Not the right moment

[SimpleSi]

I've always loved unions and this pay request has got to be one of the best jokes of the century.

 

Not knocking teachers here, knocking their union

 

Maybe someone needs to send them an email and explain that the country doesn't have any money at the moment and to come back later - maybe 2-3 years later and re-plead the case then

 

Also, the phrase, job and lucky (including us) to have one comes to mind

 

Difference between human race and sheep is very little at times

 

regards

Simon

[SpuffMonkey]

I've always loved unions and this pay request has got to be one of the best jokes of the century.

 

Not knocking teachers here, knocking their union

 

 

While not entirely disagreeing - us taxpayers did seem to have enough cash to make sure the bankers get nigh on a billion in bonuses this year, even after completely stuffing the rest of us...

[SimpleSi]

us taxpayers did seem to have enough cash to make sure the bankers get nigh on a billion in bonuses this year,

 

Just no legit way to cancel the bonuses - there will be next recession

 

regards

Simon

[MkII]

Isn't it just a well worked legal loophole, as any other business that went to the wall the workers surely wouldn't get paid let alone bonuses. The rich always protect themselves and the law is for sale.

[SimpleSi]

The banks haven't gone to the wall so no loophole required - if the gov/banks had tried to stop bonuses they would have been sucessfully sued for breach of contract

 

And although it seems wrong, in the great juggling act going on at the moment - is pretty much small beer.

 

regards

 

Simon

Edited February 22, 2009 by SimpleSi

[MkII]

All the banks are to blame for the crash, and should be paying for everything to be put right. Yes those companies that have gone out of business were the weak ones, but none of them would have suffered if the banks hadn't done what they did. I hear the banks were renegotiating contracts with their cleaning companies to drive down their costs.. those people are being hit twice - one by the recession caused by their employers and hen their employers screwing them for lower wages.

 

They can only sue for breach of contract because the government is letting them. The government let them loose to make obscene loans in the first place.

[Tallwood_6]

What a joke, a 10% pay rise they should just be grateful that they work in a profession that is likely to be relatively untouched by a recession and a 2.3% rise is better than most will recieve. This just further demonstrates to me further how out of touch the profession is with industry. I know alot of people leaving uni this year with low hopes for employment looking to do a PGCE so far from being a shortage i can see the downturn bringing more students into teaching in the hope of safe employment.

[dalsoth]

I like the picture on the BBC site. Especially the placard the woman is holding. Problem is all of the people that can't read it. Deduct 10% from teacher wages until there are easier ways to remove the crap teachers ruining schools with poor discipline and no ability.

 

If you detect any grammar errors please see my former teachers.

[localzuk]

Oh wow. This is just plain stupid. Our national debt is increasing constantly, with local governments having lost massive amounts of money due to the collapse of Iceland's banking system and our own. We've got an increasing number of people wanting to use services due to an increase in unemployment, which is burning through what money they do have.

 

Where do they expect this money to come from? It can't just be pulled out of thin air! It will come from tax increases. Something that those of us who actually *are* struggling to pay bills (even though we have a secure-ish job) will end up paying too.

 

£3000 or a 10% increase. They live in a freaking dream world don't they??

[Ric_]

Teaching staff wage increases have meant that we can barely afford to employ my technician and when he leaves in July I can't see the school hurrying to replace him. I can't see me getting a pay rise either (despite my workload increasing again).

 

I think that the quote about not letting an economic downturn prevent teachers getting a 10% rise just sums up how out of touch they are.

[DrCheese]

This is crazy. As said above they should be happy that they are in a job that the recession (For now) should leave virtually untouched, I know I am.

This does nothing to help improve the view of the profession in the eyes of the general public.

[torledo]

the 2.3% offer for the teachers is very generous in light of the fact we are only part of the way through the worst economic downturn since the great depression.

 

they should count themselves very fortunate that they are getting positive pay increases and continued job security. {3million + unemployed in the wider economy anyone ?}

 

the union are merely doing what unions do, i don't expect the govt. to take a blind bit of notice, however there's an interesting dynamic to teacher pay.

 

it's a given that the tories or a tory/libdem coalition will take power in 2010, the tories know that they have to reassess profligate and unsustainable nulabour public spending commitments and look at the possibility of tax rises....they also claim that education and health will not be the areas to suffer in terms of spending cuts,

 

however i for one would be very annoyed if that policy is used to continue to offer teacher 2 and 3% annual pay increases as the economy will continue to be in poor health, especially when the rest of the working populace are dealing with far worse.

 

very few in the public sector, least of all teachers, should consider themselves safe from a global depression and the consequences of out of control national debt. the future economic situation requires some very tough decisions to be made. 10% pay rises is very much cloud cuckoo land. 2.3% pay increases are in all honesty a bit la la land aswell....don't believe me ? look at the economic figures to see the bigger picture.

[grumpy_git]

The irritating thing is the whole attitude towards teachers pay and support staff pay.

 

With teachers the school have to pay the going rate - they are standard across the whole country. Support staff - they can pay what they like. OK here we have a set of County 'reccomended' grades but the school don't seem to listen to them and just pay what they feel like (and then lie to staff about what they're getting) - oh and ignore questions about how it's worked out etc.

 

If there's a funding problem in the school, it's the support staff who will be the ones losing out.

 

For the past few years we've been trying to get another full-timer hired in, the response has always been "no money" - yet then the school go and introduce a load of new responsibility posts, paying TLRs and then generous lumps of non-contact time?! Its quite galling to be told that you can't work extra hours as there's no money to pay for them (at sh*t pay) - but then hear how an "educational consultant" is being brought in. At £800 a day. For a week.

 

As for the strikes, it'd probably take quite a few teachers going out to shut our school, and even if the kids were sent home the rest would be in doing rainy-day jobs. But if just one member of support staff - the caretaker - went out, that would be everyone gone!

Edited February 22, 2009 by grumpy_git

[witch]

My partner, mrwITch, works for a very large telecomms company and has not had a pay rise for the last 2 years. He would be very happy with 2 or 3 % and so would I.

Teacher's pay is not too bad these days when you take into account the good pension and other things - actually most of the teachers in the schools I work in did say that the last time they were asked to strike - (no NUT members so they didn't.) They were more concerned with the union getting involved to help reduce the stupid amounts of paperwork so that they could actually get on with teaching.

Some of them are aware of how bad the NUT makes them look.

Having said that, I find that the teachers who are married to other teachers are the worst as they have NO idea how things work in the outside world - particulary when it comes to working hours. A lot of them seem to think that people who work 9-5.30 do just that - never doing extra, and never taking work home!!

[torledo]

The irritating thing is the whole attitude towards teachers pay and support staff pay.

 

With teachers the school have to pay the going rate - they are standard across the whole country. Support staff - they can pay what they like. OK here we have a set of County 'reccomended' grades but the school don't seem to listen to them and just pay what they feel like (and then lie to staff about what they're getting) - oh and ignore questions about how it's worked out etc.

 

If there's a funding problem in the school, it's the support staff who will be the ones losing out.

 

For the past few years we've been trying to get another full-timer hired in, the response has always been "no money" - yet then the school go and introduce a load of new responsibility posts, paying TLRs and then generous lumps of non-contact time?! Its quite galling to be told that you can't work extra hours as there's no money to pay for them (at sh*t pay) - but then hear how an "educational consultant" is being brought in. At £800 a day. For a week.

 

As for the strikes, it'd probably take quite a few teachers going out to shut our school, and even if the kids were sent home the rest would be in doing rainy-day jobs. But if just one member of support staff - the caretaker - went out, that would be everyone gone!

 

that's what happens when you have a central govt. who've created a growth industry in consultancy......this isn't restricted to education it applies to other parts of the public sector and to local govt. But nothing like leaving the stresses of the classroom behind to take up a post in this most lucrative of cottage industries.....telling others how to suck eggs. Or even better, you can exploit an opportunity and transfer any educaitonal experience you may have from the corporate sector into state education and command a hefty fee. money for old rope.

 

you may or may not recall some time ago that i posted a pdf highlighting how an entire industry has grown up with the sole intent of bidding for and winning lucrative govt. contracts in the nhs, education, defence etc. this is what the incumbent govt. likes to encourage....it's easier to award contracts to this lot than to allocate and ringfence the funding to pay support staff sufficient wages across the board to enable them to both spend AND save and for them to have wages commensurate with the skill levels.

 

this plus the use of consultants, advisers and layers of middle mgmt is symptomatic of a malaise in public bodies. not that this this unique to the public sector.....but it's worrying when you have that many layers of mgmt allocating funding and making decisions and putting forth a new dictat or target every week for schools and other education centres to follow, and yet they are so far removed from the day to day operations of indivudual schools.

 

imagine if you took a broom to all this 'waste', how many thousands of non-jobs and overpaid talking shops would you add to the unemployment figures ?

How would repossessions skyrocket if you got rid of people whose only transferrable skill is knowing how to talk the hind legs off a donkey ?

 

that's why i say it's not sustainable this blackhole of funding - it's a house of cards a heavy broom away from collapsing, but no politician is brave enough to rain on the party.....sorry for going off on a tanget, teacher pay is indeed a seperate issue to all this and those teachers who work on the front line are doing an infintely more valuable job than a lot of these chancers.....but i was responsing specifically to your point about the use of consultants.

 

i know because i've had to listen to enough of their drivel. And have been astounded at how much some of these people have been paid to provide 'services' for schools.

[localzuk]

torledo, you aren't really off topic at all. One of the main reasons money is so tight in schools and local government in general is because of superflous staff eating away at the budget. It is well known that if you manage to get yourself a job in a county council, you are pretty secure there. Firings are rare.

 

What needs to happen, like with a poorly run company that goes into administration, is for the entire country to be reorganised. Get rid of the jobs that don't do anything. Pay the right wages for those that do. Create new jobs where there are problems etc...

 

At the moment, Gordon Brown and co are simply sticking plasters on the gaping hole in the hull of the Titanic.

[somabc]

I am amazed!

[grumpy_git]

torledo, you aren't really off topic at all. One of the main reasons money is so tight in schools and local government in general is because of superflous staff eating away at the budget. It is well known that if you manage to get yourself a job in a county council, you are pretty secure there. Firings are rare.

 

This is very true. There are so many people who have a fancy job title and yet do screw all. We had a new member of SMT, appointed a couple of years back.

 

Their remit, we were told, included doing most of the work experience stuff (the paperwork etc being done by one of the admin staff), organising INSET and 'professional tutoring' for staff, and working with the Head of 6th form to run said 6th form. A couple of years later, he is still in this post. The admin lady is now doing all the work experience work and is being paid a higher rate for it. The INSET has gone to another group of staff (all with extra payments), and the professional tutoring to another member of staff (with extra payments and about a half timetable). The 6th form is run by the Ho6th, with help from his assistant and another admin lady.

 

So we're paying someone who 'coordinates' these areas, but actually does very little - other than wander in and moan at the students occasionally, go to endless meetings etc. It seems like his actual involvement in anything is simply looking at what everyone else is doing... Oh and takes time off to go on courses, meetings etc despite being on an SMT half-timetable.

 

(That's another thing that gets me. All our teachers with any sort of vauge management responsibility have bags of time off timetable to do it. Yet when they organise a meeting with parents, or a meeting between themselves, or something, they do it in their timetabled time? Therefore costing the school a small fortune in cover.

And then teachers complain about being used - in their specified COVER periods - to cover? Don't see us complaining when the reprographics lady is out and we're expected to know where the cameras are kept, or another person in our team is out and we do extra work, or one of the caretakers is out and 300 exam desks need put out!).

[torledo]

one of the reasons for so many layers of mgmt is that the managers at each level need subordinates to justify their status and salary. it's another one of those pyramids.

 

if councils and education services within authorities were flatter in structure and you had more people providing actual frontline services or they employed more people to provide support services to genuinely aid the frontline staff then council taxpayers would be getting better value for money and a better service.

 

but such a system would work against the vested interests. who like the central govt. comrades like nothing better than to have meeting upon meeting to give the impression of being 'do-ers'. while taking home a not unreasonable wage every month.

 

these characters believe they have a god given right to not only a job but a well paid job at that. the whole setup is a game of musical chairs, the non-jobs get shuffled around and that way the fat cats can pay lip service to the concepts of efficiency and change. complacency had given rise to a false sense of financial security which had encouraged speculative investment.

Why not make a dubai pwoperty investment if you and the partner think you've got a job for life with guaranteed annual pay increases ?

 

no such thing as a new broom with so many self-interests in an org......., but as you say more and more councils are having serious funding issues so i don't believe there's such a thing as a safe job for life in all councils anymore either.

 

our economy is very diverse, but this also disguises the fact that it is very bloated.....i'd like the broom to start with financial services. this depression did ripple out from the US, but you only need to see how complacent we've become because a lot of people didn't understand what was required to be financially secure and didn't countenance against unemployment.

 

teachers are certainly one of the groups who may have good reason to believe that it 'won't happen to them'. they are untouchables but nulabour and the councils seem to have created a lot of other untouchables who are not worth protecting because they add no value except otherwise through redunancy the govt. have to pay them jobseekers allowance and the interest on their mammoth mortgages. aswell as add them to the ever expanding list of unemployed.

 

now i am going off-topic.......so i'll stop. promise.

[contink]

Ok... as nobody else has stood up on the teachers side of things I'll take my chances and step into the firing line

 

I'm married to a teacher and I'll be honest I think she does get paid a pretty reasonable wage for what she's supposed to be doing which is educating a large number of children. However, what seems to be happening is an ever increasing level of work, initiatives, changing goalposts and the like that are enough to make my head spin, much less hers.

 

I'll skip over the usual manglement idiocy, poor behaviour, etc... because she could easily go to another school and skip all of that.. but there is an arguement for a payrise based on the fact that teachers are no longer just teachers.

 

Ok... all that said, 10%... Good grief... Hello, Mc Fly.. head check? Is there anyone in there? That woman needs sectioning and carting off to the sanitorium if she honestly believes that rubbish.

 

Far better to scrap the extra how many thousands of golden hello's they were going to use to carve up any hope of intercooperation within the teaching profession and putting that back into funding the schools for the things they need, and not those "ooh, and here's a new great idea" brigade mentioned above.

 

Actually there's a thing... There's no need for those hello payments now is there... Teaching numbers are going to shoot skywards as people retrain and again, as pointed out, they'll be happy to have a job.

 

Anyway... nuff said... *runs back to trenches*

[localzuk]

Teachers have never been just teachers. Just like Network Managers are not just Network Managers, and Site Managers are not just Site Managers. We all do extras, we all have moving goal posts, new initiatives (netbooks, PDAs, VLEs, MLEs etc... anyone?). But if we even thought about demanding 10% pay rises, we'd be laughed out of the school.

 

Also, thing to remember here is what the economy is going through. Making any demands about pay increases now is just stupid. Inflation is falling, so justifications for pay increases are crumbling away too.

[witch]

Ok... as nobody else has stood up on the teachers side of things I'll take my chances and step into the firing line

 

I'm married to a teacher and I'll be honest I think she does get paid a pretty reasonable wage for what she's supposed to be doing which is educating a large number of children. However, what seems to be happening is an ever increasing level of work, initiatives, changing goalposts and the like that are enough to make my head spin, much less hers.

 

 

Actually I did say pretty much what you said above - teachers just want to teach...

[grumpy_git]

Wasn't the whole point of the teachers "Workload Agreement" to allow them to do just that?

 

Unfortunately, again, the implementation was slightly flawed. Schools were told that teachers were now allowed to refuse to do a certain specified number of tasks - and that these should be done by support staff. Unless investment was (/is?) made in support staff, we simply move the workload problem from one group of staff to another. Recently, we had a few changes with regards to 'mentoring' students - the result of which is that each student has 'targets' etc on a piece of paper which is photocopied, sent home, a copy given to the student and filed. Of course, this is outwith the scope of a teachers job, so it gets chucked onto support staff, who simply didn't have the time for it. Each week since then in the pastoral meeting, it has been raised - "more admin time is needed". I think the result was to allow one of the office ladies a couple of hours overtime!

 

Also, they say that things like cover admin, exams admin etc shouldn't be done by teachers. We have a teacher who is excellent at that sort of stuff - he's our timetabler as well - he is quite clearly THE person to do that job. OK has some admin help with typing in hundreds of resit applications and that sort of stuff, but, doesn't it make sense that the best person for the job does it, rather than some arbitrary division that "X shalth not do Y"?

[contink]

Actually I did say pretty much what you said above - teachers just want to teach...

 

So you did.. Sorry for not acknowledging that... Great minds eh?

[Dos_Box]

However, what seems to be happening is an ever increasing level of work, initiatives, changing goalposts and the like that are enough to make my head spin, much less hers.

 

Sounds like our jobs?