Teachers' strike (comment made on the radio)

Isn't it obvious? :D

 

I believe you and have heard the same from other people - interestingly, from a university lecturer who would be on a similar pension scheme to myself but who creates jobs within his department by applying for various types of funding. But I don't want to get into arguments about who works the hardest or gets the most stress for what they earn. It's impossible to quantify in any case.

I think many jobs have been made far more stressful than they used to be, to the extent where any increases in productivity are being eroded by the work force being stressed and harried by continual change and artificial target-setting.

I recently met a nice lady who worked in a tourist information office. What a nice job that must be, I thought, helping people all day. Apparently not: they are run ragged answering each phone call within a certain number of rings, with dire penalties if they fail. What is the point of doing this to a nice bunch of blameless and conscientious middle-aged ladies who have given me unfailingly good service everytime I've ever been in a tourist information office? It wasn't broke but they "fixed" it.

It concerns me that people are now expected to work till 66 or beyond at jobs that they can only just cope with at the age of 40 or 50. I am very prepared to work at some kind of paid employment as long as i can (or voluntary work) but not a high-stress occupation with long hours. I am concerned that everyone has to continue earning until their late 60s but that suitable lighter, less responsible work will not be available; even if it was older people will feel guilty for taking the jobs when school leavers need them just as much if not more.

In the case of teachers, I can't see that it makes sense to pay high salaries to (possibly) less productive teachers in their 60s when you could pension them off at much lower rates then get in lots of fresh, cheap probationers.

I really think there is an agenda that if you make the population work hard enough for long enough (and allow/encourage them to eat rubbish diets) they will drop dead sooner, thus saving the big pension bill currently payable to those sprightly 85 year olds brought up on organic war diets and softer jobs.

You are correct about the employer's contribution. But this has always been above board, and was intended to be an invisible supplement to teachers' generally lower expected salaries to what could have been earned at the time in the private sector, and to compensate for the absence of other perks in teaching, such as company cars. These "priveleges" have been available to anyone who was willing to enter the profession. But many couldn't or wouldn't. That still doesn't justify broken promises.

I should also point out that I paid all MY 50ps into the pot without fail- we should all be angry with a succession of inept governments that can't keep their side of the bargain.

Anyway, about that commune in Wales - can I come? At least we wouldn't go short of an organic carrot and we could heat the teepee with obsolete lesson plans.

 

Hi folks.

My thoughts.

Sometimes it seems that people get the impression that working in the public sector is a bed of roses. My wife works for South Glos Council, as a care worker, and I can assure you that it's no bed of roses! She gets around £8 an hour for what is a very important service, often involving 'personal' care, I'll leave you to fill in the blanks. She's not had a pay rise for 3 years now. Having said that, we're not complaining as times are hard for most. Having said THAT, looks like she's now going to lose her job. She's slightly younger that me, aged 55, so any changes to her pension will be hard to put right in the remaining years. Of course, at least she will get a pension, but don't go running away with the idea that if one works in the public sector, then one has it made.
As for teachers, lets not forget it IS a profession, and my guess is that many of them could get much higher paid jobs. I think that for the most part, they do a good job, and have a lot to put up with. I for one wouldn't want to have to put up with a load of rowdy and sometimes abusive/violent kids. Should they strike? Well, they have the right, but when it's a service that affects children, then it's always going to be emotive, no matter what the issue is.

Cheers...Freddy.

 

I have a horrible feeling that, over the next few years, things are going to go roughly as follows:

(1) If you have a decent pension, it will be deemed that you must have obtained it unfairly. The Government will therefore do its best to extract it from you, while the have-nots cheer and bay for blood.

(2) If you don't have enough provision for your old age, you will be encouraged to commit seppuka. If you won't do the decent thing, you will be left to rot until you are dressed in stinking rags and eating cardboard. You will then be rounded up and placed under lock and key in the newly-established Workhouse For Elderly Spongers and Coffin Dodgers, which will be run by hostile teenagers on work placement schemes who chuck rocks at you and nick your false teeth.

 

No problem really
You pay into the pension pot from age 15, every week until you are 65
Then you retire with a pension
At age 70 you are put down, your belongings sold and the money goes to the Gubernment
No problemo

Jack McH

 

Croeso, welcome.

 

This bit already happened didn't it? A few years ago it came to light that a change in the law sneaked in, that enabled the government to do two things with your pension:
1 - The new powers meant they could tax it
2 - If you didn't claim it for so long, or the trustees lost track of you, then the government could seize it.

I'm afraid that's pretty much exactly the situation we already have. State pension is a, from what I gather, a pittance. If you haven't paid enough stamp, say for example because you are a woman that took several years off to raise the kids, then you don't even get a state pension at all and have to beg for other benefits, which are means tested.

The society we live in does not care for the elderly and infirm. When you stop being useful, you are left to fend for yourself.

A few months ago my step dad died after being ill (stroke) for several months. He'd worked all his adult life, and paid his taxes and NI. In his younger days he'd served time in the army. When the hospital decided they'd done all they could, he was moved to a nursing home where at first they hoped he'd gradually recover and then be able to go home, but then it became apparent he wasn't going to recover, so they just looked after him for his last few weeks. My mother, being skint, just assumed that it was all part of the NHS care that he'd paid for all his life via his tax and NI. Within days of his, before he was even buried, she received a bill that worked out at about £150 per week for his time in the nursing home.

My philosophy is to work my butt off while I can to make sure my wife and son aren't stuck when I pop my cloggs, try to build up some assets before I go so that I've got something to sell that I don't actually need, if I make it to old age, or something for the lad (and any subsequent kids we have) to sell if I don't make it to old age, so that they wont be stuffed.

 

QUOTE CLUELESS
"My philosophy is to work my butt off while I can to make sure my wife and son aren't stuck when I pop my cloggs, try to build up some assets before I go so that I've got something to sell that I don't actually need, if I make it to old age, or something for the lad (and any subsequent kids we have) to sell if I don't make it to old age, so that they wont be stuffed. "

But that is the problem,
If you have anything you get NOWT
If you have nothing you get everything

Personal family
My father worked all his life on the railway bought a house and paid into a pension no nights out on the bevvy as the mortgage took all
When he retired he got railway pension of £9 a week (1980)

His Brother I L, Worked occasionally, out most nights at the working mens club
council house part rent paid, part rates paid
Retired on OAP (1984) Got rent paid, rates paid, free prescriptions, free invites to the Christmas pensioners parties, free summer holiday trips for pensioners

Dad got nothing as the £9 took him over the threshold for benefits

I now work in benefits a working family with £20k which is taxed and NI a year get nothing

A FAMILY or SINGLE PARENT (Single no kids get nothing) working 16 hrs a week £5k a year gets £4k a year top up, £4k a year for each child,free prescriptions health care, free rent and reduced council tax, 70% of child care paid
The equivilent of £18,700 tax free take home pay or £360pw tax free , Not forgetting the free xmas dinners over several weeks, free kids toys (children in need) free summer holidays for the under priveleged, monthly food hampers from the church

The hardest part is qualifying, you have to be a professional never worked in your life or suffer the first year with nothing

Jack McH

 

Nice to see you're looking to the future Jack.
At 64 just how many more kids are you going to have? Does the OH know?

 

Given up now
Though when Hong Kong was given back to China I did have 48 passport requests :-)

Jack McH

 

I watch and I wonder where it will all end. The greed and the incompetence of public secter workers who waste and squander our money. If we can,t find a leader to break this trend we will end up like Greece. I work hard to survive and when I fill my van with £120.00 of Diesel I can't help feel despair at the thought of the £70.00 tax that will be wasted.
I am glad I am not a young man starting out to provide a home and raise a family the way things are going.

 

What a strange post. Have you no concept that many public sector workers work hard to survive? How are they more greedy than anyone else - most of them are in averagely paid jobs and just get on with them? If they were wiped off the face of the earth tomorrow how would your kids be educated, your councils administered and your illnesses treated?

 

Might not be a bad idea for some of the 2,600,000 to apply for a teaching job - it might help reduce the shortage of teachers in some areas of the country.

 

Pensions seem to be largely dependent on the Stock Market.
Most Employers, and Employees, can see their Pot go up and down subject to the whims of a few speculators on Wall St. and the London Stock Exchange.
Just watch Ceefax (page230) each day and see the aimless meandering of the value of the £Stg against the $US and Euro until 2pm when the Wall St. market opens.
Subject to the initial direction the US market takes, the UK stock value will lurch in sympathy and then stabilise before closing.
The US market trades on for several hours and then at 8am the UK market re-opens and tries to catch up with Wall St. It then stagnates until Wall St. re-opens.

Is there any wonder the UK Pensions, Industry, Trading Deficit, Stock Market, Fuel Prices, Inflation (and any other area of everyday life you can think of) is completely screwed.

BEAM ME UP SCOTTY - PLEASE!!

 

I think there are a lot of misconceptions floating around out there and the Government doesn't seem particularly keen to correct them (I wonder why?). In the past there have been times when I've thought that things have got out of hand - the time when I found myself in a meeting with the wonderfully named 'Deputy Head of Inclusion' and her delightful sidekick, the 'Wellbeing Officer', for example - but there's no point in blaming the individuals who secured these non-jobs. That was down to the dotty culture of the time.

To many people 'public sector' now means overpaid and unnecessary bureaucrats making a complete pig's breakfast of everything and then walking away with inflated pensions. It doesn't mean the carers and and the practical staff who keep all the ordinary things going. Often, they are not only amongst the lowest paid people in the country, but also first in the firing line whenever there's another round of cuts. I have a feeling that the Deputy Head of Inclusion has a darn sight more security of tenure than the local roadsweeper, although I'd opt for clean streets over ideological flim-flam every time.