increments

Bananaleaf wrote: »

Hi

Just wondering are secondary school teachers still receiving increments as they move up the salary scale?

Thanks

Ha. Well, we used to get an increment every 1 September. But they decided to postpone the increment for 3 months this academic year, until 1 December 2014 - so, a 25% pay cut to our increment in other words. Except, they haven't even paid this increment since the 1 December either. Apparently, they technically cannot give it to us although the technology was absolutely fine when it came to docking our pay for our strike day on 2 December. They also have no problem taking the so-called Pension Related Deduction out, all 10% of that tax which has nothing to do with our pensions. They said they will give us the increment on 19 February 2015. God bless them, and the ridiculous and utterly pointless hours they make us collectively endure in braindead meetings (this week we had our 4th stultifyingly boring 2-hour child protection meeting in 3 years!).

And then next year we will take a further 25% decrease in our increment via another 3 month delay. The election cannot come soon enough.

/rant over.

Are increments delayed in ETBs too?

Bananaleaf wrote: »

Thank you for your reply.

I am ashamed to admit that I don't know anything about our pay scale, what cuts have been implemented etc. I think it's a blend of there being too much to keep up with and the depression understanding it causes.

Next year there will be a further 3 month delay?? What is the idea behind this? Will every year from then on incur a 6month delay?

Yes and no. I can't remember the cut off point but for teachers earning under a certain wage there was a one increment delay which is this years one and for teachers earning above that two increments are at 15 month intervals. I was due my increment last september so I got it in December, my next increment will also be a 15 month one so I will get it in March 16 and then every 12 months after that.

Hazelnut Button wrote: »

Are increments delayed in ETBs too?

No, teachers in my ETB have got their increments. I had to chase mine up and didn't get it until January, but other teachers in my school got theirs in December.

man_no_plan wrote: »

There may be confusion over the term 'delay'.

There is a planned delay of 3 months for all affected teachers. This means that those due an increment in sept would get it in December. However, there has been a further delay for dept paid teachers as there is some payroll error.

So all teachers have the same increment pauses/ freezes under the HRA, depending on salary level, whether primary, etb or dept.

Not all teachers are affected by the payroll problem which has nothing to do with the HRA.

The lad thing we want is people thinking that the VEC crowd are getting away with something while secondary colleagues suffer. We are all in the same boat.

I don't think anyone thinks that. It's clear from the posts on here that the ETBs got their acts together by and large and made whatever changes were necessary to their payroll systems to ensure the increments were paid. The DES did not. I'm not DES paid but I still don't think it's acceptable. HRA was agreed in 2013. They had over a year to get their acts together on this and make the change.

As was pointed out, they were well capable of docking the strike day from teacher's wages the very next paycheque but seemingly incapable of changing increments with approximately 15 months notice to do so.