The annual Teachers threaten to strike thread

Geuze

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118951893#Comment_118951893

@JimmyVik ,

all public servants, including TDs, are getting 1% in Oct 2021 and 1% in Oct 2022.

There is also another 1%, subject to local/sectoral negotiation.

Danno

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118952153#Comment_118952153

Wrong - schools had 18th booked off as 17th is a BH every year and schools used 18th to maximise a long 4-day weekend because of the way the 17th fell on a Thursday in 2022. When Govt announced that they were making 18th a bank holiday anyways, schools jumped the gun and decided to use the 21st in place of the 18th and have a bumper 5-day weekend and to hell with the parents and their kids who were previously rostered to attend school on March 21st.

As for a floating day - it's common enough sense: Each teacher can take a day of their choosing as long as it doesn't clash with another teacher's day off with the aim of this to keep the school open. Retail in particular work this system all the time. But, as I said - teachers are special and if they see an opportunity to close the school and grab a bumper 5-day weekend - they do it, they did it.

HerrKuehn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118952226#Comment_118952226

They didn't really do that did they? If we go back to Covid we were told it was impossible to change days once they had been set at the start of the year. You might remember the discussion around finishing early for Xmas. The suggestion was to move a couple of the days from the end of the holidays to allow them to finish early, but apparently that was totally impossible.

History Queen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118952226#Comment_118952226

Oh my god. What part of not every school is the same as yours are you finding difficult to understand?

Our school is taking the extra day in May for example. We were open the 21st. The school down the road from us were planning on being open 18th as they started back a day later than we did, now however they have had the 18th off and were also open 21st.

As for your floating day concept, interesting idea singling out students as not benefiting from the public holiday. I'm sure they'd love that. Can imagine trying to sell that idea to my students. 'I get a day off but ye don't".

HerrKuehn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118952200#Comment_118952200

Well, I agree. I don't think payscales should remain fixed. I am sure there will be some movement on it. It would be idiotic of the government to increase it to match short term inflation though. Politicians here are generally "path of least resistance" which is why it was possible to arm wrestle them into the increases during the bubble, there was plenty of cash around from the one off bubble taxes and they just had to decide who to fling it at. So, it was generally whoever shouted the loudest. Of course the overspending based off one off taxes contributed massively to our economic collapse. This time it is a bit different, there are a lot of demands for increased spending (housing, health, PS salaries, cost of living etc) and not much to go around.

History Queen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118952259#Comment_118952259

Government unilaterally announcing a national public holiday changed the school calendar this yeat. A circular was issued to schools regarding it.

HerrKuehn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118952311#Comment_118952311

Right, but I remember how it was regarded as absolutely impossible to move holidays around previously. So, it seems it really isn't that hard if you want to. We were complete idiots for suggesting such a thing at that time if I remember correctly.

History Queen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118952339#Comment_118952339

If i remember orrectly it was doing so at short noticewas the issue? Schools needed a circular issued to make it happen. I think we were discussing this something like a week or 10 days from the proposed closure. The Dept of Education have never, to my knowledge, issued a national circular in that short a space of time.

HerrKuehn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118952350#Comment_118952350

The cynic would think if it is beneficial, it will happen, if it isn't, it won't.

History Queen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118952381#Comment_118952381

Look I understand where you are coming from but realistically if the Dept did that then they'd have to acknowledge the problem with Covid in schools and they weren't going to do that.

Quitelife

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118951945#Comment_118951945

Teachers get a 3-4% increment every year and another 1% for Inflation - that equates to 4-5% increase//

There are very very few workers in private industry getting that sort of a rise - more like 2-3%.

The State is broke from the civil service wage & Pension bill.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118950547#Comment_118950547

Retail workers had perspex screens. Retail workers don't have to work in close contact with 25 people, in some cases, people who don't comply with basic hygiene etiquette.

Having said all that, vaccination priority was decided by public health evidence, which was the right thing to do. I'm not sure why people get so shocked when unions whose role is to advocate for their members start advocating for their members.

HerrKuehn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118952431#Comment_118952431

Can people not comment on the demands if they think they are unreasonable? At the time, it was looking like if we stuck to the original profession based priorities that teachers would have started being vaccinated in May. But, they finish up in June. So there would have been very little benefit in this case to sticking to the original plan.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118951880#Comment_118951880

Try Netflix, $17 billion in debt for a smallish organisation (11K employees), and paying their employees top dollar salaries;

https://medium.com/dice-insights/netflix-ceo-explains-why-he-pays-employees-insanely-huge-salaries-79aaaa68e784

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118951289#Comment_118951289

That is factually untrue, in several ways.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118952208#Comment_118952208

So the Chapter 7 of the Benchmarking report titled 'Public Service Pensions' - what was that all about then?

Wouldn't it be great if these discussions were based on some actual facts?

Quitelife

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118952431#Comment_118952431

Retail workers encountered hundreds if not thousands of people every day , many of whom mighnt wear a mask etc...plus retail workers would be working with the public an average of 40 hours a week not the 30 hours or less children are in school.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118952436#Comment_118952436

People can comment all they like. No-one suggested that people can't comment. Commenting with facile comparisions of retail workers vs teachers doesn't bring a whole lot to the discussions. Commenting that advocacy organisations were advocating doesn't really add much enlightenment either.

briangriffin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118952407#Comment_118952407

That's clearly not true if that were the case it would take 12-13 years to max out on the max salary scale of €66k and not 25 years, I don't mind the bashing but don't be blatantly lying about salary scales and increases

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118952471#Comment_118952471

Retail workers had screens though. Get the difference?

HerrKuehn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118952469#Comment_118952469

My understanding was that they were taken into account for the second round (2008) but not for the first round in 2002.

fliball123

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118951945#Comment_118951945

If my employer was in debt to the tune of over 240billion I would be very happy with it.

JimmyVik

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118952407#Comment_118952407

Id love to see a source for that. Ive a very good friend who is a teacher and he has only been getting the 1% for the last 2 years i think it was. Its a long time before that since he got any raise. Or so he says anyway. Hes been teaching over 30 years. He must be on a few hundred grand by now at that rate that rate.

HerrKuehn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118952521#Comment_118952521

He would be on the top of the scale at around 70k. Which at 167 days per year, if converted into a normal 232 working year, would equate to around 97k. So not far off. He will also have a 50% final salary pension which is great.

fliball123

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118952455#Comment_118952455

The reality is we have a choice to use Netflix or not to use Netflix the same cannot be said for our state run school unless you go private and your paying for education on the double via taxation and after tax money. Also 17 billion is a hell of a lot less than 240 billion and I wont have to pay a cent towards the debts incurred with Netflix if they hit the wall.

JimmyVik

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118952532#Comment_118952532

So its not true that they get 3 - 4% per year automatically then is the answer you are trying to give me.

Thats a sh!t top of the scale too. I was earning over 100k after 5 years working. And i left college same time as him.

He has better holidays to be sure, but he cant take his when I can take mine. I have flexi time too and I can take an extra month here and there when I want.

I will also have a better pension than he will get. Though thats my choice. My employers always matched my contributions. Dont know where everyone is getting this great pension talk from. I guess i chose the better career. Good thing too. Id hate to end up moaning about what other people get paid instead of concentrating on my own pay.

HerrKuehn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118952548#Comment_118952548

I know, it really isn't complicated. State employees want the state to pay more in salaries, those who don't work for the state might prefer it to be spent on other things like rent support or social housing. That is why there is always this discussion around state salaries.

fliball123

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118952557#Comment_118952557

Your argument fails here as it is the likes of him/her and myself who will be asked to pay more in tax to cover these pay rises so we are actually looking after our pay but what we take home after tax or lose more on a service. Is that ok with you? Also their is the knock on effect to their pensions not to mention the rest of the 400k odd public sector workers looking for their slice of the pie.

HerrKuehn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118952557#Comment_118952557

I didn't say everyone in the PS gets 3-4% a year. You seem very concerned about what you perceive as low PS salaries. About 3.5% of workers earn more than 100k. Why doesn't he retrain in your line of work then? I am well aware that 100k, after tax, is not actually a huge amount.

The "moaning" as you would call is more to do with suggesting the state should spend money on improving the miserable services it provides rather than increasing salaries. It would be far better to focus on the housing situation (I bought a house 10 years ago, so I won't benefit from that).

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118952521#Comment_118952521

If he's been teaching for over 30 years (I'm assuming he's secondary for the following) then he reached the maximum of his 25 point salary scale some time ago, so as you say, is only getting the 1% increase. He should probably be thinking about retiring, taking his tax-free lump sum of at least €110,000, drawing down his teaching pension which will probably be around €35,000 p/a and topping it all up by teaching some grinds and/or doing the State Examination corrections.

Danno

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118952286#Comment_118952286

Oh my god. What part of not every school is the same as yours are you finding difficult to understand?

I never said every school is the same, but as previously mentioned earlier - schools were supposed to be forbidden from deviating away from the national school calendar of days as set out by the department.

Our school is taking the extra day in May for example. We were open the 21st. The school down the road from us were planning on being open 18th as they started back a day later than we did, now however they have had the 18th off and were also open 21st.

Why the need to close the whole school? This is the taking the urine that I am on about. Each teacher could have a discretionary day off between March 21st and June 30th.

As for your floating day concept, interesting idea singling out students as not benefiting from the public holiday. I'm sure they'd love that. Can imagine trying to sell that idea to my students. 'I get a day off but ye don't".

Erm, the students all got March 18th off along with everyone else, including teachers. Singling out students with 'I get a day off but ye dont' is something I'd expect to hear from a 2 year old. Is this the level of intelligence some of those entrusted to teach children resort to?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118952311#Comment_118952311

And how did alot of schools deal with that? Ah shure, we'll just take the 21st so and have a right bumper 5-day weekend. And those that didn't get a 5-day weekend will be sure to tack the day onto a bank holiday in May or June rather than plan the day off to keep the schools open.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118952350#Comment_118952350

This is exactly the issue with public service in Ireland. We need a circular. It'll take a week to get it out... maybe more. By jaysus if it was a circular to land €64 billion of debt on taxpayers we can send that at 2am in the fookin morning.