Should teachers be banned from striking?

Oh so half your family represent every teacher? WOW must have a big family there

You might want to check up on strike procedure, given that this round of strikes, like most, is to do with pay, pensions, etc. and not to do with the actual education, the decision to strike should be based upon the pay, pensions, etc. I.e., they're striking because they're expected to do their job well now and feel their minimal pay rise, despite above average salary, is somehow unreasonable.

Do you and others on this thread realise the whole point of state monopolies like the NHS and state schools is to keep cost for society down, and that is done by suppressing wages by being the only major employer in the sector...?

everyone is lashing out against the teachers for striking, saying they're greedy or should only do it in a profession where it wont affect people.
Well, the reason they do it is because it affects people, that's how they get their demands heard. If it made no difference whether or not they were striking, then they'd get nowhere.
As you should all know, ALL teachers are required to be part of a union, NUT is an example of just one. When their union decides they are going to strike, BY LAW, the teachers in that union have to as well whether they want to or not.

It's not a matter of greed or ignorance, most teachers have to take marking home so that they can finish it for the next day, not to mention planning lessons for upcoming exams which are constantly getting harder

and then carry out those lessons whilst the pupils complain there's too much. They end up having to do more work than most professions and strikes allow them to get fairer pay/pensions for the work they do.

Do you realise that the point of state monopolies is to increase the welfare of people within the society? They're not seeking profit, only welfare. Making sure public sector workers have a comfortable standard of living is an acceptable cost to society. Raising teachers' wages will not bankrupt us or suddenly reduce the quality of service - in fact, it will probably improve it by attracting more highly skilled teachers. Such a rise in costs would be very welcome.

If you're so worried about government expenditure, how about you support the elimination of massive government subsidies that throw literally billions of our hard earned British pounds into the hands of bankers, speculators, traders , pharmaceutical companies and the military, the last of which fund UK terrorist campaigns abroad? How about we stop being forced to pay for GCHQ to spy on us? There are loads of disagreeable government-sponsored projects whose abolition would save lives abroad and ensure a more equitable, happy society at home.

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everyone is lashing out against the teachers for striking, saying they're greedy or should only do it in a profession where it wont affect people.
Well, the reason they do it is because it affects people, that's how they get their demands heard. If it made no difference whether or not they were striking, then they'd get nowhere.
As you should all know, ALL teachers are required to be part of a union, NUT is an example of just one. When their union decides they are going to strike, BY LAW, the teachers in that union have to as well whether they want to or not. It's not a matter of greed or ignorance, most teachers have to take marking home so that they can finish it for the next day, not to mention planning lessons for upcoming exams which are constantly getting harder and then carry out those lessons whilst the pupils complain there's too much. They end up having to do more work than most professions and strikes allow them to get fairer pay/pensions for the work they do.

If you're so worried about government expenditure, how about you support the elimination of massive government subsidies that throw literally billions of our hard earned British pounds into the hands of bankers,

speculators, traders

, pharmaceutical companies

and the military, the last of which fund UK terrorist campaigns abroad?

How about we stop being forced to pay for GCHQ to spy on us?

When you say 'comfortable standard' you mean ' further above the UK average wage'. Which is laudable, and all, but the transfer of wealth from the majority, who earn less than teachers seems somewhat at odds with increasing the welfare of people in society,

I'm not that fussed about cutting Government expenditure. Just not rising it more quickly than tax revenue growth.

I wouldn't say so. People pay a fixed percentage of their income and get to educate their children, get good quality healthcare, pensions in the future, and have a safety net if they lose their job. For every pound the average UK worker makes, the amount that goes directly to teachers' pay is miniscule, as there are a lot more non-teachers than teachers too. It's also worth noting that more can be spent on public services by simply redistributing spending in the ways I mentioned earlier; higher taxation isn't necessary.

Posted from TSR Mobile

Changing the distribution spending would still redistribute wealth from the relatively (to the teachers) poor to the relatively rich. You don't need higher taxes to do that.

I apologise if I repeat something someone else has said, I only read the first two pages of the thread.

Teachers have been striking loads this year, have they not? Or that's what it's seemed like to me. I remember they had a strike during the build up to exams, which was actually detrimental to my education, as it meant essays weren't marked and I didn't get as much teaching time to fill the gaps in my knowledge as I should have had, so I was less confident in the exam.

I think teachers do deserve more money- they work long hours and are an integral part of society. However, I'm not sure striking is the right way to go about it, as nowadays it just annoys people and loses them sympathy.

The problem is, there doesn't seem to be much passion in a lot of teachers nowadays, which I believe is essential if they want to do the job well. Don't get me wrong, I've had some wonderful teachers over the years, but I've also had some god awful ones, and it generally seems to be the bad teachers on strike in my experience. I've always found that the teachers who really care about their students are the ones that don't go on strike- for example, despite being head of the union at our school or in the area or however it works, our history teacher didn't go on one of the earlier strikes because she had a lesson with us and our AS Level exam was coming up.

As someone mentioned before, I really do think we need to look at Finland as an example to try and get the pride back into the profession. Teachers have masters degrees and small classes and it's one of the most respected professions, as it should be.

When you work through all the figures, a small pay increase actually translates into a lot of money, and the plan is generally to reduce a deficit when you have one, not to increase it. I doubt it would improve the quality either, it would be impossible to substantially enough increase the wages to make it attractive to enough of the more able without having to make HUGE compromises elsewhere, the profession would still be dominated by the less competent.


Are you meaning the bankers that are working at banks the Government now own, or all the other bankers, many paying hundreds of thousands in income tax every year?

Who are you even referring to here?

You mean those people who are making the life saving medical breakthroughs this country and the world "need", the companies who bring huge amounts of trade to the country through those breakthroughs, or would you prefer it if next time you're ill the doctors just rub some herbs on you?

You mean the people who, should we by some course of events go to war, are there to protect us? And terrorism is subjective.

I'm sure that if we got rid of GCHQ we wouldn't suddenly become a massive target for terrorist organisations given our only defence against them comes from the intelligence agencies of other countries.*start: sarcasm* I'm sure if we got rid of GCHQ nobody would have bombed us in the last 9 years *end: sarcasm*

I don't know the figures, but I don't think that raising teachers' pay above inflation will affect the deficit very much in percentage terms, only absolute terms.

And why should those who depend on public services suffer because of the deficit anyway?

The deficit largely contributed to by the irresponsibility of financial institutions.

Austerity is nothing more than a war on the working and middle classes waged by our political and economic elite.

If we want to patch up government budget books, the parasites at the top of the income ladder are the ones to come after, not teachers.

You're saying that every banker pays hundreds of thousands of pounds in income tax?

And even if that were true, I am sure that whatever they pay is a small fraction of their income.

I do think the bailout of the banks was justified, but not the fact that the top bankers have walked away with millions in bonuses and we've been throwing more money at them ever since. The Bank of England periodically pumps tens of billions of pounds into the financial sector, and it serves little more than to fuel speculation and trading activities in markets, boosting the 'fake economy'. This is what we call QE.

Pharmaceutical companies do not spend all of their money on medical research. They take state-funded medical research, commercialise it, and make exorbitant profits. State-funded research in universities generates the vast majority of medical breakthroughs, so giving massive financial support to drug companies is entirely unjustified.

Also, have you ever heard of the 90-10 rule? It's a statistical finding that states that a miserable 10% of global medical research funding (headed commercially by big Western firms like GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis and AstraZeneca) go into diseases afflicting the bottom 90% of the population. Yet pharmaceuticals con the US and UK government into giving more subsidies by promising next time they'll cure cancer. So you might want to rethink your adamant position that heavy state support for unaccountable, private medical corporations are beneficial nationally and globally.

Protect us? Protect us from who? Oh, you mean those jihadists which apparently spend all day plotting to destroy the Westerners who rampaged into their country and tore it apart, in the name of 'democracy'.

No country is going to attack Britain (we're in the top 5 global military spenders), and our imperialism abroad is wholly unjustified. Read Web of Deceit by Mark Curtis; you'll be enlightened. Your laughter will come to an end. The UK is a terrorist state.

Where did I say we should abolish GCHQ? I said we should abolish their surveillance of the UK population - or would you rather wait until we become a police state? GCHQ approached the NSA and asked them to keep data about UK citizens. Do you know the closest thing to a terrorist attack plan the NSA found? Someone sent $8500 to Somalia. Yep, millions upon millions spied on, all to no avail. The intelligence agencies knew this and yet continued their surveillance program like the deranged people they are.

Of course it's an issue of greed. If you are being paid more than minimum wage it's more than enough money to buy the necessities and live.

Where do you draw the line one day of strikes okay? Two? One week? One month? There is no need to cause unnecessary disruption due to greed.