Teachers are threatening to strike if they don’t get a pay-rise of TEN PER CENT. What the hell planet and / or country are they living on? Inflation, either CPI or RPI is only 2.5% or 4.1% respectively. Asking for an annual rise of 10% (I’ll write that one more time, ten per-fucking-cent) is a bit like marrying a Beatle for four years and then claiming the £24.3 million divorce settlement isn’t enough - vomit-inducing for the part of the population who haven’t collapsed in fits of giggles.
I’m all for paying teachers a good wage, but giving them this much will just divert money from classroom resources into the pension funds and holiday homes of the most money-grabbing and greedy bunch of selfish individuals outside the Palace of Westminster City of London.
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9 responses so far ↓
1 Bob Shaw // Mar 22, 2008 at 5:53 pm
You may very well think that Gavin, I couldn’t possibly comment!
2 Anthony // Mar 22, 2008 at 6:23 pm
I’ve not seen the details of this yet, but perhaps they’re asking for 10% because of the number of years where their pay hasn’t kept pace with inflation? Or perhaps they’re just setting out a marker and they want to show that they mean business?
Perhaps we should, as Lib Dems, be encouraging a group of people to try to have a say in something that massively affects their lives instead of kicking them for daring to say that they think they should be paid more? True, they may get it wrong - but that’s their mistake to make.
3 Alasdair // Mar 22, 2008 at 7:15 pm
I thought it was 7% and not an annual rise of this. That would be rediculous.
4 Gavin Whenman // Mar 22, 2008 at 7:59 pm
Anthony - perhaps you’re right… but TEN PER CENT! It’s just laughably unrealistic.
5 Linda Jack // Mar 22, 2008 at 8:24 pm
I agree with the NUT. Part of the crisis in teaching is a failure both to keep track with inflation but also an abject failure to reward what surely is one of the most important roles in our society, why would anyone want to go into teaching now? It frankly is even worse than the Thatcher years. I am one of the many many individuals who trained to teach and left. Oh……..and my pay rise this year? 11%!
6 DiscoveredJoys // Mar 22, 2008 at 8:43 pm
Everybody thinks their job is important and underpaid. The only true recognition of this is when the employers can’t get enough recruits to make up for those leaving.
Striking is pretty useless as a bargaining tool nowadays unless you can bring a country to its knees in a few days. Teachers don’t fall into this category.
Until teachers start leaving and retiring in large numbers no-one else is going to take their 10% claim seriously.
7 lola // Mar 23, 2008 at 7:41 pm
Mrs Lola is a teacher. She is wildly underpaid. The vast majority of teachers are under paid. This is because they work for a totalitarian monopoly. Monopolies do two things they overcharge their customers and unederpay their employees. Break up the state monopoly and teachers will get more than a 10%. They will get much much more money because they will be valued. And what they must also do is to scrap the NUT and all teaching unions and replace them with a proper professional association like the ICE or RIBA.
Clearly this does suit neither the Government or the NUT - so it won’t happen and teachers will remain exploited and underpaid.
Except that their ludicrously profligately run pension scheme costs the employers (i.e. the tax payer) more than 20% of salary roll.
The whole thing (state sponsored education) is a mess and should be strangled.
8 Gavin Whenman // Mar 23, 2008 at 7:47 pm
Um… And what will happen to the children too poor (i.e. most of them) to afford private education?
9 Tristan Mills // Mar 24, 2008 at 10:53 am
Most children are too poor to afford private education - their parents however are another matter…
More seriously: I think there are several assumptions here - first that all private schools will charge a lot - I think that is not true - current private schools charge a lot because the demand is there from the rich. If the demand was there from poorer people then schools would exist to cater for them.
Secondly: the assumption that people will not act out of charity. Charitable schools exist today, mostly set up in the past, but if the state was not monopolising education then I think they’d be set up more today.
Also, many teachers want to teach, they do it for the love of the job, so they may teach for less pay in poorer schools if they don’t have to put up with state regulation in the same way.
Thirdly: The the wealth of the poor would be the same if you scrapped state education - not necessarily true since they’d pay less in tax.
Personally, I would not want to go straight to such a position. Absence of the state in all education is the desired outcome, but to get there we need massive economic reform to free people.
Until then, a voucher or tax credit system seems best to me.
Give total freedom to schools to teach how they like, let people exit schools they don’t like. Make it easy to set up new schools.
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