teachers

[colchris]

Get into schools and teach our kids, fed up with the double standards, you ARE on good money and good pay and pensions,god knows how many weeks a year holidays, you can afford to take your kids away on holiday out of term time, I can't,. any of you who went on strike today should look around in the playground and count yourselves lucky !

[millielilac]

I must agree ...at the end of the day teaching for me was a vocation ....i absolutely loved my job and the hours were irrelevant ...

I was one of those teachers who turned up at 8 am and left at 6 pm ( school was locked then ) . I went on courses ( after hours , weekends and in holiday time ). I LOVED my job ........

I lived in Harrogate for many years ( a conference centre ) and one particular time I saw a lot of delegates who were quite unlike anything I had seen before ...quite a scruffy bunch .I was curious and spent some time investigating to see what particular section they were representing . To my absolute horror this scruffy bunch of individuals was representing me ! They were the elected representatives of my very own union .....

To this very day I cannot believe that these people represented me ...I never once voted to take industrial action ..would never do do yet it appears that a few members can actually determine that action take place. It is more about the members that actually vote to do so ......some members take no part whatsoever...a non vote from a member who is apathetic is a vote lost......

As stated I loved my job but decided at this point that should there ever be a confrontation between my job and my union then I knew where my loyalties would lie ..........

It would appear that in percentage terms those who voted to strike represented a minority of the actual members .......the criteria needs to change. For a strike to have real value the numbers voting to strike should represent a majority of the actual numbers eligible to vote.. In many cases many members do not bother to vote ....a minority do so but their views can predominate due to the apathy of those who do not bother to vote at all....

There is something wrong here ...it need s to be changed......

[**caution**opinion_ahead]

Maybe compulsory voting is the answer.  In the age of the text, it wouldn't be all that onerous for members.

I do have sympathy for the teachers, having been one myself.  The work is exhausting; the pressures are many.  I once counted up the hrs I put in and averaged them over a yr.  It worked out as a 40 hr week for 48 weeks out of 52.  The holidays may look long, but it is a bit of an illusion. 

Arguing over pension rights for individual professions seems a bit of a red herring though.  It distracts attention from the reality that pretty much any pension system (and health care system for that matter) is unsustainable with an ageing population.  The youngsters now, with their student debts and their impossible mortgages and the rising cost of energy and so forth, can't bear the burden and save.  By the time they reach 70, I can't see the system holding up.

[upthecreekyetagain]

When we haven't got compulsory voting for far more important elections such as Local and National government ones it seems to be disproportionate to cal for compulsory voting for union votes!

The majority decision of those who vote in democratic polls should always take precedence over those who are too apathetic or uninterested to vote.

[lambsy_uk]

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@**caution**opinion_ahead wrote:

Maybe compulsory voting is the answer.  In the age of the text, it wouldn't be all that onerous for members.

I do have sympathy for the teachers, having been one myself.  The work is exhausting; the pressures are many.  I once counted up the hrs I put in and averaged them over a yr.  It worked out as a 40 hr week for 48 weeks out of 52.  The holidays may look long, but it is a bit of an illusion. 

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All very admirable and I in no way wish to demean your personal efforts, however 40 hours per week with 4 weeks holiday per year is very common among other professions. I know because I've been there.

[evoman3957]

Why is it that all those who work in the Public sector, seem to think that because they are paid out of the public purse ( directly or indirectly ) it gives them the right to strike, have the best pensions, have the best holidays and many other trappings that go with it. However, working in the private sector; gives you none of these benefits and yet we turn to the private sector to pull us out of the recession. Why should those that are productive in this country, have to take a worse deal; to allow those that are not to get a better deal than them. I appreciate that a country's infrastructure is important to the quality of it's society, but without those that create it's GDP; it will go bankrupt and then ALL those in the public sector, won't get paid AT ALL.

[joe_bloggs*]

You seem to forget that it was the private sector who got us into recession in the first place,not the lolly pop ladies with their "gold plated pensions" and short working hours

The politics of envy seem alive and well  !

I don't think the private sector could survive and prosper without the public sector,In pitting public sector against private sector workers, people are actually doing the governments job for them and creating a race to the bottom on wages and working conditions,which is slowly happening already as witnessed by the ammount of working people having to rely on foodbanks to survive

[evoman3957]

Every Empire has it's day, if History has taught us anything; it should be that. The Romans, The Greeks, The Prussians, The Spanish, The French and............The British. NONE of them have lasted forever, they revelled in the good times; thinking they would never come to and end. This just served to make the end all the more hard to bare. We spent money we didn't have, we lived beyond our means.........the credit card culture; now it's run out and we are in debt. However, "we have no more money to spare" still seems to be beyond the comprehension of the simplest of minds.

[joe_bloggs*]

Billions to be spent on nuclear weapons,tax cuts for millionaires,billions spent on top down re organising the NHS,millions wasted on IDS universal credit,Royal mail sell off cost us millionsOsbournes £8 billion corporation tax cut,it goes on and on

But-  "we have no more money to spare" 

Even the simplest of minds can see it isn't so

[evoman3957]

But when public sector workers go on strike, when they want more money.............it's MY money and everybody else's; who pay it to the government in taxes etc. etc. In case you didn't know, the government themselves don't have any money; the money they have is OUR money, they just collect it in and pay it out. So as most other ordinary people in this Country are also having to "tighten their belts" and are "feelin the pinch".........why should one particular group think the rest of us will just have to put up with " tightening our belts" as long as THEY get more. I suggest you / they go begging to the private sector "Billionaires" who you have such contempt for and tell THEM you /they are going to go on strike unless THEY give you more money. I'll undoubtedly be able to hear them still laughing in a years time.

[colchris]

I see first hand how hard done to teachers make out they are, listening to them moan for the 33 weeks a year they work,then seeing them pull up in shiny cars and hearing all about where in the world they have been for holidays,I don't remember any of them telling me about being on the council waiting list for a house or not going away due to lack of funds, just makes me laugh, try pedaling to work on a rusty pushbike and camping in the rain in North Wales in a second hand tent for a holiday. all that said I know there are people in a lot worse positions than me and obviously the teachers.

[joe_bloggs*]

You do understand that public sector workers also pay tax,don't you,and a lot of that tax has been given to private sector banks by the bucketload.The government rely on people like you seeing the public sector as the enemy.Personally i want people to earn a living wage.The private sector is doing nicely through your taxes.Agency staff earn triple what employees do in hospitals, education, social services and eventually whatever else the tories can flog off

You through your taxes are subsidising the low wages of those employed in the private sector,they pay low wages you pick up the bill through working tax credits,housing benefit,etc,Of course we need the private sector to generate income but the private sector is reliant upon the existence of public sector workers such as doctors,nurses ,the police ,the courts ,other lawmakers and teachers etc..Surprisingly  (or not) most people who moan about high public sector wages don't seem to care much about those low paid private sector workers,and as regards to the private sector billionaires if they paid their fair share of taxes there would be no need for austerity

[joe_bloggs*]

Theres no excuse for a rusty push bike,never heard of Autosol? And i didn't realise it rained much in North Wales

[evoman3957]

I worked in the public sector for 16 years AND the private sector for 25 years, so I've had a pretty good view of both. As for us, well as they say, " never the twain shall meet ". It's just as well neither of us are running the country, because your idea of running finances would bankrupt us in a week and I would just shoot all the Bums and Scum bags and that would be so many; that the rest of us would be able to live quite comfortably...........thank you very much !!

[**caution**opinion_ahead]

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@lambsy_uk wrote:

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@**caution**opinion_ahead wrote:

Maybe compulsory voting is the answer.  In the age of the text, it wouldn't be all that onerous for members.

I do have sympathy for the teachers, having been one myself.  The work is exhausting; the pressures are many.  I once counted up the hrs I put in and averaged them over a yr.  It worked out as a 40 hr week for 48 weeks out of 52.  The holidays may look long, but it is a bit of an illusion. 

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All very admirable and I in no way wish to demean your personal efforts, however 40 hours per week with 4 weeks holiday per year is very common among other professions. I know because I've been there.

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Oh, absolutely.  I was just pointing out the "long holidays" are a bit of a myth these days.