No, you are right, they shouldn’t. But it has happened in the past. In any case you would argue that if they had felt strongly enough they should have voted thereby perhaps even preventing the strike.

Of course teachers are not required to be members of a union. I wonder how many are not and why they did not offer to work.

I, slightly reluctantly, echo your last sentence! I feel that the striker’s ire might be better directed towards their well remunerated superiors instead of inconveniencing innocent members of the public who will offer them little sympathy.

I also find it rather pathetic that the majority of union members who did not vote for the strike have hidded behind their colleagues and withdrawn their labour as well. How much more respect they would have had if they had presented themselves for work as usual.

Pagen – “Which is £12,000 more than I took home as a manager without a pension last tax year, …..”

That’s a scandal!!:(

Which is about £23,000 after tax/NIC. Presumably you are not suggesting that someone of, say, 30 fully qualified, with a family and a house should be paid no more than a pensioner, albeit with two pensions? If it is the other way round and that a pensioner should receive a great deal more, well no one would argue with that. We would all like a bit more, as you suggested in another thread.

But the pension pot is empty and the country is in hock. So there’s your dilemma…….