Teachers take to Parliament to campaign on pensions

By PRSD, on Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Parliament: teachers, lecturers and support staff will be campaigning for their pensions

Thousands of teachers, lecturers and support staff will be visiting Parliament today to lobby their MPs about pension cuts in the education sector. Hundreds of these will be from the South West of England where it is expected that every one of our regional MPs will be lobbied. Teachers will be coming from as far afield as Penzance and from all the other areas of the South West.

The unprecedented action is part of a joint campaign by seven leading education unions to protest about Ministers’ unwillingness to enter into meaningful negotiations on pensions and the Government’s refusal to carry out the legally-required and overdue valuation of the Teachers’ Pension Scheme.

Staff from the maintained, academy and independent sectors in England and Wales as well as from colleges and post-92 universities, will lobby their MPs and hand in petitions from their workplaces.

The general secretaries of the seven unions will present a petition to the Department for Education signed by 130,000 – and counting – school, college and university staff. The petition states that the Government’s proposals are unjustified and nothing more than a stealth tax on hard-working and dedicated staff.

NUT South West Regional Secretary, Andy Woolley said, “It will be abundantly clear tomorrow that the profession is united in its determination to oppose cuts to our pensions. Teachers, lecturers and support staff won’t stand idly by while the Government tries to drive through changes that would be deeply damaging to staff recruitment, retention, mobility, morale and motivation and jeopardise the education of children, young people and other learners.

“The fact that over a 100,000 teachers and lecturers from around the country have signed the petition and thousands are giving up a day of their half-term holiday to come to London to lobby MPs, shows just how high feelings are running.

“The proposals take no account of the fact that the Teachers’ Pension Scheme was evaluated five years ago and a negotiated settlement reached which meant the scheme is expected to be in balance, something confirmed by the Audit Commission.

“The agreement then included a review of the scheme every three years and the teachers’ unions accepted that if the measures agreed were not working we would have to renegotiate, but the Government has refused to undertake that review which would clarify the situation and I believe this is because they are aware the massive increases in contributions, lowering of benefits and extension of the retirement age to 68 is unnecessary and is solely to raise revenue to pay for the deficit caused by the banking crisis which teachers had no responsibility for.

“This lobby and the large number of petitions returned should serve as a wake-up call to the Government. If Ministers don’t recognise that pensions are both affordable and sustainable, many teachers and lecturers will be left with no option but to take further action, including supporting the planned TUC day of action on November 30.”

(from a press release)

(image: Parliament Some rights reserved by Paul Kehrer)