Hmm.......just had a glance at the other side. Quite a few people disagreeing with last Thursday's action. Also, making very unkind comments about teachers in general - therefore making unkind comments about ME! Anybody here have any views on this? But, please try not to make insulting comments if you disagree with the teachers' action. Thanks, Al.:england:
Not been on there for a while Alan but not surprising, let all the teachers quit then these numpties will get what they want completely uneducated kids brought up in their own image, not talking about the other place specifically but about that kind of comment in general. My daughter is a teacher and she was not short of options she got a 2-1 from Durham and could have chosen to go into many different fields, she chose teaching because she wanted to teach. Regards the strike I've not really been following it, but I believe it is about the kick in the teeth over pensions? Everybody's pensions are getting kicked in the teeth but I do have sympathy for many in the public sector particularly those nearer retirement who feel that promises made to them long ago are being broken, particularly as in many previous wage negotiations pensions will have been used as a bargaining tool by the employers, you know the 'look how good your pension is' type of argument. Young teachers well they have longer to deal with it and more time to make choices about their future. I don't think any of the public sector will win this time as the simple fact is the UK is becoming a poor country slowly but surely and if we want the rest of the world to keep lending to us at reasonable interest rates then sacrifices have to be made everywhere. Trouble is the rich won't sacrifice very much.
My take on all of this is simple, this Government has not produced one single new regulation to come down on the people who took us into this mess - the bankers. And instead are following a path set by political ideology rather than the needs of the country. The Tories want a small Government, with little public accountability and are using this current state as the excuse. And shame on the Lib Dems for moving from their principles just for a small amount of power...
I never begrudge the right to strike to anyone. My hackles go up slightly when the union leaders just go ahead without balloting the members. But as the pension argument goes, I find it disturbing that the retirement age has been increased without proper consultations. But I don't think it is fair to throw all the blame at Cameron, as the process was started a few years ago with labour and Brown presiding over the raiding of the pension kitty of millions of people. Strangely, the unions didn't say much about that, or anything at all.... Maybe because the affected parties were already retired...??? Teachers are there to help, and they do extremely valuable jobs, apart from a few deadbeats, and yes, I see why they would need to retire and not look back at a lifetime of dealing with obnoxious kids. Or Teaching the unteachable. I did support the day of action, in a sense, but I was incensed and annoyed by the decision of many border control officers to take part, thus putting the life of many at risk of harm. For one day, any tom, dick or ahmed could have come in unchallenged, and that scares me.
The last few years of my working life were spent as a civil servant. Many people employed in the Civil Service are actually women working part-time. The salaries are very low hence the pensions are also very low. Only the very top few get so called 'gold-plated' pensions. My mother was a teacher in a local primary school for many years. I know well how much she enjoyed it and the sense of satisfaction. Sadly, I also know how that was gradually eroded along with the overall respect for teachers. As she got older the stress she felt also impacted us. There surely must be a time when it's no longer practical to have say 68 year olds sitting on the floor with young children. My mum had a teachers pension amounting to £81 per month when she passed away in 2007 aged 78 years. But the strikes were not about teachers. They were about pension issues. I'm sure that the top levels of Public Service employees can easily afford to maintain the pension fund viability of all Public Service employees with impacting those on lesser pension pots. Are MP's going to implement similar changes to their pensions? And the many high earners of all the govt quango's etc? It's not altogether right to say the taxpayer is paying for Public Service pensions. IMO
It seems pretty likely that the protection given to strikers will be eroded if these strikes become serious. People should, of course, have the right to not come in to work, if they don't want to, but as per their contract, they should give formal written notice of their intention to resign. I can't see any reason that a member of staff can, in effect, tell their employer that they are going to pick and chose whether to work yet still expect to keep their job. It'll not be a surprise if it becomes easier to let strikers go, which, in my opinion, is a good thing. Indeed. When trade unions were envisaged it was to protect the rights of the individual or group of workers against a company to stop them bullying workers. However, a strike is usually used as a bullying tactic by a union with the bargaining chips being the inconvenience to the general public.
Al, some people do not have the common knowledge of being able to differentiate between the reasons for the strike. And they cannot blame their teachers for that sorry state of intelligence, but their own parents for peeing in the gene pool.
