Are unions as great a threat as the banks?

Ebonhoof

It sickens me to see the unions lining up to say no to the new agreement done with Kieran Mulvey chairing. Kieran Mulvey is widely seen as a man of fairness and integrity. Both sides gave as much as they could. Neither side is overjoyed but thats the price of compromise.

I fear a domino effect of unions saying no will cripple the country and plunge the nations coffers into an even greater hole than they are already in.

doc_17

No is the answer to that

Permabear

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doc_17

donegalfella wrote: »

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And it's no secret that they teach some of the largest classes in the most run down facilities with the least investment in ICT and with some of the longest working days in the OECD.

I know it doesn't suit you to hear that or believe it donegal man but it's true whether you like it or not. If you want to benchmark teachers thats fine. Cut their pay AND class size at the same time. Cutting class size to OECD norms will result in more teachers being needed to teach reduced class sizes and more cost to the exchequer..

Permabear

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Firetrap

It's up to union members to exercise a bit of common sense here. Union officials can tell their members which way to vote but ultimately they have to accept the final ballot results. A lot of union rhetoric tends to be spin and posturing (the nature of the beast) but the scary thing is that a lot of members seem to be falling for it.

ardmacha

and have some of the shortest working hours.

It is repeatedly incorrectly stated on this forum that Irish teachers have some of the shortest working hours in the OECD. I have several times posted the chart below, and Donegalfella is pretty regularly here. He previously made this comment about teachers and I refuted it in this post. It is unacceptable that someone continues to make comments according to their predjudices and ignoring OECD data on the subject.

Irish secondary teachers are about average for hours worked in the OECD, primary teachers are well above average and are much less well paid than in Korea, where they also work less. In 2006, in the middle of this supposed boom in Irish government over expenditure, if Ireland had spent as much per student as the UK then non pay expenditure could have been increased by two-thirds and schools would have been properly equipped and maintained.

Can the debate not proceed from accurate premises rather than untruths.

The_Honeybadger

donegalfella wrote: »

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I also believe teachers pay increased by 70% :eek: during the boom, even after all the cuts and levies they are still much better off than they were a decade ago. I know young teacher are really suffering with reduced hours and the recruitment moratorium, and I have great sympathy for them, however their older permanent colleagues have no business protesting, if they want smaller classes and better facilities they will have to accept less pay, they can't have it every way.

EDIT: Ardmhaca is correct, Irish teachers spend more hours in the classroom than most in OECD, however they have more days off I believe.

Permabear

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ei.sdraob

may i remind people

that a certain union leader, was on board of Central Bank/Regulator

while all the shenanigans where happening

the question arises. what was he doing then?




they are all in bed together, one worse than another all gang raping the taxpayer

doc_17

it's mad how people misread stats. Yes a high proportion of education budget goes to wages but that's because of underinvestment in other areas. That figure of 735 hours is DIRECT CONTACT with students. It doesn't take into account the other work done (have a wee look at yesterdays survey by the TUI) which takes it well above other countries

Even the Indo's education corespondent accepted that in the paper today.

Once again let me reiterate - yes it is a good job. I don't mind rowing in and paying my share. My gripe is with people who pass comments for the sake of it, don't know the facts and allow their preconceived notions to blinker them when making analysis.

Some people quote OECD studies to back up their point but when someone responds with another OECD study they reject it!

But, the craics good anyway.

ei.sdraob

doc_17 wrote: »

have a wee look at yesterdays survey by the TUI.

yes that survey is bound to be unbiased :rolleyes:

doc_17

Perfect illustration of what I was talking about:D

quietsailor

ardmacha wrote: »

It is unacceptable that someone continues to make comments according to their predjudices and ignoring OECD data on the subject.

Can the debate not proceed from accurate premises rather than untruths.

Ardmacha, if you want a debate to proceed from an accurate premise then you have to back up your posts. Just putting up a graph isn't good enough, you have to give a link to where it came from and possibly even explain where it came from if the link isn't clear.
This could be a chart copied from the "All-teachers-falsify-data-so-we-can-make-our-work-conditions-look-worse-than-they-are" website, you've nothing to prove otherwise in that post

(yes yes I know it is probably from somewhere official and is a scientific study, the point is YOU haven't proved that)

ardmacha

I know it is probably from somewhere official and is a scientific study,

This is OECD data for 2006, not someones interpretation of OECD in a newpaper or whatever.

With the pay reductions Irish teacher salaries per contact hour are about the EU average. But Irish teachers are the most productive in Europe as their class sizes are larger, and their outputs comparable.

If peope are concerned about 77% of education expenditure being spent on wages and this being a problem, presumably it non pay expenditure has increased now that wages have been reduced.

TheRealPONeil

donegalfella wrote: »

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Good grief, I've never witnessed such a liberal use of a clipping service to support a point - did you actually read any of these articles?

dan_d

I don't think that's really the point. The point is that the money is no longer there and if wages are dropping across the board, then teachers wages need to go down too. The same argument is being had about firemen/guards etc. they got raises when times were good, and now times are bad - we no longer have the money to pay the same wages. Most people have taken paycuts, private and public, and it's unfortunately got to be accepted that this is now a part of life. Class sizes/hours never really had anything in particular to do with teacher's pay, and there's no reason for it to start being linked to it now. 10 years ago (possibly even less) class sizes were big and pay was less and that was just how it was. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but it is a problem for the Dept of Education to solve to improve the education system, not to improve/impact on teacher's pay.