What should be done about Public Sector pay?

TAs basically do whatever is required of them by staff and HTs. I have known people working in early years who have had responsibility for the nursery, supposedly as an 'Early Years Unit' under the supervision of the reception teacher. The reception teacher sometimes being an NQT and the TA long serving, the TA often finished up doing the planning and organising the assessments. In secondary schools they may be left to supervise classes overseen by the head of year. They are being treated appallingly, but it happened in Newcastle some time ago. They eventually negotiated a settlement but it wasn't brilliant and caused much distress.

It was only a little bit of something Primrose, that I saw when I was looking for something else. That was why I wondered if anyone could add clarification.

It actually appears to be meeting others comments about mean and median Maizie and ensuring the same test is used in both cases but - and it is probably right in front of my nose - I can't see where the original article is.

Average wages for 90 per cent of British workers are less than half what you’ve been told

I don't know if this link is helpful, can't check as I have to go out now:
www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/bulletins/annualsurveyofhoursandearnings/2016provisionalresults#average-earnings

GG2. Median is 'midpoint' and 'mean' is average. They will be completely different figures. So how does one arrive at 'median average'? The term doesn't make any sense..
Do give us the link if you can :-)

It all depended on whatever the local agreement was, gillybob. When I started in Durham it was term time only, i.e paid for 39 weeks plus 5 weeks holiday (standard LA holiday allowance) though payment was spread over whole year. The agreement now being torn up was negotiated a few years later. It was for TAs to be paid full years salary + school holidays. It was very good & I was astounded we got it!
My personal view of the Durham situation is that TAs in post should've been left on the old T & C while new appointments set on on the 'new' T & C. But as it's really a cost cutting exercise that wouldn't have suited HTs.

Sounds interesting gg can you post a link to the article?

This is a little bit off topic but I have just seen some figures (for 2013/14 so may be a little out of date) which quoted the Median average earnings for the whole working population as £26,500, according to the Equality Trust, the High Pay Centre and the government. The ONS had it at £24,564 however.

What caught my eye was that the same article showed, once the top 10% of income was striped out (using ONS figures) a median average pay earned by the remaining 90 per cent of £12,872 for the financial year 2013/14.

I felt this told us much more about how our economy is working for the majority and wondered if anyone had seen any other research on this.

I think I remember you mentioning this before djen - is this just in Durham or nationwide? Is this not illegal?
I suppose it must be just within legal boundaries or they would not do it and if so, it is immoral and unethical.

Are teaching assistants paid for the weeks worked or are they paid for the entire year? Not being controversial just wondering.

Yes, I know, Maizie.
I know quite a few TAs in Durham, some of whom teach whole classes without supervision.
Three of them are heading for 25% pay cuts.

It's wrong that someone is taken on on a contract, then is forced to resign and accpet a worse contract.
One that I know does not know if she will be able to pay her mortgage. She has two schoolage kids. She could have to sell up, and she does not live in a very expensive part of Durham as it is.

Yes Maizie - with respect to the HuffPost article

Were you talking about TAs in your last post, Primrose?

The 'highest' grade of TAs, HLTAs do teach whole classes, supposedly under the supervision of a teacher. This is a corruption of the role assigned to HLTA in the Schools Workload Agreement (2005 as I recall) but HTs have cheerfully gone along with it for teaching on the cheap (though who can blame them with school budgets so dreadfully squeezed since 2010).
The situation with TA's pay & conditions in Co. Durham is tricky, dj. There was never a national agreement on pay & conditions for TAs. Durham had a very good local agreement, better than most other LAs. It's austerity that has done for it. Plus it was far better than that of other LA school support staff, which gave the LA a lever through 'single status'.

When I was an Assistant Principal, I managed 13 Teaching Assistants. I made sure that the College ( upper secondary school ) policy was not to use them as replacement teachers.
Their contracts were for a maximum of 25 paid hours a week, or pro rata. The LA policy was that paid employment was strictly by the hour, so arriving early, staying late resulted in no extra pay.
On the whole they were dedicated, wonderful people who did many unseen tasks to help the students and teaching staff. Pay wasn't generous, but I tried to make their working conditions as good as they could be.

It sounds as though the terms and conditions of the job have changed more in line with private sector working - some on zero hours contracts, part-time instead of full time etc.
Is that a fair working assumption?

The living wage is now set at £9.15 an hour in London and £7.85 an hour in the rest of the UK. By comparison, the national minimum wage is significantly lower. Since October 2014, the national minimum wage has been £6.50 an hour for adults aged 21 and over, and £5.13 for those aged 18 to 20.

For the umpteenth time we pay living wage to one person who is a 25 year old apprentice. He is not trained and does not earn any money for the company. We also have to pay his full training fees ( several thousands of pounds) plus full employers national insurance and pension etc.

Read trisher's link. Teaching assistants are not teachers, but can be asked to teach a full class. I know some who do.
It's not just this county, it's all over the country.

Excellent link, trisher.
Unless people know teaching assistants, they do not really know what they do, or how they are being exploited.

Are teaching assistants allowed to teach a whole class? If that's happening regularly across a county and it's not an appropriate task, I'm surprised the NUT or other unions are not on the case. Mary Bousted was talking about teachers salaries on the Moral Maze link I posted, she implied there was no issue with salaries.

One of the worst paid and most put upon jobs is that of a Teaching Assistant. they earn on average £7.06 -£10.06. They are currently having their wages effectively cut by many authorities. Read about it here www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/annachristina-connelly/teaching-assistant_b_10611964.html
It is poorly paid Primrose65 and there is no chance of being paid any extra even when you stay late because someone's mum is late or you have to clear away paint/toys/mess.

The difference is not between public sector or someone owning a business!
All the TAs in my county are having their pay cut this year. Hour for hour work they can earn less than the living wage now and many are expected to teach whole classes.
Every council in the country is and has been cutting numbers; every school is having to cut staff.

I noticed at PMQs that May said that there were 7800 more police signed up last year. What she didn't say was how many had left, although police numbers are down overall.

It's all broken down by areas too. Lower paid in London and the South East, everywhere else there's a premium in working for the public sector. It's not poorly paid work.

It's also low-risk work, financially. No one has to borrow from the bank for machinery or decide whether to pay themselves or their staff if an order doesn't come in.

1
© Institute for Fiscal Studies 2014
Executive Summary
Average Pay in Public and Private Sectors

In raw terms, pay levels are higher in the public sector than in the private
sector. However, after accounting for differences in education, age and where
workers live, the differences are much smaller. Among men, the average
public sector pay differential in 2013
–
14 was close to zero, while among
women it was around 8%.

From the IFS link.
So men in the public sector do not get paid more than men in the private sector. Women do.

The minimum wage ONLY applies to those under 25?
When I was 25 I had two children and we were buying our third home, having got on our bikes for better pay.

Age discrimination is illegal, except when this government says so.
24 year olds have the same needs as 26 year olds. I don't think a landlord will ask for lower rent from a 24 year old. They'll have to pay the same for food and council tax. This discrimination should be illegal.

We can't use averages as I can imagine how much difference there will be with say London and Tyneside .

I am talking about my area primrose the North East of England where wages are typically way below average. There is no way an administrator would earn £10 an hour round here I can assure you.