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Comment: the teachers' pointless strike
Evening Standard24.04.08
Today's teachers' strike will inconvenience a great many London parents, even if their children rejoice at a day off school. The NUT will not, however, achieve its real objective, which is to persuade the Government to think again about the pay increases awarded teachers in the coming round - a 2.45 per cent rise this year, followed by a further rise of 2.3 per cent in 2009 and 2010. The increase the teachers want is 4.1 per cent. This is the level of inflation recorded by the Retail Price Index, a measure that includes housing costs and council tax; the Government's preferred index is the Consumer Prices Index.
But as teachers - and everyone else - know perfectly well, real-life inflation rate is considerably above the official rate. According to one estimate this week from a website that tracks prices in supermarkets, the rise in average family food bills this year is likely to amount to £800. And as family budgets contract, the amount spent on basics, food and fuel, accounts for an ever greater proportion of household expenditure. Small wonder that teachers and police want these increases reflected in their wages.
Equally inexorably, the Government cannot yield to their demands: there is simply no public money available to fund them. There is a squeeze on tax revenues and the vast sums that the Government committed to public spending when Gordon Brown was Chancellor mean there is no slack in the system now. The teachers, like other public-sector workers, will simply have to accept that their wage increases will not match inflation. They can at least take comfort in their job security and generous pensions settlements: most people in the private sector have the same problems, but none of their compensations.
Reader views (1)
What are those marvellous but unspecified compensations that other workers don't have?
My wife has a middle management position in a primary school - she is usually at work before 8.00 am, works a solid day and leaves work well after 5.00 pm, providing there are no parent evenings etc. She also has her own class to teach and plan for and is responsible for leading her department. Most of her evenings and about half of her weekends are spent planning, making resources or doing statistical analyses to satisfy the ministry or the LEA and her average working week is around 50 hours. Long holidays? Half of hers are spent either at school or doing school-related stuff. We have a home office with a high-end PC and all the equipment needed to make high quality resources, all paid for out of our income. She is an excellent and dedicated teacher whose pupils do very well.
Our children, all adults, would not consider teaching as a career as they know the sacrifices involved and have all chosen much more highly paid careers.
Teaching is hard enough without governments making it clear they don't value teachers enough to ensure pay keeps pace with inflation.
- Retired Teacher, London, UK
