Strikes. Are you with them or not?

[raferackstraw]

my mates a fireman and they are being asked to pay an extra 90quid a month with no gaurantees that it will be reflected in theirs pensions, in other words the government is asking them to help pay back the debt.

what is disgraceful is the fact that we probably wouldnt be in this situation with pensions if gordon brown hadnt started raiding them to bolster the government finances when labour were in power.

the other disgraceful thing is why should a public sector worker who gets more than 60k like judges, MPs, senior council staff, customs etc get huge pensions? those types of public workers are making a mint while their working so should have enough sense to use their money to safeguard their futures and lessen the strain on the public purse. hence i dont see any reason for public sector pensions to be more than say 20k a year annually for any public worker no matter what their postion.

one last thing is, any banks bailed out by the taxpayer that are still paying out bonuses should quite simply be taxed at twice the amount payed out in bonus
thats my twopennyworth, but teachers striking when they get 13weeks holiday and by and large dont really do that great a job in giving kids a good education nowdays is a bit much really.

[simc66]

People seem to be missing the whole point of this. At the moment the public sector all get to retire with a cushy pension at 61 while us private sector bods, (who bolster their pensions) get to work a nice 5 years longer (8 years very soon). They are striking because they will have to work as long as everyone else.

IMO they are f**king work shy parasites.

Edit - and as for teachers, 13 weeks holiday a year, they need lining up and beating very hard with a common sense stick.

Heh, you'd last five minutes in a class of 30 arsey 15-year-olds.

The bit that people are missing - because the government doesn't want to tell you it - is this.

1) The average teacher pension in 2009/2010 was £9,806

Now, the real problem ....
  
2) 12% of teachers are aged 55-65 (in secondary schools this rises to 18%).  Given that current contributions are protected, if the Govt managed to bring the changes in, a huge amount of those would simply retire on the spot because they couldn't increase their pension pot and the final salary factor would disappear.  How the hell are we going to replace them?  Especially as ...

3) ... the number of people qualifying for secondary school teaching has gone down by 34% in the last two years.  One of the things that was attracting good graduates into the field was the decent (not gold-plated) pension.  If that goes as well, why the hell would a maths, physics or chemistry graduate go into teaching on 21k rather than earn far more than that in the private sector?  Especially those who have to do an extra year at uni to earn their PCGE?  I wouldn't if I was 22 again.

4) A new teacher earns 21k (outside London) yet pays £100 a month in pension contributions.  If that goes up to £160 a lot of new teachers - saddled with huge uni debts, and that's going to go up hugely soon - will simply opt out of the scheme, leaving LESS money to pay current pensioners rather than more.  In fact, that's starting to happen already.

5) Do you really want 68 year old teachers in charge of a bunch of teenagers?  If you've got young kids now, that's what they're going to get ... if they get a qualified teacher at all, that is....

6) Don't get me started on the 13 weeks holiday thing

[Mitching]

my mates a fireman and they are being asked to pay an extra 90quid a month with no gaurantees that it will be reflected in theirs pensions, in other words the government is asking them to help pay back the debt.

what is disgraceful is the fact that we probably wouldnt be in this situation with pensions if gordon brown hadnt started raiding them to bolster the government finances when labour were in power.

the other disgraceful thing is why should a public sector worker who gets more than 60k like judges, MPs, senior council staff, customs etc get huge pensions? those types of public workers are making a mint while their working so should have enough sense to use their money to safeguard their futures and lessen the strain on the public purse. hence i dont see any reason for public sector pensions to be more than say 20k a year annually for any public worker no matter what their postion.

one last thing is, any banks bailed out by the taxpayer that are still paying out bonuses should quite simply be taxed at twice the amount payed out in bonus
thats my twopennyworth, but teachers striking when they get 13weeks holiday and by and large dont really do that great a job in giving kids a good education nowdays is a bit much really.

Thats the thing with the tory government though, all high paid people are safe, it's the people in the low/middle paid jobs that will be affected.

[simc66]

teachers striking when they get 13weeks holiday and by and large dont really do that great a job in giving kids a good education nowdays is a bit much really.

Thanks for that

[Mitching]

People seem to be missing the whole point of this. At the moment the public sector all get to retire with a cushy pension at 61 while us private sector bods, (who bolster their pensions) get to work a nice 5 years longer (8 years very soon). They are striking because they will have to work as long as everyone else.

IMO they are f**king work shy parasites.

Edit - and as for teachers, 13 weeks holiday a year, they need lining up and beating very hard with a common sense stick.

Heh, you'd last five minutes in a class of 30 arsey 15-year-olds.

The bit that people are missing - because the government doesn't want to tell you it - is this.

1) The average teacher pension in 2009/2010 was £9,806

Now, the real problem ....
  
2) 12% of teachers are aged 55-65 (in secondary schools this rises to 18%).  Given that current contributions are protected, if the Govt managed to bring the changes in, a huge amount of those would simply retire on the spot because they couldn't increase their pension pot and the final salary factor would disappear.  How the hell are we going to replace them?  Especially as ...

3) ... the number of people qualifying for secondary school teaching has gone down by 34% in the last two years.  One of the things that was attracting good graduates into the field was the decent (not gold-plated) pension.  If that goes as well, why the hell would a maths, physics or chemistry graduate go into teaching on 21k rather than earn far more than that in the private sector?  Especially those who have to do an extra year at uni to earn their PCGE?  I wouldn't if I was 22 again.

4) A new teacher earns 21k (outside London) yet pays £100 a month in pension contributions.  If that goes up to £160 a lot of new teachers - saddled with huge uni debts, and that's going to go up hugely soon - will simply opt out of the scheme, leaving LESS money to pay current pensioners rather than more.  In fact, that's starting to happen already.

5) Do you really want 68 year old teachers in charge of a bunch of teenagers?  If you've got young kids now, that's what they're going to get ... if they get a qualified teacher at all, that is....

6) Don't get me started on the 13 weeks holiday thing

Best post so far
Gotta love me them statistics!

[Jay]

Why go into a job that pay SOOOO much less just to bag a non-gold plated pension? Get a better job, that pays SOOOO much more, put a little extra away each month and live a good 37 years, rather than live a non-gold plated 10years or however long until you peg it after you've retired. Sound better, doesn't it

Gimme a break.

I'd much rather a 68 year old teacher with all that experience teach my daughters than some 24 year old grad with no experience . I'd also rather support giving teachers more rights in class to deal with sh!t bag kids and sorting the yoof out, giving all pupils a better school life and better environment to be taught in. This way teachers don't have sh!t bag kids, and if they do they get sorted out. My school had a 0 tolerance policy and that sorted out a lot of the bad apples.

As stated before lots of professions have STRESS from lots of different angles, it's what we get paid to deal with. Now you deal with the cuts that ARE needed. Want to moan some more?  Speak to the Greeks

[Mitching]

Anyone that goes into teaching just for the money is gonna be sorely disappointed.
There's a bit more to it than that, pretty sure it can be very satisfying seeing the children actually learn something.
I'd chose that over sitting at a computer in a well paid office job any day.

[Jack3559]

Do what I do and sell drugs to the kids and their parents for wage top ups. 

[Hartside]

Anyone that thinks going into the private sector will earn them loads of money is going to be sorely dissapointed too, unless you can step in somewhere as a Director or MD

[Jay]

Anyone that thinks going into the private sector will earn them loads of money is going to be sorely dissapointed too, unless you can step in somewhere as a Director or MD

Even then it has to be a company that's doing well and a MD/Director that's worth a top wage. It takes ALOT more than a few years at uni to earn top dollar. 3-4 years at uni, starting at the bottom, doing more professional qualifications along the way while working and constantly learning new things about your profession and LOTs of hard graft.