Actually, in my son's school, there are apparently 3 classes open today.
Thats about 60 odd children out of 425...
Strange graph from BERR. A higher proportion of men than women in unions in both public and private sectors, but a higher proportion of women than men in unions when the two are aggregated.
With maths like that it's no wonder that BERR are no use to British industry!!!
Maybe they're playing a different game in the private sector but Ineos - operators of the Grangemeouth refinery - is closing the refinery for the duration of the upcoming strike. Call me naive but, in my limited experience, refineries are highly capital intensive and can probably be run pro tem (if not forever) by junior and senior management (ie non-union) staff. Of course, Ineos might be in thrall (with the rest of us) to the Health and Safety gauleiters or, as I say above, might be playing the game of bringing public pressure on the union by blaming Unite for causing fuel shortages. Even so, even greater pressure - not to say embarrassment - would be brought on Unite if the refinery just kept on producing.
On a day when a third of our state schools will be closed because of the NUT's strike, we've been trying to imagine under what circumstances teachers at our independent schools would take similar action.
+++++++
That one is easy to answer. The teachers in private schools might strike if:
1. They had classes of 50 children
2. They had a filthy working environment never cleaned properly by contract cleaners
3. They had to spend half the week filling in forms about government educational targets
4. They had pupils who kept saying "fuck off, MIss"
5. They were grossly understaffed
6. They had to see the staff room filling up with teaching assistants i.e. untrained staff who the government deems to be teachers because they are cheap.
7. They had no decent sports and recreational facilities
8. They were as badly paid as state school teachers.
And that's for starters.
I see St Paul's School in Barnes is advertising for a chemistry teacher. The advert reads:-
Job Opportunities
Thank you for your interest in St Paul's School.
Vacancies at St Paul's School for teachers and support staff are advertised in appropriate journals and national newspapers depending on the vacancy required.
St Paul's offers a congenial and stimulating environment and has extensive sports facilities (available to staff for after-hours use) including a gym, swimming pool, squash, tennis and rackets courts. The arts are very strong at the School with regular exhibitions, plays and concerts.
For further information about any of the vacancies please follow the links below (or on the left hand side of the page), and also feel free to view the rest of the website to gain a fuller picture of St Paul's School.
Teaching Staff
Chemistry Teacher
St Paul's can offer the following facilities to staff:
General
competitive salaries
a riverside location in a pleasant neighbourhood close to Central London and good transport links
talented and interesting colleagues
greatly subsidised education at Colet Court, St Paul's and St Paul's Girls' School for the children of established staff (assuming they meet the entry requirements)
an excellent reputation, making experience at St Paul's a strong basis for promotion to other posts
the provision of accommodation subject to availability (does not apply to all vacancies)
free lunches
Specific to teaching
exceptionally bright students who are well-motivated and eager to learn
superb facilities and equipment for teaching
++++++
Compare that to the spec at a sink comprehensive.
John
Crippen, if you are able to be civil, where is the evidence that teachers are paid more in independent schools?
My wife works in an independent school and the pay scales are exactly the same as the state system, except for a small annual allowance (around £250) for running late stay facilities.
The solution, of course, is for all schools to be independently run and for them to set their own local market-based pay rates . Teaching is currently a relatively well paid occupation in the North, but relatively less so in the South East and London. Similarly, there is an oversupply of teachers in many arts subject and especially in the primary sector, which would suggest that pay rates for these are above the market level. In science subjects (esp. physics and maths) there is a shortage which implies that pay levels are too low. However, it's unions like the NUT that insist on national pay bargaining and not discriminating between subjects.
Of course, another problem is the cost of pensions. Salary apart, the cost of employing a teacher has increased greatly in recent years because about 3 years ago, in a cosy deal, government and unions agreed that LEA employers would have to pay an extra 5% of salary into the pension scheme in order to maintain benefits. The teachers weren't asked to increase their contributions. Employer pension contributions are now about 15% of salary (more than double the private sector average). Strangely, of course, even teachers in independent schools are part of the same public sector pension scheme.
Yes, Dr C, the working conditions in many State Schools are awful - and have been put in place by the Government of the day, many of whose eager supporters are in the NUT.
Like the private sector can do much better
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/healt...lth/
7365019.stm
Nice post.
However, I sense that union density and inflation are closely related. If inflation picks up, we might see union activity increase.
This was pretty much what happened in the 1970s. Between 1945-70 union mambership was fairly stable at around 9 million. Along comes double digit inflation and membership is up at 13 million by 1979.
Along comes Thatcher, reduces inflation and people lose interest in unions. The only place where they remain strong is the pubic sector. That is because even during the low inflation years, governments would always try to use public sector pay policy to try to influence inflation.
However, as Friedman said "inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon". Public sector pay policies only serve to heighten union militancy in the public sector.
Alice
Err, Wat, if you go back slightly further than the 70's you might understand why trade unions were formed in the first place - have you read "Grapes of Wrath" ?
Robert-
"Strange graph from BERR. A higher proportion of men than women in unions in both public and private sectors, but a higher proportion of women than men in unions when the two are aggregated."
Well spotted.
And IIRC this is by no means the first time that BERR/DTI have published wonky charts. How on earth they figure they can help UK business is beyond anyone.
Umbongo- good point about Grangemouth closing... as you say, it must be a public pressure game.
Also interesting that as I understand it, the employers are basically taking on the unions over closing the final salary scheme.
The very thing that the govt chickened out on before the 2005 election.
Doc
St Paul's sounds a great place to work - no wonder the teachers are so fab.
I quite agree that working conditions in the worst of the state schools must be dire. Which is why we need radical reform so they can run themselves, well away from the Commissars.
Exactly like the NHS where, according to what I read on the splendid NHS Blog Doctor, GPs can't even hire their own cleaning staff. You can't run anything like that.
Death to the Commissars!
HJ
Agree with everything you say.
One of my brothers works in an independent school, having previously worked in the state sector. I don't think he gets much more cash, but the whole ethos is totally different.
And on those national pay negotiations, you're absolutely right- see this blog - http://burningourmoney.blogspot....pay-
scales.html
Ducado-
As you point out, subcontracting stuff to the private sector doesn't automatically mean it's going to be better.
But the problem with the surgical intruments seems to me to reflect the lunacy of top-down management which has imposed this from Whitehall.
We have stacks of similar examples all the time - the public sector by and large is very bad at managing sub-contractors. It would be much better divesting itself of the entire activity - in this case, running hospitals.
Alice - you could be right about higher inflation causing aresurgence of union membership - especially in the public sector.
something to watch
the a&e charge nurse
"if you go back slightly further than the 70's you might understand why trade unions were formed in the first place - have you read "Grapes of Wrath" ?"
Yes, I have read it.
And I do understand why unions were formed in the first place. But (a) I think we've come a long way since then - incomes are much higher, much more workplace regulation etc - and (b) unions are all about promoting the economic interests of their memebers at the expense of everyone else, including customers.
Amusingly - or perhaps bemusingly - two school teachers from one of the local preparatory schools, who are NUT members, went on strike 'in solidarity' yesterday.
Fucking idiots.
Wat,
To be fair, if you are in an occupation with a monopoly employer (or should that be monopsony employer?), then I can see how it can be argued that a union is needed to counterbalance the power of the employer.
The problem, as you say, is that, too often, unions become conspiracies to increase the incomes of the their members at the expense of everyone else. Quite apart from the obvious public sector unions, let's not forget that organisations representing accountants, lawyers and medics, although not obviously unions, also conspire to protect and promote their interests at everyone else's expense. Very often, they have government sanction to do this. The Law Society and the Bar Council are good examples - they deliberately restrict access to these occupations (and therefore supply of practitioners) in order to keep prices (i.e. wages) high.
Few people would argue that engineers and scientists aren't at least as intelligent, hard working and educated as these groups. Yet they are paid far less for the simple reason that they cannot exercise the same power because they are subject to international competition. If they tried to artificially inflate their wages, their employers would be put out of business by overseas competition (or the employers would just hire people overseas). In fact, because these other groups grab more than their fair share of the 'cake' it effectively reduces the wages (or their effective value) of groups facing real competition. Protected domestic suppliers of services make it more expensive to live in the UK - and it's hard to compete when your costs are higher.
This is why the government should try wherever possible not to be a monopoly employer and why schools and the medical system, for example, should be run independently, the Bar Council disbanded, and any attempt by unions to fix the price of labour should be resisted, just as the OFT prosecutes companies for price fixing.
In the long term we would all benefit (even those groups I criticise) because the economy would function better. We have seen the effect of a domestic boom for those protected from the rigours of competition at the same time as companies and workers in the international market have suffered - a huge trade deficit and living on borrowed money. Sooner or later this has to be paid for and we will then be much poorer than we would otherwise have been.
Protectionism (for that is what much of it is) only benefits certain groups for a certain amount of time. In the long term it makes us all poorer.
HJ said:
"Of course, another problem is the cost of pensions. Salary apart, the cost of employing a teacher has increased greatly in recent years because about 3 years ago, in a cosy deal, government and unions agreed that LEA employers would have to pay an extra 5% of salary into the pension scheme in order to maintain benefits. The teachers weren't asked to increase their contributions. Employer pension contributions are now about 15% of salary (more than double the private sector average). Strangely, of course, even teachers in independent schools are part of the same public sector pension scheme."
According to Hargreaves Lansdown, the contribution needed to maintain a public sector pension should be around 30% per employee. Maybe the time has come for a trade-off between pay and pensions to take place in the public sector? Teachers in private schools are part of the public sector pension scheme in much the same way as self-employed medical and dental practitioners in the NHS....a very strange anachronysm.
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