Today from a teacher I learned about how they earn less now than they did before the financial crisis, after with the cuts they took it means now a new teacher then was earning more than a teacher with 10 years experience in 2016. This included taking away there benefits and they are right to protest for what they are owed. Edit: Spelling/Grammar
I left public sector work years ago because of how insultingly bad the compensation is. They take advantage of the goodwill of workers and imo the workers are being taken advantage of and should consider exercising any option to get fair pay.
I make about double I used to in IT and it’s climbing fast annually and I’m treated far better.
Can’t criticise the way many Western governments handle public sector matters enough. Screwing over your workers worse than corporations is an amazing feat and you’ll radicalise them for life against being self-sacrificing because of temptation to fuck them over is too irresistible.
That PLUS a lot teachers spend their own money on things to improve their classroom (especially primary school teachers buying stickers and everything.) The compensation they receive is shit in comparison to the work they do/their importance in society.
I’m open to correcting but didn’t the teachers union agree that newer intakes would be less well advantaged? I hope I’m wrong because it’s the antithesis of what unions should do and exacerbated a bigger issue of underpaying. (Ps- am public sector and was out with the placards today in case anyone to bugs I am stirring)
I'm not sure how that story took off, but the unions can only advocate for their own current members, but they don't have the power to advocate for future entrants. It is just how the system works.
The way the poster above is describing it is exactly what happened. Unions agreed to sacrifice future teachers' pay and conditions in order to preserve those of their existing members. I can see why they decided to do this (future teachers can't vote), but it still sucks that they did.
They normally agree a new paydeal before the old one expires.
This time the government didnt want to talk until after. Then they didnt want to talk until after the budget. Then they only wanted to talk on issues other then pay.
Wasn't even that, they wanted to talk in June about productivity and efficiency aka their demands. Pay talks weren't on the agenda till a few days ago.
Yeah chambers decided he wanted to talk about pay in the 11th hour. Still wanted to talk through the governments demands first and foremost tho so he was told to stuff it especially since he didn't fulfil all of his obligations under the last deal either.
How do you think weekends off, 40 hour weeks, annual leave, sick pay, equal pay were all achieved. You must be trolling if you think unions and colllective action haven’t been a good thing historically for ordinary people?
Look at the absolute toil and misery people had to go through from the industrial revolution onwards. We'd still be there if it wasn't for unions agitating for decent working conditions, decent pay and the 8 hour work day.
Without unions we would be bassically slaves to the old "noble" class with tiny wages; living on site of work and 12 hour work days 6 days a week, from the age of 7. If you get sick, you starve
This isn't the states, licking boots will get you nowhere (with the notable exception being someone's submissive but I'm not going into Dom/sub dynamics and tasks here).
As a business owner who employs many people in the private sector who are not part of a union I think I am well placed to say they are much happier for it
Not at all. If employees have an issue with pay or conditions they can talk to one of their managers or me. Much easier to deal with an employee directly than some union representative.
How else do you propose that collective bargaining is done? Would you not call previous negotiations and deals which have kept the country running effective? What’s your alternative?
Don't think strikes like these are effective at all, nobody cares that schools close for a day, hospital appointments are a nuisance, rest of the public sector we don't even notice. Oh, library was on strike too...
On the other hand the government needs to pull the finger out when it comes to pay, not like Ireland is pinching pennies...
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u/Grand_Zombie 18h ago edited 18h ago
Today from a teacher I learned about how they earn less now than they did before the financial crisis, after with the cuts they took it means now a new teacher then was earning more than a teacher with 10 years experience in 2016. This included taking away there benefits and they are right to protest for what they are owed. Edit: Spelling/Grammar