London Teacher Strike Set for March 28th

As the argument over devalued pensions continues, teachers in the UK prepare to go on strike again.

The NUT and UCU plan to take industrial action in London on March 28 yet again over a breakdown in pension talks with the Government. The last such strikes were in June and November 2011.

Christine Blower, General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers, the largest teachers’ union, said:
“The Government is well aware that teachers do not accept the changes that they propose to make to our pensions.

“The vast majority of teaching unions have not signed up to the latest pension proposals which still mean that teachers will have to pay much more, work much longer and get much less in retirement.

The row has been ongoing for many months with no sign of common ground being found between the unions and the Government. No additional money has been made available since last November and planned reforms to pay across the public sector are angering workers.

The dispute could escalate beyond two days of strike action a year and see many teachers start ‘working-to-rule’, a move which would severely disrupt an increasing bureaucratic and paperwork heavy profession far more than an occasional strike day. In the latest ballot on strike action, 82% were in favor.

Chris Keates, General Secretary, said: “Teachers have been faced with a rising tide of excessive workload and a series of attacks on their profession, including unjust pension reforms, worsening pay and conditions of service, and increasing job insecurity.

Teachers who bought into the concept of pensions are finding out, as have other sectors, that their original projections of retirement income are now considered unsustainable by the Government because of higher life expectancy and national debt. With quantitative easing and recent EU legislation already chipping away at their pension pots the current proposals are an austerity measure that many seem unwilling to accept.

Comments

Ann

March 19, 2012 at 9:09 pm

The UK today will be us tomorrow! If teaching were a male dominated profession ( in the classroom ) I doubt if men would put up with such egregious behaviors!

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- Joe
  
  March 20, 2012 at 7:56 am
  
  I’m sorry, but what the hell does your comment even mean?
  
  Reply
Jaime

March 27, 2012 at 7:08 am

It was Robert Kiyosaki (of Rich Dad, Poor Dad fame), who pointed out that when Do-It-Yourself pesoinn plans – 401ks – were created, no one thought to educate people how to invest. An entire industry of “investment advisors” sprang up in their wake, but how is the average person going to recognize good advice from bad, let alone the sheep from the wolves. He recognized years ago that this was a disaster waiting to happen.He wasn’t the person to point it out; it was a long known fear in the pesoinn industry. One of the problems with self-directed 401(k) plans is that there is supposed to be fiduciary responsibility. You can’t just hand the money off to any bozo to invest it; you’re supposed to have it handled according to the Prudent Expert standard. But a self-directed 401(k) is cheaper to administer, and remember, plan expenses are tax deductible, but tax deductions aren’t all that valuable any more. And the fears of lawsuits alleging a breach of fiduciary responsibility would be far in the future. The bigger problems is that 401(k) plans are just barely pesoinn plans at all. Technically, they are employer contributions (made in lieu of salary), but they’re nothing at all like the standard defined benefit, or earlier defined contribution, plans where contributions are made over and above salary. But, again, the tax deduction was the big issue for pesoinn plans. When tax rates maxed at 70%, people found tax shelters and a good pesoinn plan was a good tax shelter. You could legally try to build a pesoinn intended to pay a percentage of salary, and since the top employees have the highest salaries (and tend to be older), the tax deduction can make it cheaper than salary increases. That’s no longer the case.

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Hasan

March 29, 2012 at 9:08 pm

There is no economic aesron why workers are less compensated than they used to be. Nod. You’re right, there’s no aesron that businesses and corporations *can’t* pay as much as they used to. But economics can also be viewed as the study of how people make economic decision, and econ does dictate that workers will be paid less.Why? Well, with a low marginal tax rate, the cost of paying workers increases.If you’re a business owner and your marginal rate is 35%, then paying out $100,000 in wages costs you $65,000 (salaries paid to workers are deductible). On the other hand, if your marginal rate is 70%, then the cost is more-than-halved it’s only $30,000. So, from an Econ perspective, it’s not at all surprising that workers are taking a big hit. The cost is much higher than it was pre-Reagan.When you look at pensions, it’s even worse. If you put that money into a pension plan, well, a lot of pensions were created so that they’d put a lot of money in for the top dog, and just enough for the other employees to keep them in line with government requirements for a tax deduction. $100,000 in pension contributions might be $60k to the owner of the business, and $40k to the other employees. What’s the cost at a 35% marginal rate? $65,000 it’s actually cutting in to take home pay to make the pension contribution! What’s the cost at a 70% marginal rate? $30k making the contribution to the pension plan is a really good deal. The owner gets a big contribution, the employees get a decent contribution (probably a good deal, as a percentage of salary), and all because the tax rate makes the deduction that much more valuable. The changes in the tax rates during the Reagan years really caused a lot of damage.

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