Strikes

I will be very unpopular for saying this, but teachers, nurses and other public sector workers may not receive huge salaries but they certainly get good pensions which enable them to retire at 55. It has to be viewed in the round - you can’t have it all ways. An increase in salary of course, but look at the total package compared with people in the private sector.

That is no longer the case for teachers GSM. It used to be, but those days are gone.

Teachers striking aren't only striking for pay anyway. It's more terrible conditions than pay. Hence the teacher recruitment and retention crisis.

That's a bit out dated GSM, they could only retire at 55 if they have been teaching since university and have paid in enough funds? there are lots of the workforce that join after industry experience or after having families too.

The nice pensions are a thing of the past

Yes , grandchildren here this week due to strikes. Can't decide where I stand on this issue. I do know it causes massive problems, but of course they know that !

I'll have grandson for the strike days which will definitely impact my working from home. But I 100% support the strikes.

The percentage of teachers starting in post at 22 and staying the course until retirement is scarily low. It's not about pay, it's about teachers being expected to be counsellors, social workers, police officers whilst being berated by the government for not achieving the ( arbitrarily set) targets for their children.

Exactly Chocolatelovinggran. I think 5 years is the average time young teachers stay in the job. There's only a certain amount of time anyone can tolerate a 70 hour a week job.

Germanshepherdsmum

I will be very unpopular for saying this, but teachers, nurses and other public sector workers may not receive huge salaries but they certainly get good pensions which enable them to retire at 55. It has to be viewed in the round - you can’t have it all ways. An increase in salary of course, but look at the total package compared with people in the private sector.

Used to GSM. The current younger public sector staff will get much poorer pensions than their forebears. People who work for the NHS can no longer get their pension if they retire at 55.

That doesn’t sound unreasonable to me. People in the private sector have to have highly paid jobs to be able to afford to retire at 55.

Germanshepherdsmum

That doesn’t sound unreasonable to me. People in the private sector have to have highly paid jobs to be able to afford to retire at 55.

But as what you said is no longer true about pensions and retirement age in the public sector, I take it from your response that you do agree with them striking for better pay?

Where do you get your information from GSM I don’t know any nurse that retires at 55 on a good pension

We’ve had some on the ‘how do they afford it’ thread, BlueBelle. I also have teachers in my family who have retired early on very good pensions.

I regularly have to look after my GS anyway because my son and his partner work shifts, so we have to be there to pick up the pieces, as it were. The nature of their work mean they often have to work on after their shifts should have finished - usually at short notice - so we have no option but to keep GS with us, so the same goes for strikes. God knows how parents in similar situations manage if they don't have family nearby who can step in.

I was prepared to help out if required to look after grandchildren but fortunately only around a handful of teachers actually on strike at primary school so no need to close the school.

These are the NHS pension rules.

‘It is age:

60 in the 1995 section
65 in the 2008 section
Members with special class status in the 1995 section may have the right to retire from a normal pension age of 55.

In the 2015 scheme, it's the same as your state pension age, or age 65 if that is later.

You might be able to claim your deferred benefits from age 55 if you:

held special class status, and
were made redundant before age 50 and have not rejoined the NHS Pension Scheme
You can find more details about NHS Pension Scheme benefits on the NHS Pensions website.’

The special class from the 1995 pension scheme was for people working in mental health or learning disabilities services, who were aged 50 or over when the 2008 scheme was introduced, so will all have retired now.

If you retire from teaching at 55 your pension is actuarially reduced. My SIL , a deputy head at a secondary school, will retire in two years time when he is 55 because the stress is taking such a toll on his physical and mental health. He is at school for 10 hours every day and then works at home for at least two hours in the evening plus at weekends. He also spends several Saturdays and evenings at school for parents’ events and four days there after GCSE and A Level results.
After retiring he will have to find another job since in spite of teaching from the age of 22, his pension will not be enough to live on.

I am a 58 year old nurse and still working full time.

The lucrative pensions you speak of are a thing of the past I am afraid.
I am in favour of all the strikes. Public Sector wages are not and haven't for the last 12 years been in line with inflation.
The gap now is huge and people are quite rightly striking.

I just want to add:
Nurses and paramedics strikes are not just about our wages.

We are so short staffed most shifts are working with unsafe patient ;staff ratio.

The reason you should all support the nurses and other NHS staff is they are fighting to keep the NHS in situ. . Chronic underfunding in the last 12 years has led to this current crisis.
People are dying due to the lack of funding, staff are exhausted working with unsafe staffing levels on near enough every shift.
Wish people understood just how dire it is and equally pray you never need to be admitted into hospital to realise it.
We cannot attract nurses into the profession on such a small starting salary.

Working a teacher, I became very ill at 58, but was not eligible to retire until I was sixty. Sorry, but your post is inaccurate, GSM.

My husband worked in HR in local government, so he was able to help me negotiate the minefield.
I had no salary for six months until I reached sixty and then was able retire on ill health, long before I intended too.
Furthermore, my pension was not a great one, because I had only been teaching for twenty five years and I had just missed getting my state pension until sixty.
I didn't get it until last year at sixty six.

Yes I support the strikes

I honestly don’t know what to think, there was a time when I would have been very much against them, and I still don’t like to see nurses or teachers striking.

But I appreciate their careers, especially teachers, I don’t know as much about nurses, are soul destroying, and I’m sure strike action is a last resort for them, I really don’t know what the answer is, I can’t see how it can be resolved.

I’m a retired teacher. It was a stressful job in every way. I can see why they feel they deserve more. I don’t support the strike at this time however because children have already missed so much school because of the lockdowns. I have 7 GC and they have all been affected, 2 of them quite seriously. I feel the teachers should have waited until next academic year.

And yes, our grandchildren will be taken into work with us, because we are currently too short staffed to take any time off.