teacher's strike

jackieblack

Poppy9 wrote: »

However the whole point of a strike though is to cause disruption, if it didn't there would be no point in it. Angry parents are actually helping the strike be effective by raising the profile of the strike.

Ahh......as I have suspected all along, teachers really don't care how many parents they p*ss off because they think it helps their cause..... :mad:

jackieblack

Poppy9 wrote: »

It's not really. Parents have a legal obligation to send their children to school and the majority of parents use state schools. Given this legal obilgiation they then arrange their working life around their child's school hours.

They are informed in advance of school holidays so have time to make alternative arrangements if they have to work.

Other days off though throw many parents into chaos with childcare as it's hard to arrange "one off" childcare. ..

Not everyone has family or friends available to help out.

You have summed this up perfectly.
Why is this so hard for some teachers to work out?

FATBALLZ

Marisco wrote: »

Yes thank you, that's a bit clearer, but it does throw up more questions!!! If the contributions go to the gov to spend on what it wants, why don't they ringfence the contributions to just pay for pensions? I would be very annoyed if I'd paid for my pension, and the gov turned round and said I had to pay more, because they'd spent it on something else, and didn't have enough to pay for what it was intended for!

It doesn't make financial sense to ringfence contributions as such, bearing in mind the UK is in serious debt which we pay £40b+ a year interest on, it makes sense to use the contributions now to pay this debt down and use future tax revenue to pay out pensions as and when required.

However if this was a 'proper' pension fund with an investment fund backing it up, what you're suggesting would be more or less what would happen, although given the current level of contributions the fund in all probability would have a huge deficit in future and need substantial taxpayer topups to make it viable.

Marisco wrote: »

And why don't they have the new system just for new entrants? It's not right to change the "rules" half way through the game! Say to everyone, from, say, September (new term) anyone who starts then has to pay more, work longer and have a bit less pension. Then at least they know the score, and it will then be up to them whether they want to become teachers under those rules. At least they'll know "up front", unlike those who are getting their contracts changed to something they didn't sign up for!

I agree it's not nice to think you've signed up for something and then have the rules changed on you, however the reality is that when defined benefit schemes were first thought up, they were based on a couple of stupid assumptions:

1. Life expectancy wouldn't go up substantially.
2. The UK would be very rich forever.

The fault in my opinion lays with the idiots who set these schemes up, and put all the liability on the taxpayer. It is all turning out to be hideously expensive compared to the original misguided ideas, which is why private sector employers no longer wish to carry the risk of these schemes and are letting the employees carry the risk instead.

Marisco wrote: »

This goes for all public service workers, or any worker for that matter, who signed a contract. By all means change the rules for new workers, but it's not really fair to change it for people who might have been working on "old rules" for 15/20 years, and have their retirement worked out on those figures!

Thats open for debate, but you have to look at this from the employer (private sector) or governments (public sector) point of view, the situation has changed for them massively, funding costs of these schemes has multiplied many times over since 20 years ago, I don't personally think we should force private sector employers to go to the wall and future generations to pick up a huge bill for badly thought out pension arrangements that previous generations have promised themselves.

My preference would be for the public sector to be moved onto defined contribution schemes, with something like a 15% employer contribution (to put this into perspective, I get 4%), and then they can top that up however much they like. I don't think it is right to expect your employer to shoulder the risk for the retirement plans of their employees - in the private sector this makes long term planning impossible, and in the public sector means future generations are invoiced with the enormous cost of pensions they can't get themselves and that they had no say in the arrangement of.

poet123

FATBALLZ wrote: »

It doesn't make financial sense to ringfence contributions as such, bearing in mind the UK is in serious debt which we pay £40b+ a year interest on, it makes sense to use the contributions now to pay this debt down and use future tax revenue to pay out pensions as and when required.

However if this was a 'proper' pension fund with an investment fund backing it up, what you're suggesting would be more or less what would happen, although given the current level of contributions the fund in all probability would have a huge deficit in future and need substantial taxpayer topups to make it viable.



I agree it's not nice to think you've signed up for something and then have the rules changed on you, however the reality is that when defined benefit schemes were first thought up, they were based on a couple of stupid assumptions:

1. Life expectancy wouldn't go up substantially.
2. The UK would be very rich forever.

The fault in my opinion lays with the idiots who set these schemes up, and put all the liability on the taxpayer. It is all turning out to be hideously expensive compared to the original misguided ideas, which is why private sector employers no longer wish to carry the risk of these schemes and are letting the employees carry the risk instead.



Thats open for debate, but you have to look at this from the employer (private sector) or governments (public sector) point of view, the situation has changed for them massively, funding costs of these schemes has multiplied many times over since 20 years ago, I don't personally think we should force private sector employers to go to the wall and future generations to pick up a huge bill for badly thought out pension arrangements that previous generations have promised themselves.

My preference would be for the public sector to be moved onto defined contribution schemes, with something like a 15% employer contribution (to put this into perspective, I get 4%), and then they can top that up however much they like. I don't think it is right to expect your employer to shoulder the risk for the retirement plans of their employees - in the private sector this makes long term planning impossible, and in the public sector means future generations are invoiced with the enormous cost of pensions they can't get themselves and that they had no say in the arrangement of.

The point is that they didn't promise themselves, they were promised xyz and paid up accordingly on that premise. If you pay for anything and do not get it, you are entitled to be aggrieved and want redress. This is no different.

Similarly, future generations always bear the cost of decisions taken by present generations, such is life.

oldMcDonald

Poppy9 wrote: »

It's not really. Parents have a legal obligation to send their children to school and the majority of parents use state schools. Given this legal obilgiation they then arrange their working life around their child's school hours.

Parents do not have a legal obligation to send their children to school. The law states that parents have to provide an education suitable to a childs age, aptitude and ability - this could be at school or otherwise.

Poppy9

oldMcDonald wrote: »

Parents do not have a legal obligation to send their children to school. The law states that parents have to provide an education suitable to a childs age, aptitude and ability - this could be at school or otherwise.

I was waiting for someone to mention homeschooling. I also expected someone to mention the fact that teachers themself send their children to school, so they too could be accused of utilising free childcare while they go to work!

FATBALLZ

poet123 wrote: »

Similarly, future generations always bear the cost of decisions taken by present generations, such is life.

As a general rule future generations have usually been left a better situations than the one that went before had, expecting the toddlers of today to work themselves to death to pay for enormous benefits of their elders is entirely different (there already a growing sense of outrage over house prices left to generation x).

I wouldn't take it for granted the kids are going to grow up to want to pay the big !!!! off bill left to them by their parents and grandparents, people who do so may be in for a nasty shock.

poet123

FATBALLZ wrote: »

As a general rule future generations have usually been left a better situations than the one that went before had, expecting the toddlers of today to work themselves to death to pay for enormous benefits of their elders is entirely different (there already a growing sense of outrage over house prices left to generation x).

I wouldn't take it for granted the kids are going to grow up to want to pay the big !!!! off bill left to them by their parents and grandparents, people who do so may be in for a nasty shock.

You might be right, the selfish gene does seem more prevalent now than in previous generations,;) that doesn't make it right, doesn't justify the goalposts being moved so radically when they have already been paid for.

onlyroz

Amazingly, my son's school is one of the 10% that isn't closing tomorrow.