Musings on the Teachers' Strike

There was a lot of fuss in the media last week about school closures due to the teachers' strike. Apparently, up to a third of schools were closed or partially closed last Thursday.

The school I worked at wasn't. Nor was my children's school. Nor was the school just down the road. I know of a few schools in the area that were closed, including Prestwich Arts College, and the school I'm just about to start work at - but they were on holiday already for Passover that week. Hardly a meltdown.

I do support the principle the teachers were striking for. In part. Though what's so great about the Housing Ladder that everyone's so darn keen to get on it anyway? An article in the newspaper today was all about the thousands of people who are likely to end up losing their homes due to the credit crunch. I'm bloody glad we stuck with renting. Like lots of other council tenants, we investigated the possibility of buying, but decided against it due to the unpredictability of our household income and the likelihood of a crash in house prices and the bursting of the credit bubble. Heck, if I could see this coming five or more years ago, why has it come as such a shock to the banks?

What I disagreed with when it comes to the teachers' complaints was that they're having trouble paying their bills and find it hard to make ends meet. Perhaps those who are so badly affected should consider downsizing? I'd consider myself exceptionally well off If I earned £20K - roughly what the lowest paid teacher earns at the moment. If they think they're hard done by, they should try and manage on a Teaching Assistant's income. Allowing for the fact that my current post is part-time, my earnings are roughly a quarter of what the lowest paid teacher earns in a year. At that rate of pay, if I worked full time, I'd still earn no more than half of what a teacher is paid.

I'm not saying the pay should be the same - teachers have to be extremely well-qualified. I didn't have to go to University to do my job. I did go to University, but to train for a profession I ended up leaving (again because of poor pay and conditions). However, Teaching Assistants (especially Levels 2 and upwards) have to be well-qualified and experienced - it requires at least a year at college to train. I did the Level 3 qualification (equivalent to 3 A-Levels), spending 2 years at college as a mature student to qualify. Teaching Assistants are skilled and qualified child care workers. We know rather more about Child Development, observing and assessing than the average teacher, for instance. Our role exists in partnership with the teacher. Our different skills and expertise should complement one another.

I think everyone who works in child care and education would agree that pay and conditions in this field are appalling. The work we do is undervalued to a deplorable extent. The fact that employers (both private and public sector) know that we do this work because it's worthwhile, fulfilling and rewarding on so many other levels seems to mean they think it doesn't have to be rewarding on a financial level, as those who are "called" to this line of work will do it anyway. This is why it is a Vocation.

The problem of inadequate pay has become endemic in society. The people who form the backbone of society - its nurses, teachers, nursery nurses, shop assistants, cleaners, factory workers, waste disposal people etc (the people who actually DO useful stuff) are paid peanuts. No-one gets a living wage. Everyone's pay has to be toppped up with benefits, tax-credits, handouts. I wonder why. Who benefits? Am I totally cynical? If it weren't in someone's vested interest, successive governments would have done somethig about this instead of jiggling around the benefits systems and changing the rules every two years on who can get what to make it look like they're "challenging poverty" and "taking affirmative action" or whatever the vote-winning buzzwords are.

Who benefits by keeping society in debt? Who benefits by keeping the real workers of this nation in poverty? Who's rich enough to pull the strings of politicians? Who makes sure that real change never happens?

The big companies, the big banks and financial institutions and the few people who run them. Profits maight take a dip, but no-one's actually going to make a loss here are they? I have lost whatever faith I had in the ability of policians to do anything about poverty, whether that be on a local or a global scale. It's not in their interests. Who owns your MP, I wonder.