Is Trade Union legislation needed

My teacher wife is certainly not getting a 2/3 pension.

I don't know wether the police still get a 30/60 pension after only 30 years service.

Neither is mine. She is 65 in December. Should have retired 5 years ago but didn't want to and has just been asked what her plans might be beyond December.

However, she is employed at a public school and I don't really know what she might be entitled to. She only took up teaching about 20 years ago.

However, I would like to know what terms the standard state school teacher is entitled to.

Cheers

Don

State school teachers are on 40/80 pension, after 40 years. Lump sum 3 times annual pension.

Some private school teachers pay into "Teacher Pension Scheme" so would get the same. Details on TPS website. 

OK,  using the www Teachers Pension Calculator

(I think that should be 40/60 BigH)

The way the teachers pensions is worked out is similar to many of the old final pension schemes in the private sector that the private sector had to stop or modify as the accrued fund would not support the "final salary" proposition.  

Assuming a teachers final salary is the same as an MP @ £65738  

(not taking one of the various lump sum variables)

Qualified at 25 & retiring at 65 = 40 years service  the pension will be around £43600

With 30 years service & same final salary  £32700

With 20 years service & same final salary  £21800    (compare that to MP)

With 40 years service & opting to take the lump sum maximum

Lum sum (~) £186,000

Pension £28031

So as I thought MPs get a disproportionately high pension compared to skills required compared to a teacher. 

Afterall an MP only needs £1500 and a 100 friends.

Mike-B to illustrate your point you have chosen a ludicrous figure for a typical teacher's salary, even final.  A head in a school outside a city perhaps, or possibly even a deputy in an exceptionally large city school, but not classroom teachers.

My wife has been a qualified teacher for almost 30 years.  She has passed the good practicioner 'threshold' so is on a higher rate than many of her colleagues, and has a particular skill at teaching functionally illiterate children to read and write.

Her salary is somewhat less than half an MP's.

JWM,

To be fair I think Mike was using an MPs salary to give a equal number as a salary. I don't think he was claiming that a teacher, unless they were a secondary school Head inner London or something has this kind of salary.

My Mrs gets the good practitioner threshold payments too, still not as good as an MP though, but I think her and your wife's job are more important. 

Sorry if I misunderstood, Mike.

Grrrr....

It's not politics

It's not 'The Recession'

It's basic Maths

People live longer. Illness doesn't kill us off as rapidly as it used to.

It's an issue that's been simmering for decades. Only now is the issue being dealt with in a 'tip of the iceberg' fashion.Previously, as a politically hot potato, no-one dared even approach discussing it in any depth at all

Contributions were worked out 2/3 through last century assuming that you were going to die at 72(ish), so 12 years if bens taken at 60. Assumed UK pension fund growth was higher too, largely because GDP and inflation was (much) higher. If the same amount of money (or OK, a little bit more allowing for previous slight increases in contributions) ain't growing so much yet has to be spread further and last way longer (avg age expectancy is now in mid/late 80's, so more than double the period after age 60), it don't bloody work...

Same as state pension.

You can't have something for nothing. You either have to accept much lower benefits or pay a fairer/more reflective/larger bill or compromise on both. It's not bloody quantum physics.

And as for Govt. employee salaries. It's like comparing apples with stepladders. More appropriate to consider remuneration. Those benefits already outlined equate to about 30% salary or more. So even if you're paying 8% net for them, you'd have to up your salary by about 20%+ to get equivalent 'package' in private sector. So  £25K + bens - 8% conts. for a teacher is as good as £30k no bens in private sector, perhaps even £33k once all the reverse maths worked through

David, I could tell that, not an issue...

The head at our local comp (Paul Dick) featured in a recent BBC programme about high salaries. He is currently on c.£170k pa. No doubt he is towards the top end of the scale.

So a wide variation in salaries in the teaching profession - as in the rest of the professional workforce.

The point is, that whilst many people started off paying into  a contributary final salary pension scheme, the private sector has had to abandon such schemes as non-viable in a global changing market and increased life-expectancy. If companies had been forced to increase their contributions to such schemes to maintain the defined benefits, many more would have gone to the wall. IMHO, it is wrong for civil servants etc to demand that the rest of us (tax payers) safeguard their (now relatively generous) pension arrangements.

Cheers

Don

 I think Mike was using an MPs salary to give a equal number as a salary

Exactly,  Howard mentioned MP's  so I tagged the MP's salary & pension rates

When this was questioned I equated it to the teachers pension scheme - just for comparison

True it does not represent teachers scales, or even "excellent" graded teachers

But it is more or less mid scale for leadership grade teachers & also reflective of some grades of professional & middle management in the private sector. 

Excluding the very highest earners, the average civil service pension is £4,200 a year.

More than 100,000 people receive a civil service pension of £2,000 or less a year: over 40,000 receive less than £1,000, and more than 60,000 get between £1,000 and £2,000.

The average teachers’ pension (including highest earners) is £9,358.

Very possibly but that's not after a 'lifetime of service'

It's based on salary at 60 x number of years service

--------------------------------------------------------------------

          60

(Or a variation with lump sum added if wholly 80th based)

So, £4,200 p.a. would be earned with just over 10 years service if earning £24,000 pa

What's more, that would be indexed. So say inflation continues between target (2%) and actual (4.5%) at 3% for twenty years, by then it's £7585 p.a. You die after 'just' 20 years and it's paid about £118,000 in total. And say 50% spouse ben is payable to the Mrs for another 5 years, that's another twenty grand, so say £138,000 total benefit.

The cost to you over that ten years service? Even assuming you earned £24,000 every year for those 10 years, it's £11,520. £11,520 in exchange for £138,000 is a fkn good deal. Even at 9% gross, net contributions would be 7.2%, so your net contribution would be £17,280 instead of £11,520. Still a fkn good deal.

It is what people are getting now - which gives an indication that few civil servants and teachers actually achieve a "lifetime of service".

You also seem to think that most civil servants are on over £20k - wrong big time.

Anyway, you clearly think they get too much, however little it actually is, so how much smaller should their pension be?

so who's paying the other £120k..........................appart from me, that is

Thanks Jamie. Helps us all visualise the input required to secure decent pensions.

Cheers

Don

I used £24k 'cos that's what the Union reps have used in their examples of public sector worker/pensions

And it's not a case of thinking they get too much. It's trying to make people realise it's a fkn good deal and even with higher contributions and a later pension age, it's still a fkn good deal. One I wish I had. Call it jealousy if you like.

You seem to be under the impression they should get more for not inputting a full career! So, should say ten years service mean they should get 40 years worth (i.e. a full) pension then?!?!? Why should Govt. employee get better than pretty much most in the private sector who works just as hard and long?

And don't forget any NI payers among us, we're all funding state pension too, for now. And apart from S2P, it's not our own nests we're feathering here, it's the currently retired, straight in and straight out. So who's going to fund ours? (Clearly this is for those forum members still working! For those enjoying retirement, no you can't have a pay rise...).

I'm afraid, like I said before, financial security costs and some people don't know when they're well off.

I was simply pointing out that the reality is far removed from your interpretation of whatever it is you are reading and perhaps misunderstanding?

It's my career over the last quarter century to know and understand these things. Believe me, there is no misunderstanding.

Clearly anyone with lower/higher income or service will have pension incomes on pro rata'd

 basis

Can't you see how good a deal the scheme is? Even with changes?

It agree it is a very good deal; what I don't accept is that the politics of envy is sufficient excuse to change it radically, if at all.

OK,  to get this back on track,  my question was does this latest coordinated strike call

- require - or risk - legislation.

The question is not the rights & wrongs of if public sector pensions should be aligned with private sector or who has the best deal. 

The question is should some form of legislation or self regulation required to prevent a minority of unions members calling a strike

The teachers union members who have voted for a strike are significantly less than half of those with a vote & less the a quarter of all teachers in public sector schools.

Not sure about the numbers for the other public sectors,  but believe them to be similar  

As I see it a number of issues - with I am sure a few more 

Legislation is high risk & liable to alienate & raise hostility from the union side

Calling a strike before the negotiations are concluded is provocative

Government publicising the details (today) seems to be addressing a concern that the unions are playing with numbers that up to now where not fully publicised, is equally provocative

Mike,

I made my view about the right to strike, known with an early post.

I don't belong to any union, but I consider people are entitled to form unions to increase their bargaining powers. Providing the union's rules are clear, eg action requires a simple majority of those who (bother to) vote, then I don't see any problem - that is pretty similar to our General/Local elections.

Cheers

Don

I agree with Don. There's a thing,eh?

....almost lost for words.........its very nice to agree, (even if its only occasionally) and even nicer when someone takes the time to say so.

many thanks

Don

Mike,

Your post was impossible to read and I nearly didn't bother. However, I cut and pasted it into "Word" and chopped it up into paragraphs to make it more digestable. The paragraphs migh not be exactly how you would wish, but hopefully it will encourage others to read what you wrote.

I have highlighted one of your paragraphs that I found particularly intersting.

How can so much be written without so much as a basic grasp of the issues?

1) The need for legislation - why? The nature of democracy is that you have a vote but have a choice as to whether and how you use it. The purpose is to make a decision - not make a decision that the majority have voted for.

If politicians could only be voted in on a 50% or more turnout we'd have seen a move to dictatorship many years ago. So, no, legislation is not needed.

As an aside, the BA v Unite thing has been wilfully misrepresented by all concerned but it's a poor example of a minority ruling over a majority.

• Firstly, cabin crew can only ever be a minority numbers wise. Do they have to forego the right to fight for their T&Cs because of that?
• Secondly, cabin crew who were union stewards have been ruthlessly weeded and either sacked or suspended by BA.
• Thirdly, BA used a variety of underhand tactics to misrepresent the arguments. There just isn't the space here to detail all that.

Rather than it being an example of something that's wrong it actually serves as a fine example of how a union can protect the rights of a minority with no detriment to the majority.

2) Jamies figures are interesting but based on such a number of fallacies as to be meaningless.

He fails to mention that the average of £24k was given as an example as it was one all concerned could relate to. It in no way related to average public sector earnings, which are considerably below that figure. I believe the correct figure is £16 to £18k.

The number of people who work a lifetime in the public sector is now down to less than 5%. Heading to 2% I believe. The number of people who are there more than 10 years is also now the lowest it has ever been.

In the name of cuts the public sector is bleeding staff and recruitment costs. What exactly is the attraction of working as a public servant? There is considerable evidence that many of the non-retired staff in the public sector never work again, in contrast to the private sector.

To characterise the proposed strikes as solely about pensions is laughable and insulting.

Over the past 20 years public sector pay has closed the gap with the private sector. However, at the top end this is because it has risen (£210k for a Chief Exec etc) but further down it is because private sector pay has been driven down and not public sector pay going up. Indeed, in the 19 years I've been in the public sector I'm still waiting for that "inflation busting" pay rise the tabloids keep selling to the idiots that listen.

In real terms my reward for long service is a reduction in value of my salary by about 27% over that period. If my job existed in the private sector it would have seen a 5% rise but less pension.

The same period has seen huge erosion in T&Cs combined with mindless, wholesale adoption of private sector methodologies that are wholly inappropriate and, er, complete failures. Again, were I to list the cuts in T&Cs it would run to pages. Clearly there have been gains but they are minimal in comparison.

The mistake that's being made is to believe the two sectors need to be equalised and that there's a cost to all if they're not. In fact, public sector T&Cs have had to be enhanced as a means to recruitment and, more importantly, retention. Most public sector work cannot be successfully undertaken unless there is longevity. Pensions were, rightly, part of that equation.

Moving to a cost based model drives down recruitment, retention but drives up costs to the public. An enhanced pension was one of the last attractions to longevity. When that goes the public sector is fully privatised and let's see how you all enjoy THAT experience.

Frankly, if the public sector were such a joy you'd all be there and... you're not are you. You elected to go for the private sector with it's greater short term gains and longer term losses (the need for example to make your own pension provision).

Pensions in this context are just a stick to best people with when they're already being ground into the dust. Deficits created by a change of law initiated by Brown haven't been mentored at all on this thread, which I find astonishing as that's the only real reason to look at pensions in the public sector at all.

If you adopt private sector practice then the aim is no longer to serve citizens but to drive cost down, at any cost. That's the game we're playing and nothing else.

Now, cue the person who worked in the private sector and can tell us all about public sector waste etc. We'll overlook that it was the private sector that invented call centres and outsourcing etc. foisted them on the public sector and now, as costs rise and services deteriorate, whines about their taxes being wasted.

Thus the pathetic levels of resistance to devastating cuts.

3) Unions are basically operating with both arms behind their back in the current environment.

Many have little choice to work with management in a way that looks like they're in bed with them. Any deviation from that is portrayed as militancy needing legislation and yet it couldn't bs further from the truth. Unite were portrayed as dinosaurs in the BA dispute, which is hilarious if you know the truth of what went on there.

Now, none of this is to say that unions don't get things wrong but at the present time they're like a boxer seeing six others coming at him. In reality, there's only one but when it feels like you're being attacked whichever way you turn then a few mid-steps are inevitable.

Mike