Teachers, Bankers, and Job Security

Freddie59

Just looking at a clip from the Teacher's Conference in Sligo. Going on about reduced pay and 'diminishing job security'. WTF? in the past two weeks we've also had Larry Broderick lecturing the Government on redundancies in the banks and how his 'organisation' wouldn't be open to compulsory redundancies.

FFS what planet are these teachers and bankers on? NO job is secure anymore. It should stand (or fail) on its performance - and profitability (however it is measured). I am one of the lucky ones to have been blessed with employment for the past 35 years. The company I work for came very close to closing in 2002. Thankfully it didn't. Down through the years I - and my colleagues - worried about the next year, what it might bring and whether or not it would survive. I watched long-serving colleagues and friends being made redundant. Thankfully it is now profitable, thanks to judicious investment and a conscientious workforce.

And yet these people moan about rates of pay and job security:eek:. When Ireland, Inc (their employer) is, effectively, bankrupt.

We are talking about allegedly intelligent people here. And they can't see past their noses.

chin_grin

Freddie59 wrote: »

We are talking about allegedly intelligent people here.

That's debatable. :pac:

I'd be "allegedly intelligent" if I could teach verbatim from a book and then check the correct answers in the index/'special red teacher-only answers book'.

Cool_CM

Brilliant. Here we go again...

bobmalooka

Yep its from the self important nonsense they are fed during their training that makes them believe they are right to hold the country to ransom because they were promised a never ending gravy train.

*obviously generalisations aren't reflective of each individual teacher in the country

MagicSean

A PS thread

Disgruntled person: Your wages are too high.
PS worker: I have a ****ty but necessary job. That's why I get paid the way I do.
Disgruntled person: Your wages are higher than mine and you have that nice pension
PS Worker: I have to pay the pension levy and contributions for that now
Disgruntled Worker: You do a **** job. You're whole sector is corrupt/incompetent. I once saw a Garda/teacher/nurse litter.
PS Worker: I'm not that person.
Disgruntled person: Your employer is broke because you bought too many houses and got too much pay.
PS Worker: My employer is broke because they were incompetent and corrupt. I didn't set my wages I just took a job at a rate offered.
Disgruntled person: The country cant' afford to pay you.
PS worker: I cant afford another cut. Id rather see them change some of the work practices I have to work with and make the place more efficient.
Disgruntled person: Your greed sickens me
PS worker: Your begrudgery sickens me

Have I missed anything?

Freddie59

k_mac wrote: »

Have I missed anything?

Probably the bit about the country being bankrupt - and also how long can the level of pay be paid....until the well runs dry. But - hey - let the gravy train roll (or so it seems). And it's not A PS thread. The OP mentions both public AND private sector. One is an overstaffed, overpaid, bloated, and unsustainable entity. Oh wait - that could apply to both. And both hemorrhaging money that the state doesn't have.

midlandsmissus

k_mac wrote: »

A PS thread

Disgruntled person: Your wages are too high.
PS worker: I have a ****ty but necessary job. That's why I get paid the way I do.
Disgruntled person: Your wages are higher than mine and you have that nice pension
PS Worker: I have to pay the pension levy and contributions for that now
Disgruntled Worker: You do a **** job. You're whole sector is corrupt/incompetent. I once saw a Garda/teacher/nurse litter.
PS Worker: I'm not that person.
Disgruntled person: Your employer is broke because you bought too many houses and got too much pay.
PS Worker: My employer is broke because they were incompetent and corrupt. I didn't set my wages I just took a job at a rate offered.
Disgruntled person: The country cant' afford to pay you.
PS worker: I cant afford another cut. Id rather see them change some of the work practices I have to work with and make the place more efficient.
Disgruntled person: Your greed sickens me
PS worker: Your begrudgery sickens me

Have I missed anything?

Stating that you're a public sector worker?

goose2005

I've read about "superheads" being appointed to failing schools in the UK - they say that the first thing to do - and the hardest thing to do - is to fire the bad teachers. The teachers' unions cannot be credible until they accept - or are forced to accept - that bad teachers must be dismissed.

folan

job security is relative. Poor performance gets you fired. Redundancy is paid when staff have to be let go because the company is not profitable, even if its not through any fault of their own.

Nobody wants more people unemployeed. thats why unions dont want compulsory redundancies.

Teachers have created a scenario for themselves where they can get a job for life, with limited possibility of loosing it. they have very little in the way of accountability and assesment. changing that will mean a few jobs around the country will go.

but the job security for new teachers is non existant. they have zero chance of getting a perminant position as ordered by the dept of education and thus are being forced into a situation where they basically become contractors with no security. Very few other careers have this as a given.

Allow them to complain, but sooner or later they will have to accept that education posts are going to have to be competitive too. A job for life should never exist.

dvpower

k_mac wrote: »

Have I missed anything?

Every student and every teacher knows that there are teachers in work that have either burnt out, haven't kept up or were never suitable for the job in the first place.

These people can't be gotten rid of while at the same time there are lots of new teachers begging to get a permanent position and lots of kids getting a sub standard education. Makes no sense at all.

Gummy Panda

A new and exciting topic for after hours..

bobmalooka

k_mac wrote: »

A PS thread

Disgruntled person: Your wages are too high.
PS worker: I have a ****ty but necessary job. That's why I get paid the way I do.
Disgruntled person: Your wages are higher than mine and you have that nice pension
PS Worker: I have to pay the pension levy and contributions for that now
Disgruntled Worker: You do a **** job. You're whole sector is corrupt/incompetent. I once saw a Garda/teacher/nurse litter.
PS Worker: I'm not that person.
Disgruntled person: Your employer is broke because you bought too many houses and got too much pay.
PS Worker: My employer is broke because they were incompetent and corrupt. I didn't set my wages I just took a job at a rate offered.
Disgruntled person: The country cant' afford to pay you.
PS worker: I cant afford another cut. Id rather see them change some of the work practices I have to work with and make the place more efficient.
Disgruntled person: Your greed sickens me
PS worker: Your begrudgery sickens me

Have I missed anything?

The teachers unions aren't being very co-operative on this point, I know our teachers have a very difficult and important job to fulfill but their unions need to get realistic (and fair) about dragging their feet on reforming the sector.

There are a lot of unfair comments on here about PS workers.

A lot of PS workers are more than happy to use these comments to excuse their huge resistance to the entirely necessary changes to bring our PS somewhere closer to a sustainable level.

Disgruntled worker is taking the sting needed to save our economy...we need our PS workers to do the same so we can all have a brighter future.

Love and peace to all
Bob

KildareLion

The teachers' unions cannot be credible until they accept - or are forced to accept - that bad teachers must be dismissed.

There aren't any bad teachers just stupid pupils

;-)

Blazer

k_mac wrote: »

A PS thread

Disgruntled person: Your wages are too high.
PS worker: I have a ****ty but necessary job. That's why I get paid the way I do.
Disgruntled person: Your wages are higher than mine and you have that nice pension
PS Worker: I have to pay the pension levy and contributions for that now
Disgruntled Worker: You do a **** job. You're whole sector is corrupt/incompetent. I once saw a Garda/teacher/nurse litter.
PS Worker: I'm not that person.
Disgruntled person: Your employer is broke because you bought too many houses and got too much pay.
PS Worker: My employer is broke because they were incompetent and corrupt. I didn't set my wages I just took a job at a rate offered.
Disgruntled person: The country cant' afford to pay you.
PS worker: I cant afford another cut. Id rather see them change some of the work practices I have to work with and make the place more efficient.
Disgruntled person: Your greed sickens me
PS worker: Your begrudgery sickens me

Have I missed anything?

Yep...you forgot the part where The country can't afford to pay you so take the pay cut or frak off

HellFireClub

Why are these people allowed have a conference in the first place and what the F*CK is an Irish government minister doing turning up to explain himself and the policies of his government to these spoilt intransigent goons???

It's the wrong message that is being given to them, all under the threat of massive industrial unrest if he does not turn up to pay them the homage that they percieve is due to them at their annual conference...

He should write them a letter subsequent to receiving an invitation, telling them that he is too busy managing his department and trying to balance the financial books for the sector than to be taking a day or two off to listen to a gang of whingers and whiners who have no idea how handy they have it.

While we are on it, how many of them were prosecuted or fined and penalised for blatant income tax evasion/under declaration of income tax returns only a few short years ago when a directive was issued to all schools by the department, instructing that cash income obtained by teachers through the provision of supervised study time, had to be taken into account for income tax purposes and tax had to be paid on this income???

Does Enda Kenny still have a FULLY PENSIONABLE teaching position being reserved for him in Mayo even though he is the longest serving TD in Dail Eireann, so someone else puts in his hours for him for 25 years and he gets to pick up the pension???

BULLSH*T the whole lot of it, there is no other word for it...

Feeona

Freddie59 wrote: »

I watched long-serving colleagues and friends being made redundant.

And yet these people moan about rates of pay and job security:eek:. When Ireland, Inc (their employer) is, effectively, bankrupt.

I find it odd that you think someone is 'moaning' when they're worried about losing their job, or getting further paycuts. Did you tell your colleagues to quit their 'moaning' when they lost their jobs? Also your company was doing badly, bad enough to make people redundant. Yet you never gave up your job to help save money for the company. Why is that?

Deedsie

Ah hang on now, if the teachers wages weren't that high, how the hell would they pay for their two month tour of south America for the summer.

Give me a break, teachers have it sweet here. Two months paid vacation... How is that justified? Their holidays should be in line with everyone elses, leave em teach back to education classes during the summer.

TheZohanS

Deedsie wrote: »

Ah hang on now, if the teachers wages weren't that high, how the hell would they pay for their two month tour of south America for the summer.

Give me a break, teachers have it sweet here. Two months paid vacation... How is that justified? Their holidays should be in line with everyone elses, leave em teach back to education classes during the summer.

Teachers and all PS workers have taken big pay cuts over the last two years...OK well not technically pay cuts but money has been taken off them to be given back to them in huge pensions...OK well technically not even taken off them either...

It's an outrage.:mad:

delta_bravo

Deedsie wrote: »

Ah hang on now, if the teachers wages weren't that high, how the hell would they pay for their two month tour of south America for the summer.

Give me a break, teachers have it sweet here. Two months paid vacation... How is that justified? Their holidays should be in line with everyone elses, leave em teach back to education classes during the summer.

Anecdotal evidence, no point really in dealing with that.


Holidays are justified for historical reasons and also the fact that kids cannot operate 365 days a year in a classroom. There are countries with much less holidays for kids that have a poorer education system. If you want a reasonable debate come over to the teaching and lecturing forum. If you want to continue soapboxing stay where you are.

HellFireClub

Here's a very harsh statistic for some folks on here lauding the teaching community:

2008 Leaving Cert Maths paper sittings and subsequent results:

50,116 students took the Leaving Cert Maths paper...

Of this 50,116 mass of students, 5,803 students (11.6%), sat the Foundation Level paper...

35,803 students (71.4%), took the Ordinary Level paper...

Of this group of 35,803 who sat Ordinary Level, 12.3% failed to pass the paper, that's 4,404 students who sat and failed the Ordinary Level paper...

So we have 4,404 students who failed the ordinary level paper and we have the 5,803 students who didn't think they had been taught maths to such a sufficient standard, that they could even sit, let alone hope to pass, the Ordinary Level paper to begin with, which is the basic mathematical standard for any third level degree or for any job that requires even the basic standard of numeracy...

That's an almost unbelievable 10,207 students, or 20.3% of the Leaving Cert group for the year 2008, that failed to pass the Leaving Cert Ordinary Level paper.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaving_Certificate_Mathematics

Now don't tell me there isn't a serious problem with teacher performance behind these kind of shocking figures...

Deedsie

delta_bravo wrote: »

Anecdotal evidence, no point really in dealing with that.


Holidays are justified for historical reasons and also the fact that kids cannot operate 365 days a year in a classroom. There are countries with much less holidays for kids that have a poorer education system. If you want a reasonable debate come over to the teaching and lecturing forum. If you want to continue soapboxing stay where you are.

No ill stay here thank you. I know teachers who do these tours every summer. Five of them are doing North America this summer I was informed sunday night. Three weeks at Christmas, two weeks at Easter, public holidays and three months off at summer one girl who teaches in a primary school. She teaches 5 - 7 year olds from 9-1:30 Monday to Friday.


Justify her wages, pension, lifestyle!

talla10

We're actually having this debate again??Seriously??

Cant we all just get along?





















or revolt against the government and system that created this mess??

Micky Dolenz

Do we really need this thread? really?

HellFireClub

delta_bravo wrote: »

Anecdotal evidence, no point really in dealing with that.


Holidays are justified for historical reasons and also the fact that kids cannot operate 365 days a year in a classroom. There are countries with much less holidays for kids that have a poorer education system. If you want a reasonable debate come over to the teaching and lecturing forum. If you want to continue soapboxing stay where you are.

Jesus Christ almighty, doing something for "historical reasons", is the worst reason I have ever heard for continuing to do something. If we followed that logic, we'd still be hanging people in public in Stephen's Green for stealing silk hankies from the upper class and burning the local auld wan in the town square for being a witch.

delta_bravo

Micky Dolenz wrote: »

Do we really need this thread? really?

I would like if Teaching related threads are moved into the T&L forum. Some people are raising legitimate points, some are talking through their... but they can get a proper response in that forum.

mikemac

Those children are needed on the farm.
We've got hay to save!

delta_bravo

HellFireClub wrote: »

Jesus Christ almighty, doing something for "historical reasons", is the worst reason I have ever heard for continuing to do something. If we followed that logic, we'd still be hanging people in public in Stephen's Green for stealing silk hankies from the upper class and turning the local auld wan in the town square for being a witch.

The first point was to inform why the holidays are so long in the first place, providing context. You completely ignored my 2nd one.

HellFireClub

Micky Dolenz wrote: »

Do we really need this thread? really?

I for one am SICK SICK SICK to my teeth of turning on the radio and listening to some vested interest group holding a conference and threatening me with industrial unrest and all kinds of consequences, the same members of said interest group, completely and utterly protected from all real poverty and impacts to lifestyle, due to this recession and the same teachers are blaming everything and anyone but themselves for the state of the set up in maths, which is that 20% of kids sitting the Leaving Cert, leave school without a basic competence in maths. I'd say you would struggle to find a more shocking statistic in Zimbabwe, Somalia or some other third world war torn state.

Last week it was the Gardai and this week it's the teachers, WHO IS COVERING THESE OBVIOUS ABSENCES FROM WORK for "conference work" while we have Gardai up and down the country converging for a conference last week and this week the teachers???

How does all this waffling and finger wagging impact on productivity in these sectors???

TheZohanS

delta_bravo wrote: »

Anecdotal evidence, no point really in dealing with that.


Holidays are justified for historical reasons and also the fact that kids cannot operate 365 days a year in a classroom. There are countries with much less holidays for kids that have a poorer education system. If you want a reasonable debate come over to the teaching and lecturing forum. If you want to continue soapboxing stay where you are.

delta_bravo wrote: »

The first point was to inform why the holidays are so long in the first place, providing context. You completely ignored my 2nd one.

A bit like your own post so.

AnonoBoy

I'm outraged at the outrage but also outraged at the lack of outrage (depending on who I'm having pints with).

westendgirlie

Deedsie wrote: »

Three weeks at Christmas, two weeks at Easter, public holidays and three months off at summer

Don't forget kids have to stay at home for teacher training days WTF

And why, oh why do they insist on having parent/teacher meetings during the day? The kids have to stay off school and the parents have to take time off from a job that they are trying to keep hold of.

Overall, you are looking at 17-18 weeks holidays for kids. If you are a two parent family, you would have to take your annual leave at seperate times and STILL you would have to find cover for the remaining 9-10 weeks.

I wish I was a teacher :mad:

mikemac

westendgirlie wrote: »

If you are a two parent family, you would have to take your annual leave at seperate times and STILL you would have to find cover for the remaining 9-10 weeks.

Schools are not child minding services

HellFireClub

AnonoBoy wrote: »

I'm outraged at the outrage but also outraged at the lack of outrage (depending on how I'm having pints with).

There are hundreds of thousands of people in this country now who are extremely exposed to food poverty, children of unemployed people as a consequence are through pure circumstance, who now find themselves exposed to the kind of lifestyles and struggle that belongs back in the inner city tenements of 1901.

Gardai, teachers and other PS workers who are trying to hide under this mantle of abject poverty in an effort to obtain public sympathy and in an attempt to protect and preserve their very generous entitlements and their working practices that belong back in the Victorian times, when the reality is that they are completely and fully protected from any of the hardship that other people are struggling with daily, in my opinion they are absolute disgrace on themselves.

bobmalooka

westendgirlie wrote: »

Don't forget kids have to stay at home for teacher training days WTF

And why, oh why do they insist on having parent/teacher meetings during the day? The kids have to stay off school and the parents have to take time off from a job that they are trying to keep hold of.

Overall, you are looking at 17-18 weeks holidays for kids. If you are a two parent family, you would have to take your annual leave at seperate times and STILL you would have to find cover for the remaining 9-10 weeks.

I wish I was a teacher :mad:

The holidays are too long but needing somewhere to leave the kids isnt really a valid argument and only feeds the feeling among teachers that they need to take a hard stance to any potential pay cuts/work changes because we the general public are being emotive and irrational on the subject

westendgirlie

feelingstressed wrote: »

Schools are not child minding services

Obviously not with the amount of holidays teachers take!

westendgirlie

bobmalooka wrote: »

The holidays are too long but needing somewhere to leave the kids isnt really a valid argument and only feeds the feeling among teachers that they need to take a hard stance to any potential pay cuts/work changes because we the general public are being emotive and irrational on the subject

I'll have to keep leaving em at the roundabout then

chocbisc

i'm amazed that freddie 59 hellfireclub and westendgirlie haven't considered teaching as a career seeing how handy teachers have it.

HellFireClub

westendgirlie wrote: »

Don't forget kids have to stay at home for teacher training days WTF

And why, oh why do they insist on having parent/teacher meetings during the day? The kids have to stay off school and the parents have to take time off from a job that they are trying to keep hold of.

Overall, you are looking at 17-18 weeks holidays for kids. If you are a two parent family, you would have to take your annual leave at seperate times and STILL you would have to find cover for the remaining 9-10 weeks.

I wish I was a teacher :mad:

Because they are a crowd of instransigent f*cking wombats, every last one of them. I spent 14 years in the school system in this country, 8 years in primary and 6 years in secondary and I only ever encountered ONE teacher in those 14 years who was genuinely in the job to teach and who actually gave a sh*t about the quality of the job that he did, insofar as his coming into work and his approach to his job, had an huge impact on his students.

HellFireClub

chocbisc wrote: »

i'm amazed that freddie 59 hellfireboy and westendgirlie haven't considered teaching as a career seeing how handy teachers have it.

You see that's the difference between you and I.

I know I wouldn't be into teaching so I wouldn't put the academic and intellectual needs of a child, ahead of my own selfish need for a salary.

The vast vast majority of the teachers that I had in my school years, didn't give a fiddlers about anything other than the fact that they had landed a handy number with no measurable responsibilities, which gave loads of time off and paid very well...

westendgirlie

HellFireClub wrote: »

Because they are a crowd of instransigent f*cking wombats, every last one of them. I spent 14 years in the school system in this country, 8 years in primary and 6 years in secondary and I only ever encountered ONE teacher in those 14 years who was genuinely in the job to teach and who actually gave a sh*t about the quality of the job that he did, insofar as his coming into work and his approach to his job, had an huge impact on his students.

Bring back corporal punishment I say. Whack them teachers into line

westendgirlie

chocbisc wrote: »

i'm amazed that freddie 59 hellfireclub and westendgirlie haven't considered teaching as a career seeing how handy teachers have it.

I'm trying to offload my kids for more weeks in the year, not gain even more kids!!!:eek:

TheDriver

here we go again where everyone remembers the 1 bad teacher they had but never mentions their good teachers. Amazing how no one ever eats their Child's Teacher at PT meetings over their "massive salaries and holidays" but rather thanks them for their efforts...........

chocbisc

HellFireClub wrote: »

You see that's the difference between you and I.

I know I wouldn't be into teaching so I wouldn't put the academic and intellectual needs of a child, ahead of my own selfish need for a salary.

The vast vast majority of the teachers that I had in my school years, didn't give a fiddlers about anything other than the fact that they had landed a handy number with no measurable responsibilities, which gave loads of time off and paid very well...

didn't get the points, huh?

HellFireClub

chocbisc wrote: »

didn't get the points, huh?

I got the points all right and have a university degree now, thank you very much, but only down to having to basically repair a near complete inability in the area of maths, thanks to a huge amount of time and effort from a university lecturer, however I was very lucky to get out of school with any proficiency whatsoever in maths, no thanks to one spastic teacher I had who couldn't add f*cking two and two himself and should never have been allowed next nor near a secondary school.

Feeona

westendgirlie wrote: »

I wish I was a teacher :mad:

What's stopping you?

HellFireClub

westendgirlie wrote: »

Bring back corporal punishment I say. Whack them teachers into line

I say incentivise and protect the competent and the performing teachers and dispense with the useless ones.

The process starts, as it does with any other evaluation process, by setting the bar for the performance level that is required. Identify those that are operating above the bar and identify those that are not. Those that are not, identify those that with training, can get their performance level over the bar, and then identify those that cannot ever get their standard over the bar because are useless goons.

The problem is that this works everywhere else in the world, in every other profession, to get things done to a certain standard.

But when you try put this to Irish teachers, you get all this non-quantifiable rubbish, usually along the lines of, "oh we won't have that, you won't be analyising us, we do all these other important things that cannot be quantified or evaluated on paper"...

Either deliver the results in terms of grade achievements, or else f*ck off to some other place where you can't completely f*ck up the lives of those that let landed with your lack of proficiency and ability to take ownership of your job function, which should be all about results and nothing else...

zom

Feeona wrote: »

What's stopping you?

westendgirlie probably meant "to work as a teacher in public school", not just "to be a teacher"...

Feeona

zom wrote: »

westendgirlie probably meant "to work as a teacher in public school", not just "to be a teacher"...

Probably

Chips Lovell

HellFireClub wrote: »

Last week it was the Gardai and this week it's the teachers, WHO IS COVERING THESE OBVIOUS ABSENCES FROM WORK for "conference work" while we have Gardai up and down the country converging for a conference last week and this week the teachers???

How does all this waffling and finger wagging impact on productivity in these sectors???

I presume you didn't notice that the teachers had their conference during the Easter holidays?

Micky Dolenz

el tonto wrote: »

I presume you didn't notice that the teachers had their conference during the Easter holidays?

Be gone out of here you, and take you sensible jive talk with ya.:P

medicsie

Doesn't really help when you have Mr Miyagi as Min. for Education!.