Hutton means that all teachers will have to pay more into their pensions contributions, work a lot longer before they get it and it will not be worth as much when they do. It is an intolerable attack and must be vigorously resisted.

Teachers already pay 6.4 per cent of their salaries into their pension. Hutton is proposing that this is raised to nearly ten per cent! It would mean that a Newly Qualified Teacher would lose as much as £60 a month; any teacher on the Upper Pay Scale might lose up to £100 a month. Senior teachers, assistant heads and head teachers would lose even more. It is further proposed that the age of retirement for teachers will be raised from 60 at present to the statutory pension age, meaning 66 or 67 and even 68 for younger teachers new to the profession.

Even when they get their pensions, retired teachers will suffer. Instead of the pension being raised each year according to the Retail Price Index, it will not be matched to the Consumer Price Index, which is invariably lower. It has been estimated by the NUT that a teacher retiring on a pension of £10,000 a year will lose as much as £35,000 during the period of their retirement. That is why teachers already retired will be giving their full backing to their colleagues in work. Newly qualified teachers, with a debt to pay for their higher education, will find that it increases year by year according to the higher RPI. From the youngest to the retired, teachers must oppose the Hutton Report.

The Press, no doubt, will be full of the usual propaganda about ‘gold-plated’ pensions and the like, but the only gold-plated pensions around are those scattered like confetti in the boardrooms of the City of London.

Teaching is a high-stress occupation at the best of times and British teachers already have greater contact time and larger classes than many of their colleagues on the continent. Any teacher will tell you that it is physically and mentally impossible for a teacher to give as much in his or her sixties as they could when they were in their twenties.

How many teachers have been told by parents, “I wouldn’t do your job for twice the pay”? It is a bloody hard job. Many teachers put in so much effort and over a number of decades, that they are all but ‘burned out’ even in their fifties. There are no career breaks and study sabbaticals for teachers in this country.

Teaching has always been hard profession and it has always been understood that although it is more poorly paid than other professions, the pension scheme has offered some compensation for this. Forcing teachers to work on until the age of 68 just doesn’t bear thinking about.

Although the Government has said it want to talk to the TUC about Hutton, this is nothing more than a public-relations exercise. The Chancellor has already endorsed the main elements in the Hutton Report when it was published in March. The only language the Government will listen to is industrial action.

Teachers should not listen to the press which will unanimously condemn any strike action. The Hutton report will probably mean that many younger colleagues will leave the profession altogether – it is better to stand and fight, even if that means closing schools for a few days here and there, than to decimate the teaching workforce permanently and cause lasting damage to the education of our children. With leaflets and meetings with parents, the overwhelming majority of parents and the public will support teachers striking to defend their pensions.

Teachers will vote overwhelming to defend their pensions. This will be true of all the main unions: NUT, NASUWT, ATL and NAHT. But teachers will also be expecting that the leaders of these unions get together to make sure that their actions are coordinated and not dissipated. It is time now for joint action against the Hutton Report and for this to be a launching pad for talks on the establishment of a single union for all teachers.

The teacher union leaders must raise in the TUC a call for coordinated action, not only among teacher unions, but also among all public sector unions whose pensions are under attack, including PCS, Unison, FBU and others. A series of coordinated public sector strikes should be part of a TUC-wide campaign for a 24-hour general strike and a wider campaign to force this bankers’ government out of office.

• Coordinated strike action by all teaching unions!
• One union for all teachers!
• Coordinated strikes by all public sector unions!
     TUC must call a 24-hour general strike!