Public Sector Strikes

[TheAnimus]

mind, I can make around 1.5x, maybe more in the private sector and have a bit more free time to boot.

....... You work hard etc.......

Ok might be a bit harsh to edit it out so much, but thats the point your making right?

Your paid less salary than in the private sector, and work harder?

I'm not going to get in to that, but its one of those milage may vary types, there are plenty in the public sector who do sod all work and get paid too much. There are plenty in the private sector too.

What I object to is a blank cheque for an un-known sum been set asside. You think you need a better than 90% of private workers pension to make the work reward balance OK? Well I strongly disagree.

I'd sooner we paid you equal compensation, that is obvious an up-front. The idea that public workers get these obscene pensions, which have an un-known cost, this is the objection, not the comp levels.

I'm simply saying, that you need to realise that your asking for an unknown compensation package. That isn't fair on the taxpayer.

We should pay your wage now, make all the required contributions in pension for each year you serve, that year. Not defer it away and say "oh we'll pay you less but you'll get a big pension, which will obviously be the next government in powers problem to finance".

[TheAnimus]

'So ultimately that means that some poor public sector workers, such as those I listed, will be paying for a bankers bonus, out of their pensions for someone else, who earn more, and best of all that poor public sector worker will never be able to obtain.'

Now you come to mention it, no, that’s not fair.

Well no actually its not that simple.

It seems that demonising bankers is now what people 10 years ago were doing to 'the corporations' you know those people who smoked away a small fortune of pot under a che gavara poster (ironicially printed by a corperation on a corperation supplied printer).

They make just as much sense.

So bankers bonuses, first off most get jack all. If an 'average' bank employed 10,000 people they would probably only employ 2,000 in the IB arm. So thats immediately 8,000 who will get **** awful bonuses because there not in the investment banking side.

Out of those 2,000 most will be back/middle office. They will get anywhere from 5-30% on the whole. Most at the moment getting towards 10% from those I know. You then have the fun land of the front office, this odd place isn't a boys club, you don't need to know someone to get there, you just have to be willing to give them your life, 7am to 10pm is erm not blinked at. Someone I know was doing 7am to 1am with a 2 hour catnap somedays,somedays without, and erm he was a little bit upset because he missed his by a whisker and as a result got half as much as he would have otherwise. The front office has no real rules about bonuses, they can range from 0 to 10 fold.

Those who get the big bonuses are either senior in the management (this is questionable in my mind as often its one or two guys under him who will be responsible for all his sucess) and those who are on the front office trading well.

And that is the problem there, if you have someone who year on year has made money, say 10% managing $50M, you can't really give him nothing. So he will probably get about $500k total comp. That is still profitable for the firm, and just enough to stop him being poached by another firm.

Now the fun thing is if you think you can do it better, well there is nothing really stopping you, thanks to the efforts of maggie the old boys "which school did you go to" no longer applies (well unless your an OTC derivs trader, but thats a different rant).

So the way to stop bankers getting such big bonuses is for more people being willing to do the job, being willing to learn some mathematics, which in fairness isn't hard, and dealing with the constant stress and pressure of the 24 hour world. It really is just that simple.

In the mean time firms will have to pay their staff the bare minimum they think they can to stop them leaving.

And the really obscene payouts? They are normally contractual obligations.

The ones that are damaging are the ones which provide a zero downside to the staff.

But in all to say that someone is funding a bankers bonus via taxation is plain wrong, or if your suggesting its by managing their pension, well then they can elect to do it themselves, they will probably make less money than if they paid a fraction of a % commission, but hey, they can try and they might make more, but probably less (otherwise they would already do this, we all would).

[TheAnimus]

'So ultimately that means that some poor public sector workers, such as those I listed, will be paying for a bankers bonus, out of their pensions for someone else, who earn more, and best of all that poor public sector worker will never be able to obtain.'

Now you come to mention it, no, that’s not fair.

Well no actually its not that simple.

It seems that demonising bankers is now what people 10 years ago were doing to 'the corporations' you know those people who smoked away a small fortune of pot under a che gavara poster (ironicially printed by a corperation on a corperation supplied printer).

They make just as much sense.

So bankers bonuses, first off most get jack all. If an 'average' bank employed 10,000 people they would probably only employ 2,000 in the IB arm. So thats immediately 8,000 who will get **** awful bonuses because there not in the investment banking side.

Out of those 2,000 most will be back/middle office. They will get anywhere from 5-30% on the whole. Most at the moment getting towards 10% from those I know. You then have the fun land of the front office, this odd place isn't a boys club, you don't need to know someone to get there, you just have to be willing to give them your life, 7am to 10pm is erm not blinked at. Someone I know was doing 7am to 1am with a 2 hour catnap somedays,somedays without, and erm he was a little bit upset because he missed his by a whisker and as a result got half as much as he would have otherwise. The front office has no real rules about bonuses, they can range from 0 to 10 fold.

Those who get the big bonuses are either senior in the management (this is questionable in my mind as often its one or two guys under him who will be responsible for all his sucess) and those who are on the front office trading well.

And that is the problem there, if you have someone who year on year has made money, say 10% managing $50M, you can't really give him nothing. So he will probably get about $500k total comp. That is still profitable for the firm, and just enough to stop him being poached by another firm.

Now the fun thing is if you think you can do it better, well there is nothing really stopping you, thanks to the efforts of maggie the old boys "which school did you go to" no longer applies (well unless your an OTC derivs trader, but thats a different rant).

So the way to stop bankers getting such big bonuses is for more people being willing to do the job, being willing to learn some mathematics, which in fairness isn't hard, and dealing with the constant stress and pressure of the 24 hour world. It really is just that simple.

In the mean time firms will have to pay their staff the bare minimum they think they can to stop them leaving.

And the really obscene payouts? They are normally contractual obligations.

The ones that are damaging are the ones which provide a zero downside to the staff.

But in all to say that someone is funding a bankers bonus via taxation is plain wrong, or if your suggesting its by managing their pension, well then they can elect to do it themselves, they will probably make less money than if they paid a fraction of a % commission, but hey, they can try and they might make more, but probably less (otherwise they would already do this, we all would).

[peterb]

And at least 40% of that taxable bonus will be paid to the treasury to fund... public sector pensions (among other things)

[opel80uk]

So bankers bonuses, first off most get jack all. If an 'average' bank employed 10,000 people they would probably only employ 2,000 in the IB arm. So thats immediately 8,000 who will get **** awful bonuses because there not in the investment banking side.

My own dear Sister works for Coutts, a private bank owned wholly by RBS. She does not work in the IB arm of the bank. She was 'only' paid, along with the rest of her non IB team 10% of her not inconsiderable salary this year, down on the 20% she received the previous years. On top of that she gets to take advantage of an excellent profit share scheme, whereby even if the share price goes down, she is guaranteed back at least what she put in. That don't sound much like a **** all bonus to me, and us in the public sector (who by the way pay taxes as well) can only dream of those kind of rewards. And I haven't even mentioned her pension yet, which although not as good as mine, isn't far off. No doubt there will be claims that this is isolated, a one off blah, blah........ Utter rubbish.

You think you need a better than 90% of private workers pension to make the work reward balance OK? Well I strongly disagree.

Actually, no. Most public sector workers that I know think that the majority of pensions in the private sector are wholly inadequate and would like to see them rise to parity with their own. There's the big difference, because engaging in a race to the bottom, whilst seemingly making private sector workers feel better about there own situation yet not actually benefiting them in any real term sense, will mean we're all miserable. I've never been able to understand that attitude; if people feel unhappy about something, they would rather pull others down to their level, then pull themselves up.

I'd sooner we paid you equal compensation

But you're a smart guy, you know that that isn't going to happen, and where in all of the discussions about the pensions, has this been suggested by the powers that be? It hasn't, and if it had of been, perhaps the unions and public sector would have been more amenable to pension reform.

Now the fun thing is if you think you can do it better, well there is nothing really stopping you

Apart my conscience.

[TheAnimus]

My own dear Sister works for Coutts, a private bank owned wholly by RBS. She does not work in the IB arm of the bank. She was 'only' paid, along with the rest of her non IB team 10% of her not inconsiderable salary this year, down on the 20% she received the previous years. On top of that she gets to take advantage of an excellent profit share scheme, whereby even if the share price goes down, she is guaranteed back at least what she put in. That don't sound much like a **** all bonus to me, and us in the public sector (who by the way pay taxes as well) can only dream of those kind of rewards. And I haven't even mentioned her pension yet, which although not as good as mine, isn't far off. No doubt there will be claims that this is isolated, a one off blah, blah........ Utter rubbish.

And how long has she worked for Coutts, a private bank which isn't exactly on a par with say RBS itself?

Is the area she has been working in completely profitable? If so, whats the harm?

Oh and also a 10% bonus is piss all by the time you've paid all the extra tax, income, NI... If you compare that to the £500k pension pot a teacher will accumulate in 40 years...

Actually, no. Most public sector workers that I know think that the majority of pensions in the private sector are wholly inadequate and would like to see them rise to parity with their own. There's the big difference, because engaging in a race to the bottom, whilst seemingly making private sector workers feel better about there own situation yet not actually benefiting them in any real term sense, will mean we're all miserable. I've never been able to understand that attitude; if people feel unhappy about something, they would rather pull others down to their level, then pull themselves up.

Your missing the point. Plenty of people pay in a decent pension contribution, plenty don't, the thing is its a known cost and up to them. There is nothing stopping them taking the 1.5 times higher private sector pay, and putting that extra half in to the pension via defined contribution.

Now that is the problem lots of people don't like the risk of defined contribution, they want to know the benefit they will get. Well fair enough, but we don't know exactly when you'll die, so we've got a massive risk, and when thats on the tax payer....

But you're a smart guy, you know that that isn't going to happen, and where in all of the discussions about the pensions, has this been suggested by the powers that be? It hasn't, and if it had of been, perhaps the unions and public sector would have been more amenable to pension reform.

The negociations haven't even started properly and they are striking? How is that going to help their goals?

What it does is make them look like spoilt children, who have a better pension than the vast majority of the country, whom they DEMAND to pay it.....

Apart my conscience.

And this is the other issue

Public workers need to get the **** over themselves. Is a public streetcleaner really that much better than a private contracted one? Why do they think they somehow are providing an essiental service for?

So lets pretend we lived in health land, where we didn't let people die, no matter the cost, the entire economy would be geared towards providing health care and nothing else. Most people wouldn't be happier than they are now, but hey they'd live longer so its all good? You could then have a tiered system, those who are important in actually providing life care, and all those other silly people who say make recreational items, oh how you could look down on them. You could even dick them on their pensions? Like tax their dividends? But because they aren't in the life care side, who cares! they're not as important as those with a conscience.

Ok so that was a drawn out example, but still.

A firm like GSK, a lot of their money comes from drugs, things we need to live longer, its a vital service you might say, they have an EPS of 1.13. Apple on the other hand produce litterally nothing of any value to any business and make most of their money selling toys. They have an EPS over over 20.

So people are happier to give huge amounts of profit to a firm that makes shiny things, but not one that funds incredibly convoluted and expensive research which helps people live longer and have less pain.

Next time a public worker gets their head up their arse about the importance of their job, I'd like them to think is what they are doing really that important would society break down completely without their selfless contribution any more than it would without someone on the private sector?

[roachcoach]

My own dear Sister works for Coutts, a private bank owned wholly by RBS. She does not work in the IB arm of the bank. She was 'only' paid, along with the rest of her non IB team 10% of her not inconsiderable salary this year, down on the 20% she received the previous years. On top of that she gets to take advantage of an excellent profit share scheme, whereby even if the share price goes down, she is guaranteed back at least what she put in. That don't sound much like a **** all bonus to me, and us in the public sector (who by the way pay taxes as well) can only dream of those kind of rewards. And I haven't even mentioned her pension yet, which although not as good as mine, isn't far off. No doubt there will be claims that this is isolated, a one off blah, blah........ Utter rubbish.

It's not exactly the 6 figure bonuses [most] people assume even john the copy boy gets though?


_________________________________________________________________________________


@no-one in particular: In general, that's what annoys me the most, it's part of their package just as much as public sector pensions are part of their package. However for some reason (well done big media) its ok to suggest taking [performance] bonuses off some people but try and touch other aspects in some other peoples contracts and there's hell to pay?

It seems to boil down to "You can't take away my contractually obliged remuneration, take $OTHER_GUYS contractually obliged remuneration instead!"

[santa claus]

Been watching this one with interest but have refrained from commenting so far. Have to say that I'm glad I did - not only has it given me some points to ponder myself, but Its brought out a few comments from people that have surprised me.

Disclaimer: I am a teacher (University Lecturer), but I have experience at other levels.

I have worked in both the private sector and the public sector. I like to think I'm pretty level headed about the issues raised in the thread, but I don't agree with everything in this thread.

A typical day working for me finishes at about 10pm, if all goes to plan. I rarely get a lunch break and it's generally solid work from 9 till 6ish in the office, home for some food and to see family, and then work again (at home) from about 7:30 till 10/11. At busy times, this will easily go through to early hours in the morning.

A weekend is considered as a couple of days where I can get up 'late' for work, and finish a bit earlier. I cannot think of a single weekend in the last 6 months where I've been able to go out and socialise for any longer than a few hours due to work commitments.

This puts a huge stress on family, friends and relationships in general. I've lost track of how many times I've had to tell friends "I'm working, sorry" when making arrangements. Many of which don't bother asking me anymore because they know the answer or think I'm lying because it's on a weekend. I'll be honest - after a few years it becomes soul destroying and it's easy to see why quite a few people get written off for stress and other related issues.

My position is not uncommon. Some have it worse, some have it easier, but that's the nature of any job.

With that in mind, I can make around 1.5x, maybe more in the private sector and have a bit more free time to boot.
I am not unique in this position. Most of the people I know across various institutes could make more in the private sector. Colleges have such a high staff turnover rate due to this alone, where staff just go and do that.

What most people don't realise is the sheer amount of work that goes into preparing a lesson and the content to take away. Teaching isn't a case of 'reading out of a book' - those days have gone. A set of lessons with proper content can take months to write and prepare, never mind all the tick boxes and red tape that needs to be done along the way.

When you've done that, you have class sizes to contend with. You think the headlines of 30+ students to one teacher is bad? I've seen classes of 50+ in some places, through no fault of the teachers. And a teacher is expected to give every single student, even the disruptive ones, the best education they can and offer support practically all of the time.

There is also no such thing as 'leaving work' when you're a teacher:
Out in the town having a drink? It's considered highly unprofessional to get drink in an area where you could bump into students and see you in anything less than a sober state, even at a University level. Granted, this differs from place to place, but it's still in a lot of contracts under the professionalism heading.

Want to do something a bit risqué , unrelated to your job? If it's found out then your career is gone.

That knock on the door at 11pm? It's one of your students who's ran away from home after her dad has been abusing her.

That 'class clown' who was being disruptive and ruining other peoples education? - An underlying disability which they are now getting help to manage due to the support put in place by teachers and educational institutes.

I know some of you will think I'm rambling now and are asking what the relevance of all this is to pensions, but I'm just trying to highlight a simple point. Teachers are expected to be everything else a child needs, as well as a teacher. Society seems to be offloading more and more onto teachers each year, without any recognition or questioning of this. I've seen parent's go into schools and attempt to beat up a teacher because he dared take a phone off a student who was phoning people in class. The same goes for parents nights - I witnessed one parent ask a teacher "Why the **** aren't you learning him any manners here, he always back answers me"

I've added my disclaimer at the start, so make of this what you will, but teachers are incredibly good value for money for what they do. I'm not going to quote figures, because there are a few different ones about from different sources, but all say the same thing: The overtime that teachers do across the country is in the billions of pounds per year.

Should teachers strike over their pensions if they lose it? On the fence, but I know a lot of good teachers who will promptly bugger off to other jobs if it happens. There is a lot of emphasis on the financial side of things, but most people forget the experience that these people take with them when they leave and the effect it can have on kids. No one likes their favourite teacher leaving, much less if it's one that's helped them through tough times.

Besides, forget striking, if teachers really want to kick off they could do far more damage by only working the hours in their contracts, refusing to do unpaid after school classes and clubs, and all of the other things I listed above and they wouldn't lose a day's pay either.

The pension is certainly one of the reasons people stay in the job, as well as for the love of it.

On the other hand, we get awesome holidays....oh yes, sorry, can't take them, too busy. So when my yearly entitlement resets at the beginning of next month, I think I'll have had about 3 weeks off in total and that includes the Christmas and Easter breaks.
Again, not uncommon and I'm certainly not alone.

I know for a fact that if most of the people I work with were actually paid for the hours they worked and classes had the correct number of staff, this wouldn't be such a huge issue.



I had a much easier life in the private sector - Fact. The work I do in teaching is several magnitudes harder. I find the accusation that we should "actually work" pretty dam offensive and certainly not the level I expected from you or any other HEXUS member.

edit - every time I see someone compare teaching to something like a lawyer, this video always comes to mind.

Whilst I realise it is no consolation or compensation, could I at least thank you for the hard work you do for your students, the future generation of our Country? Our society is built on your kind of dedication and conscience.

THANK YOU.

I know you are worth double your public sector pay. I sincerely regret that others will never appreciate the value of that which you provide.

After your thoughtful and expressive post, I was dismayed by this:

....... You work hard etc.......

Ok might be a bit harsh to edit it out so much, but thats the point your making right?

When the OP resorts to such dismissive flippancy, it made me realise the thread has become hopeless.

My work here is done .

[opel80uk]

And how long has she worked for Coutts, a private bank which isn't exactly on a par with say RBS itself?

She's worked there for about 10 years, but unfortunately for your argument, when RBS took over the bank they moved all Coutts staff over to RBS contracts, and their bonus system is the same as RBS'. Incidentally, the only thing that the Coutts staff won as a concession in the negotiations of the takeover was the right to retain their existing, generous pension scheme.

Is the area she has been working in completely profitable? If so, whats the harm?

The harm is, at a time when we are all supposedly being told that we all have to share the burden and responsibility of getting the country solvent again, that a 50% reduction ON A BONUS, being paid by a bank that was bailed out buy the taxpayer, to staff isn't right.

Oh and also a 10% bonus is piss all by the time you've paid all the extra tax, income, NI... If you compare that to the £500k pension pot a teacher will accumulate in 40 years...

This is the first year that it wasn't 20%. And even so, add up that bonus, along with the profit share options and the better then public sector salary over the same 40 years and I would hardly describe that as piss all. The other issue is that there is quite a big disparity between different public sector pensions, not that you would know it reading this thread. The police and teachers enjoy excellent pension benefits compared to the average NHS pension, yet we are all bundled into one.

There is nothing stopping them taking the 1.5 times higher private sector pay, and putting that extra half in to the pension via defined contribution.

And when there are no nurses or teachers, because everyone's gone off to the private sector to earn more money, and the package offered to graduates is too inadequate to entice them into such roles, what would you suggest we do then?

The negociations haven't even started properly and they are striking? How is that going to help their goals?

As I previously stated, I think the 2 Unions who went on strike called it too early and should have waited. Although I do know that an increase in pay to redress the Public/Private pay inequality is not being considered, so I'm of the opinion that the other Unions are just waiting till the talks are formally over and we'll have the inevitable strikes. The other, obvious, reason they went on strike now is that we are coming up to the summer break. If what's on the table is considered unacceptable, and they feel that there is not going to be room for negotiation, there is no point in going on strike when the kids are at home.

And this is the other issue
Public workers need to get the **** over themselves. Is a public streetcleaner really that much better than a private contracted one? Why do they think they somehow are providing an essiental service for?

Nice rant, but my comment about conscience was in direct response to your suggestions that if I felt I could do better, and due to there no longer being an old boys network in the banking world, I myself could become a banker, not anyone else working in the private sector. It may help reinforce your overly cynical view of practically everything to imagine me hating and sneering at anyone who isn't on the state's payroll. Problem is, that couldn't be any further from the truth.

Next time a public worker gets their head up their arse about the importance of their job, I'd like them to think is what they are doing really that important would society break down completely without their selfless contribution any more than it would without someone on the private sector?

Well it's funny you should say that. Last night me and my wife were talking about the pensions issue after listening to a radio show on it, and she probably, as you put it, got her head up her arse about it. Earlier that evening she told me about her night shift on a cardiac ward (She's a Senior staff nurse) the night before where she resuscitated a 32 year old man who had a heart attack. Would society break down completely without her selfless contribution? No, certainly not (where has it ever been suggested that this would be the case?), but your pantomime villain-esque turn of phrase, knowing full well that no one could possibly answer the question in the affirmative, and then using that answer to justify your viewpoint, only serves to belittle you. Pity, as that closes off debate and entrenches opinion.

[roachcoach]

The harm is, at a time when we are all supposedly being told that we all have to share the burden and responsibility of getting the country solvent again, that a 50% reduction ON A BONUS, being paid by a bank that was bailed out buy the taxpayer, to staff isn't right.

With respect, the term "bonus" does not mean what it used to. It's a contractual element, not really discretionary.

It's the connotations and emotive nature spun around this word by the media about a very small percentile causing problems.


I wonder, were the person to get no bonus but a salary bump of 10%, would the same outrage be felt? That they did their job and had the contractual reward?

"Bonuses" stopped being 'perks' years ago, they represent part of the entire package now. Company cars very likely cost much more for the average employee, I don't see folks going mad about those, because the media hasn't told them to.

[TheAnimus]

She's worked there for about 10 years, but unfortunately for your argument, when RBS took over the bank they moved all Coutts staff over to RBS contracts, and their bonus system is the same as RBS'. Incidentally, the only thing that the Coutts staff won as a concession in the negotiations of the takeover was the right to retain their existing, generous pension scheme.

Your missing the point. Was Coutts profitable? Yes or No?

If Yes, where is the problem? Because the bank bailed out the parent company, all subsideries are banned from having a bonus paid? Where is the harm? Imagine we carried that forward, because one bank was bailed out, which trades with most of the other banks primary, then the secondary, and so forth, it would be most organisations not allowed to have any descresionary comp.

Then what about the goods? If a bank used the government bail out to fund a future so something could be made, that then sold really well, no bonuses for you, it was part of a government money.

The other thing is that the government bailouts are secured, they are already set to get more than their money back, in fact if it weren't for anti-competition rules, they could get even more back.

As such you can't possibly expect a firm that has been profitable not to pay bonuses, in fact doing so would be bad for the government in terms of tax, and bad if any of the staff left. RBS in technology for instance are widely seen as easily paying above the going rate for consulatancy and contractors right now, because permies don't want to work there. This means the tax payer is paying more money for the same job, because people are choosing not to work there for projects their think they will not be fully renumerated for.

This is why I don't understand your complaint, if she has done her job, her business area is making a profit, then let her have it, she is HELPING pay for people like you to have a better pension.

And btw a rough rule of thumb for a defined benefit scheme, we talking well over a third needs to be contributed, a 20% bonus is going to be taxed to abolivion. Even a 50% bonus wouldn't cut the mustard.

And when there are no nurses or teachers, because everyone's gone off to the private sector to earn more money, and the package offered to graduates is too inadequate to entice them into such roles, what would you suggest we do then?

Such excodus isn't going to be instant, and as I've said I've no issue with public workers being paid a market rate, in fact having equality in pensions would enable better movement back and forth.

As such they would be paid upfront too, so no hidden suprises for future generations

Going on strike when the kids are at home? Oh they should be oppertune, why not inconvience as many people as possible, as much colateral damage?

Well it's funny you should say that. Last night me and my wife were talking about the pensions issue after listening to a radio show on it, and she probably, as you put it, got her head up her arse about it. Earlier that evening she told me about her night shift on a cardiac ward (She's a Senior staff nurse) the night before where she resuscitated a 32 year old man who had a heart attack. Would society break down completely without her selfless contribution? No, certainly not (where has it ever been suggested that this would be the case?), but your pantomime villain-esque turn of phrase, knowing full well that no one could possibly answer the question in the affirmative, and then using that answer to justify your viewpoint, only serves to belittle you. Pity, as that closes off debate and entrenches opinion.

Right and there is a merrit to having nurses such as her, but they should be renumerated in a transparent manner.

[Agent]

....... You work hard etc.......

Ok might be a bit harsh to edit it out so much, but thats the point your making right?

Your paid less salary than in the private sector, and work harder?

No, not really.
The term 'teacher' doesn't have a defined role any more, it's more or less become the ability to teach and a list of other things bolted on.
My point is, if you want to kill off something like the pension (which a lot of people went into teaching for), then you need to:

a) Sort the workload out. Current workloads for almost everyone I know are unrealistic. This isn't a case of 'be happy to have a job' like some people in this thread would have you believe, it's that the workloads require people to put in utterly insane amount of hours to get even close to what needs to be done.

b) Get more staff and/or pay for the extra hours done. This one speaks for itself. In the place I used to work in the private sector, people would have given you the finger if you told them they had to work most evenings and weekends for free. Yet this is simply expected of teachers.

c) Define the role - Teaching isn't just about teaching any more. Many parents think that teachers should be a secondary parent for their kids. This really needs to stop.

I'm not going to get in to that, but its one of those milage may vary types, there are plenty in the public sector who do sod all work and get paid too much. There are plenty in the private sector too.

I agree, fully.
There are always room for improvements, and the few that come to mind are:

a) Management - Some of the academic institutes I've worked at have insane amounts of managerial staff. This differs from institution to institution, but some are really really bad.
A huge number of these are there because it's easier to promote them to that position than get rid of them, or because they have friends in higher places. Both anger me.

b) Getting rid of bad staff - It's very hard to get rid of a bad teacher. I've seen some unbelievable ****ups in my time (excuse the stars, but it's hard to express how bad these were) and they are practically untouchable. It took almost 2 years for a staff member I knew to get dismissed for what was gross misconduct due to the hoops and the union walls that were in place - it's just unacceptable.

c) External contracts - I've seen some institutes have certain things like computers and cleaning get subcontracted out. Makes sense if they are value for money, right? Sadly many of these are not.
I saw a contracts that dealt with all the computers at an institute not too long back. They we're literally being ordered from HP/Dell and being 'maintained' (replaced with the same machine when it blew up) for almost 4 times the cost for each unit that ordering direct would have cost them.
And wait for it....The company was owned by an ex-employee / friend of the institute, who has people involved in the decisions on the payroll. Conflict of interest much?

What I object to is a blank cheque for an un-known sum been set asside. You think you need a better than 90% of private workers pension to make the work reward balance OK? Well I strongly disagree.

You don't need to disagree, because I said nothing of the sort. In fact I said clearly that I was on the fence with the entire issue, but the pensions are just the tip of the issue in my experience.

I'd sooner we paid you equal compensation, that is obvious an up-front. The idea that public workers get these obscene pensions, which have an un-known cost, this is the objection, not the comp levels.

Yes, so would I. If I was paid for the hours I was on, I'd be in a much better financial position to pay into an independent pension, should I want to. If they removed the pension tomorrow, then there is simply no way that I could afford to pay into it.

I'm simply saying, that you need to realise that your asking for an unknown compensation package. That isn't fair on the taxpayer.

No, I realise it fully. I'd probably prefer a system that has a higher payout for the hours done than the current one.

We should pay your wage now, make all the required contributions in pension for each year you serve, that year. Not defer it away and say "oh we'll pay you less but you'll get a big pension, which will obviously be the next government in powers problem to finance".

Again, I don't disagree.

Pensions need to be sustainable, I'm not blind to it. Are current ones? Depends on who you listen to.
My personal thoughts on this are there are a lot of other areas that need to be looked at first (the few I mentioned above are just the start).

Sorry for the DailFail link here (you can find it in other places), but if you want to continue to look at the public sector, what about binmen in Birmingham who made over £45k thanks to 'overtime' (Their version of overtime to mine is very different)? You need to be pretty dam high up on the education ladder to even approach that kind of figure. Anything less than a Doctor and you can forget it.

[roachcoach]

Sorry for the DailFail link here (you can find it in other places), but if you want to continue to look at the public sector, what about binmen in Birminham who made over £45k thanks to 'overtime' (Their version of overtime to mine is very different)? You need to be pretty dam high up on the education ladder to even approach that kind of figure. Anything less than a Doctor and you can forget it.

Hah, reminds me of some areas of a council which will go unnamed paying "attendance bonuses". That's right, a bonus for turning up.

After a full pay review, there were strike threats because they were taking that away.

[badass]

I believe, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, that you are suggesting that Teachers and University Lecturers (and perhaps Doctors or Nurses, seeing as they will almost certainly take part in related strikes in the future), don't actually do what most people would consider work?
It's that kind of antagonistic, ill informed opinion, offering no constructive purpose whatsoever, that just serves to entrench people. Well done.

I'm afraid you've got the wrong end of the stick. I was trying to suggest that teachers are the only group striking that actually do some work.
Secondly, you won't see doctors or Nurses striking. It's not in their make up. They will just leave the NHS when they get the chance. Something those striking should be doing instead of trying to hold the country to ransom.

Or alternatively;

'So ultimately that means that some poor public sector workers, such as those I listed, will be paying for a bankers bonus, out of their pensions for someone else, who earn more, and best of all that poor public sector worker will never be able to obtain.'

Now you come to mention it, no, that’s not fair.

Absolutely not fair. The incompetent bankers that made a fortune through getting us in this mess have been unjustly enriched and I wouldn't take issue with the lot of them being forced to pay back every penny they got paid in bonuses over the last 10 years. Unfortunately it's not practically possible.

I had a much easier life in the private sector - Fact. The work I do in teaching is several magnitudes harder. I find the accusation that we should "actually work" pretty dam offensive and certainly not the level I expected from you or any other HEXUS member.

As above. I wasn't having a pop at teachers. I could have worded my posts better but if you see later posts you can see I specifically exclude teachers form those I consider lazy.

Perhaps the best way to make a point is for a union to tell all staff to work to rule. That will prove just how far above and beyond some professions go. The entire NHS would collapse in about 30 seconds if doctors, nurses or pretty much any of the other professionals all decided to work to rule. Our education system would also certainly suffer.
Of course, most of those represented by the PCS union wouldn't get noticed and more than likely wouldn't get noticed by their abscence when they are on strike. I pick the PCS union as most of their membership where I worked were of the workshy types.

[badass]

Not at all (and nowhere near!) . I wrote 2 sentences; one providing a view and the other asking a question which I note you have conveniently ignored.

I'd be impressed that you were doing the jobs of 3 people but if you were able to manage that you were evidently doing the job of just one person with an inherent reluctance to take on more? I appreciate that hacking it in those circumstances would be difficult for you and when you left a subsequent restructuring followed. That's what any responsible manager would need to do to sustain services to the public. Services that are dependent on everyone pulling their weight.

I hope you made pension provision when you left.

Is that the best that you can do?
Dissapointing TBH.

The public sector has a right to the terms of their employment contract. Morally and legally.

Certainly not legally if it gets changed successfully. Morally that's a bit greyer.

[Saracen]

....

Pensions need to be sustainable, I'm not blind to it. Are current ones? Depends on who you listen to.

Just looking at a couple of points, I'll take those two.
It's a subtle point, but that's not really quite the argument. It's about risk of sustainability. Well, it's about a number of things, but on the sustainability issue, it's about the risk, as in, how big it is, and on whom it falls.

See, nobody knows about sustainability. Not for sure. We can make assumptions and predictions but when you're predicting up to 50-years, or so, into the future, it's virtually impossible. Who, in 1919, would have predicted 1939-45? Who in the strike-ridden 1960's would have predicted Thatcherism? Who in 1961 would have predicted the internet-driven telecoms-based 21st Century, with all that goes along with it. Who would have predicted the changes in China and the World economy? The 70's oil crisis, al Queda, and so on. Or the changes in housing demographics wit the rental sector receding and wholesale changes in house ownership .... and the problems that came along with the benefits from that?

We really have absolutely no idea what the economy will look like in 20 years time, let alone 50. Yet, pension contracts operating now will be coming due for payment then. And inevitably, for any economic projections and financial predictions where there is an element of uncertainty, that element will increase over time.

Hence, the problem is not whether pensions are sustainable now, but the risk that they won't be in 20, or 50 years time, and if they aren't, what will be done about it, and how, and paid for by whom?


And that brings me on to ....

....
My personal thoughts on this are there are a lot of other areas that need to be looked at first (the few I mentioned above are just the start).....

Now that I utterly disagree with.

It is, if you like, the difference between strategy and tactics. The strategy is the long-term issues that have the potential to utterly dwarf today's tactical problems. And if we don't address them, all we do is leave a ticking time bomb for our kids, and/or grand-kids.

For those public sector pensions in the "unfunded" category, when we have a population where :-

a) people are living a lot longer, and
b) the balance between young and old is shifting to ever-older

.... we risk ending up with a decreasing young population requiring a decreasing education sector, and an increasing number of retired teachers whose pensions are currently expected to be funded from contributions made by working teachers. So in 30 years time, when teachers in unfunded schemes are retiring, they'll be expecting younger teachers, some of whom aren't even born yet to pay their pensions.

This potentially increasing burden will, therefore, fall on tomorrows teachers, to pay for today's teachers pensions, or on the tax-payer, again many of whom are not born yet.

Are there problems is teaching today? Yes. Do they need addressing? Yes, at least in as far as we are able to afford. But there simply is not an ever-increasing pot of money to call on, and indeed, we need as a nation to be cutting back because we've been borrowing more than we've been earning for years and we can't keep on doing it. And it affects just about all walks of life. So maybe we'll just have to accept larger class sizes, because if you want to increase teacher numbers to combat the workload problems you describe, we simply don't have the money.

But for all that those problems need addressing, they're tactical problems and the strategic is a very different nature of problem. Just because the results, the potential catastrophe, may be several decades away doesn't mean we deal with other things first. That's precisely what politicians have been doing for years, which is why it is such an urgent problem now. And the longer we leave this problem, the harder it will be to deal with.

Yes, so would I. If I was paid for the hours I was on, I'd be in a much better financial position to pay into an independent pension, should I want to. If they removed the pension tomorrow, then there is simply no way that I could afford to pay into it.

But who's talking about removing it?

Have you looked at Hutton's recommendations? I don't mean that patronisingly, but as a straight question. Among his recommendations are :

- fairness for teachers and tax-payers
- protect accrued rights
- move to a career-average rather than final salary scheme.

Look at that last point. Those that benefit most from final salary are those with very large increases in the final few years. But it's at the expense of the rest. A career average scheme works out better for those on lower pay.

And the middle point. Any accrued rights under an existing final salary scheme will be preserved, and only that proportion of a career going forward is affected, under Hutton, by a change to career-average. So, any effect on pensions is phased over a period, for different people at different points. There are also proposals to insulate those in the very final phase of their career where there isn't sufficient time to react, part of which is the protection of accrued rights.

There are also, for instance, proposals for automatic corrections to be applied to produce cost reductions if pension costs accelerate beyond predicted levels due to longer life expectancies or other factors. The point is that if those changes don't occur, the mechanisms don't kick in, but if they do, then it's been planned for and contracted in advance. And that's why it can't just be put on the back-burner any longer, while we sort out other problems. We've done that for far too long already, and if we do it again, it's our kids that will be paying the price for our cowardice in not tackling it.