Nuts....in april?

Yesterday the National Union of Teachers, meeting for their annual conference, claimed that teachers should have a 10% pay rise because graduates were leaving or, staying away from the profession, due to poor salaries. Having had two uncles and and aunt in the profession, I have a lot of respect for those who work in it. Teaching isn't the easiest job in the world, it's not everybody's cup of tea and, particularly nowadays, it involves certain risks. However, to request a 10% pay award at a time of global recession and instability when most of us are having to settle for below inflation pay increases, is simply ridiculous. One may grant that teachers aren't so well paid as workers in some of the professions, but they're hardly on starvation wages either. Moreover they get rather more annual holiday than most people working in industry dare dream of. I do a difficult and demanding job in industry but I don't even earn what a newly qualified teacher, barely out of nappies, earns. If I have to work hard and make do with what by the standards of the day is very little, so should they.

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Hmmm...I know more than one person who, fresh out of college and fully qualified, can not find a job in education anywhere througout the Metropolitan New York area. It seems that all available jobs are filled. This seems to be just another greedy spin to advance some special agenda.

I hate that.
 
Most professionals I know (in the UK) are on a wage structure which includes a variable time element or a performance element, and everyone seems to be getting lower pay because of the credit crunch - except teachers and civil servants. It is hard to have any sympathy with teachers' demands. Yes it is a professional job and yes it certainly has its stresses, but there are now more applicants than jobs for almost all subjects. 10% is just provocative.
 
I do a difficult and demanding job in industry but I don't even earn what a newly qualified teacher, barely out of nappies, earns. If I have to work hard and make do with what by the standards of the day is very little, so should they.

How many years of university training at zero income did you pursue in order to qualify to work in industry? How much industry work do you have to take home and grade over the weekend? As bridges collapse, planes fall from the sky, and hospital equipment malfunctions because of human error, will you be satisfied that those erring humans had been trained by competent and skilled teachers who weren't lured into better paying jobs, and not by whatever warm body the school board got to fill the slot?
 
mindseye;bt14828 said:
How many years of university training at zero income did you pursue in order to qualify to work in industry? How much industry work do you have to take home and grade over the weekend? As bridges collapse, planes fall from the sky, and hospital equipment malfunctions because of human error, will you be satisfied that those erring humans had been trained by competent and skilled teachers who weren't lured into better paying jobs, and not by whatever warm body the school board got to fill the slot?

I didn't go to university at all. I left school and was out earning a living at 17, contributing to the Exchequer's coffers. Apart from a 16 month period of enforced unemployment 16 years ago, during which I undertook demanding vocatiobal training, I've worked bloody hard ever since, regularly putting in unpaid overtime in order to tackle the demands made upon me.
 

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