Teachers to ballot on industrial action

[Johnny]

Teachers to ballot on industrial action | BreakingNews.ie

"More than 60,000 teachers are to be balloted for industrial action. The ASTI, TUI and INTO are asking thousands of teachers around the country to vote for action up to and including strike action. The INTO has 30,000 members, the ASTI has 18,000 and the TUI has 14,000."

[robert151410]

For what? Bunch of overpaid underworked second rate professionals. The best of luck to them. They will get nothing. It's that simple. They will get nothing.

[H.R. Haldeman]

Striking over the levy, but not over class sizes or other cutbacks? Bollox.

I hugely value and appreciate the work teachers do. They are a massively important part of society and deserve to be paid well. And they are paid well, especially considering our current economic problems.

A strike would be an outrage.

[advertismo]

It looks like the FF plan of divide & conquer hasn't worked - all the main Unions seem to be united in their realisation that the pensions levy is a precursor to wage cuts, and are providing mutual support.

[wombat]

It looks like the FF plan of divide & conquer hasn't worked - all the main Unions seem to be united in their realisation that the pensions levy is a precursor to wage cuts, and are providing mutual support.

I don't think its a FF plan to divide & conquer - people are starting to see that the interests of the private sector worker and the public sector worker are mutually exclusive.

[Easy Tiger]

There are as many spare graduates as houses. They could go on strike for a couple of years to let the backlog clear.

[H.R. Haldeman]

It looks like the FF plan of divide & conquer hasn't worked - all the main Unions seem to be united in their realisation that the pensions levy is a precursor to wage cuts, and are providing mutual support.

But advertismo, we need paycuts! From the Taosieach and CEO's down to cleaners and burger flippers. This would be a good thing IMO.

And this isn't about evil capitalists reducing wages to increase margins. It is about cutting the entire cost-base of our economy. In theory, if wages are cut, then prices for the stuff we all buy will have to fall too, so in the end we should end up with relatively the same as we have now.

Of course, if that burden isn't spread around, that would be wrong, as would opportunistic wage-cuts by firms simply seeking to make more profit. But as a general principle, we just have to sort our competitiveness out.

[advertismo]

Well that would require a complete, controlled re-alignment of prices, wages, debt & mortgages - of the ordinary kind; not the landlords with half a dozen properties. And we know that's not going to happen
When IBEC & the Small Business Org. are calling for it, it means they know there is a potential cheap labour force available to them.
For the past six years or so this has been going on - there are a number of companies around Dublin that have a small core of permanent workers which is added to seasonally with temps. as required. With the EU accessionists, a gulf emerged in the wages of the permanent & temporary staff ; many seemd to have an unwritten policy of 'hiring foreign' as they knew less would be expected. If you think I am going to go on a rant about immigration, you'll be right - but I'll pre-empt it with th statement that I believe that all immigrants should have entered this country on an equal footing with the Irish, and it should have occured in a controlled & reasoned manner. This did not happen ; they were brought in as underlings & welfare-tenants, & are now being used to undercut Irish workers.
The asylum system was deliberatley subverted & abused by FF to create tenants for the construction firms that doubled the number of housing units in Ireland in less than a decade. And, harsh or not, all welfare payments (weekly stipends which are the equal to regular wlfare payments, rent allowances, children's allowances, etc) to those applicants who's initial application for asylum was refused should be ceased forthwith, and a welfare payments to EU immigrants who worked here for a period of time should have a finite term, and no children's allowance should be paid for any child residing outside the state- there is no onus on us to do so; contrary to what some TDs have said.
As I have stated elsewhere, FF will not do this as it will exascerbate the housing market collapse; but they equate the economic condition of the housing market with that of the State; whereas it is actually costing the one to keep the other on life support.
The cost of running a country is proportional to the number of people you have in it; especially when you are heading for 20% unemployment. I'm guessing that several billion - Welfare, Health & Education - could be saved.
Seven Billion to the Banks ? They should have had all their customers assets transferred to other institutions & a controlled collapse should have occurred.
FF have said that thsis would cut off the cash supply to businesses & individuals, yet all the conditions attached to the recapitalisation were directed at rejuventing the housing industry - there are little or no provisions to make cash available for business loans.
They say that we need this to restore international investor's confidence - which is utter b'ollo'cks; nobody in their right mind would throw their money into the fire which is the main Irish Banks with their attendant bad debts; especially when they are endeavouring to pursue the same policies at the nearest opportunity. As long ago as summer 2007 international financial advisors were advising their clients not to touch Irish bank shares as their assets were tied up in land & property which was at least 40% overvalued.
Financial Institutions, new or existing, with a clean history will inspire greater investor confidence than Anglo/AIB/BOI with their tripartite union to FF and the CIF. It's a dead horse taht should be put down.
The bail-out & FF welfare scam - from which I exclude all genuine recipients - are two of our biggest costs, and will cost us far, far more in the long run if we don't sever them both.

[Question R24U]

I really hope that the teachers are the first to strike. The backlash they would received would deter the others. Teachers are certainly not overpaid, but the hours, the holidays and the security make up for it - and would make the rest of society unsympathetic to a pay strike (which even if they try and dress up as classsize and special needs issue is what it would be).

Lousy teachers dumping our lousy kids back on us.

Bart: You know, I heard Skinner say the teachers will crack any minute. (the message is passed by about 10 people)
Man: Skinner said the teachers will crack any minute purple monkey dishwasher!
Mrs. Krabappel: Well! We'll show him. Especially for that purple monkey dishwasher remark.

[one acre capitalist]

62k teachers going on strike, 70k unemployed graduates coming onto the labour market plus untold thousands of unemployed graduates. Sack every last one of these teachers and see how we go... I bet the quality of the teaching labour force goes up. This is a once in a geneeration opportunity to increase the skills base of the teacher work force.

Do ya feel lucky punks