Teachers strike on Thursday

alm721

Not sure about ATL but 40% of NUT members voted. However, of those who did vote, 92% voted for strike action, which says a lot I think.

Janepig

alm721 wrote: »

Not sure about ATL but 40% of NUT members voted. However, of those who did vote, 92% voted for strike action, which says a lot I think.

Yes, it says that way less than half of NUT members voted for strike action, but hey, them's the rules. I'm sure someone will be along soon with better maths than me to work out the actual percentage for (unfortunately my maths teachers were rubbish and I don't even know my times tables ).

Jxx

jellyhead

I don't know what unions they are in but the office staff at our primary school are adamant that nobody will strike, that they just wouldn't do it.

kafkathecat

Often only around 30% of people vote in local or European elections but noone ever counts the non voters then. Only 65% of people turned out at the last general election, why don't we count those non voters as not voting for the government?

msb5262

kafkathecat wrote: »

Often only around 30% of people vote in local or European elections but noone ever counts the non voters then. Only 65% of people turned out at the last general election, why don't we count those non voters as not voting for the government?

Yup, everyone is focused on "only 40% turnout in the ballot".
We need to make a mental note that 92% in favour of industrial action is an overwhelming majority...which is more than any political party currently has in the House of Commons!

If so many union members are utterly against striking, I wonder why they didn't return their ballot papers...?

My school is closing on Thursday as about half the class teachers are NUT members and are planning to strike.
It is our right to take industrial action and I feel extremely angry with Michael Gove's efforts to undermine this right by encouraging schools to do everything they can to break the strike.
If my children's schools were asking parents in to supervise the children, I would not be sending my children to school.
Safeguarding has gone out of the window with Gove's obsession with keeping the schools open for a day...remember April 29th, Mr Gove?

MsB

Janepig

msb5262 wrote: »

Yup, everyone is focused on "only 40% turnout in the ballot".
We need to make a mental note that 92% in favour of industrial action is an overwhelming majority...which is more than any political party currently has in the House of Commons!

If so many union members are utterly against striking, I wonder why they didn't return their ballot papers...?

My school is closing on Thursday as about half the class teachers are NUT members and are planning to strike.
It is our right to take industrial action and I feel extremely angry with Michael Gove's efforts to undermine this right by encouraging schools to do everything they can to break the strike.
If my children's schools were asking parents in to supervise the children, I would not be sending my children to school.
Safeguarding has gone out of the window with Gove's obsession with keeping the schools open for a day...remember April 29th, Mr Gove?

MsB

Because the 40% thing is a major factor in this imo. And yes, I feel the same about general elections, european elections, etc... where there are very poor turnouts, which is often heavily debated at the time too. It's long been my opinion that people should be legally obliged to vote, even if it's to scrawl "none of the above" (as I have done) on their ballot paper. I'm quite sure that plenty of people objecting to the government's pension plans are quite happy to point out the margins on which the con-dems came to power (and as you pointed out in your post)!!

To my mind, it's wrong that less than 40% of NUT members can cause this disruption, not to the government, but to ordinary families, many of whom are suffering financially themselves. And I would hazard a guess that the majority of members who didn't return their ballot papers are probably not fussed either way, either for or against action. Strong feelings either way would surely result in the papers being returned. But that's a hell of a lot of apathy amongst the non-voting NUT members if you ask me.

Jxx

chumbasmum

A lot of people who work in the private sector seem angry not so much that teachers want to protect their pension but also because they have lost their company pensions.
i think that this is sad because I would have genuinely supported private individuals where i could have ..... written, signed petitions,even boycotted etc because I genuinely feel that security in old age is a wise thing for a country for all of us. I'm not keen on an 'I'm alright Jack' attitude and I would try and support all people to try and support their pensions.
People with little money in old age will need to be helped by the state anyway with credits/benefits and I would rather see people with pride being able to support themselves into their twilight years...
Talking about age though, I found this...
"Depressingly for a male teacher who works full time as a Head of Department or lower and retires at retirement age and not early then the average life expectancy after retirement is a glorious 18 months"

This was when people retired at 60/65!!! At new retirement ages of 68...well, you do the Maths.

SB1915

I've just found out my childrens school is closed so will have to make other arrangements. To top it off the before and after school and school dinners are external companies so we have to pay for child care and dinner we can't use as the school is closed! :eek:

Valli

One good reason (IMO) for NOT raising the retirement age (for ANY jobs is the fact that it will mean longer serving workers (who traditionally warrant haigher pay0 will stay in post and this won't free up vacancies for new, young blood to the workplace.

And all these parents who are cross because they have to keep children at home - what do you do when your children are ill?
Oh yes - send them to school 'Little Johnny was sick in the night but I think he's ok now...'

And then there are the parents who go away in term time...

Works both ways folks!

Valli

chumbasmum wrote: »

"Depressingly for a male teacher who works full time as a Head of Department or lower and retires at retirement age and not early then the average life expectancy after retirement is a glorious 18 months"

This was when people retired at 60/65!!! At new retirement ages of 68...well, you do the Maths.

Humm - I went to a school where the Head was found dead in the cloakroom. Looks like we might be seeing more incidents like that then!