all the Labour supporters (like obs.... who was till they chucked him out anyway) claim we haven't really had a Labour government for the past 13 years of Tony/Gordons rule.... It sort of goes like this:

 

"If we deny that the last "Labour" government was actually a "Labour" Government.... maybe the dumb voters will forget that the last "Labour" government overspent (and introduced the 50% tax rate about two weeks before the election knowing it would do nothing and would mean the next government has to drop the rate to do any good) and maybe we could sneak a "Labour" government in through the backdoor by denying we have had a "Real labour" government since before the war!

[wolfie]

Strikes are supposed to hurt the employer - not members of the public who have no influence on the situation.

 

 

Not sure you can do one without the other.

[Bazj]

Lets hope the no win no fee lawyers can get on the "my child has suffered at the hands of striking teachers" bandwagon and we can all sue the lazy sods

[asperity]

Well put Baz! It's a well used ploy of the disappointed Labour supporters to claim that the governments of 1997 to 2010 were in any way "Labour". :wink:

[wolfie]

Lets hope the no win no fee lawyers can get on the "my child has suffered at the hands of striking teachers" bandwagon and we can all sue the lazy sods

Perhaps they should have sued the government when Inset days were introduced then, but seeing that most parents are lazy sods maybe they couldn't be bothered. :roll:

[sadako]

Baz, I take offence to the suggestion that teachers are ‘lazy’. I would love you to spend a day with me so that you can join the ‘Sadako Experience’ and witness how many hours I work and how much unpaid overtime I do. On top of that you would also have the pleasure of witnessing how much abuse I receive on a daily basis. Your ignorance and generalisation of people in that professional absolutely infuriates me. There are lazy teachers who cut corners, who don’t do their jobs properly but they are of the minority and it is them that give teachers a bad name. It’s the Easter holidays for me now. I have brought home 120 coursework files to mark, a weeks worth of lesson planning for one subject and a 5 week unit to plan. I have arranged two full days of taught study sessions and I am by my email all day in case I am needed by students. So far I have worked every day through it and I have no choice. That doesn’t bother me because I enjoy my job. The benefits of it is that I can work from home and have unlimited amounts of brews to see me through. What bothers me is people like you who think you know everything about teachers because you’re friends with a few that are the ‘lazy’ teachers. Please feel free to explain to me what you do for a living Baz so that I can make assumptions about you as a person because I am definitely NOT lazy and never have been.

 

Out of curiosity can someone please confirm with me what salary a person would need to be paid for it to be considered as a good wage. This is a genuine question as I am unsure of the national averages.