It is reported an estimated 90 per cent of teachers will support strike action tomorrow in the dispute over public sector pensions.

While accepting that they may sustain a reduction of finances in the future, it would seem they fail to understand the economic disaster which threatens all of us, and which will similarly affect every one of working class and their pensionable futures.

Or do they consider they should be exempted, even though this would cause suffering to the remainder?

Their action presupposes that 90 per cent of our teachers are unable to understand the effect a depression would have on the whole of the working population, or consider their personal issues supercede the economic survival of a nation.

Do these people have the requisite understanding of the needs a country is dependent on, that in such times the whole community must work together to resolve such crises?

Do they not realise it is important they demonstrate moral integrity to our children in their formative years, instead of addressing their own personal issues at the expense of others?

W H Diment
Church Road
Laindon

...In the private sector, an employer who wishes to give employees a pension plan takes the contributions, both their own and their employees’, and gives them to a fund to invest, with the aim of making the best return possible.

This hopefully builds up a pension pot, which is used to buy the best deal on the open market at retirement time.

Why, then, cannot the Government do the same?

It could deduct the pre-agreed rate from the employee, add the employer average contribution in the private sector, and give that money to the investment companies, such as insurance companies, and let the public sector take its chances, just like anyone else.

Employees in the public sector are, according to figures from independent sources, paid around £4,000 a year more than their private sector counterparts. They would be free to boost their pension funds by making extra contributions from their salaries if they want bigger pensions at retirement time. The current level of contributions to the basic state pension would remain the same, and the standard state pension would be maintained for all.

This would be the fairest way of all, and would make union members look again at the horrendous contributions made from union funds, collected from members’ subscriptions, to their leaders’ pension pots, which often exceed the total annual salary or wage of their individual members.

Surely this would be fairer for the majority of the workforce in the private sector, and could not be condemned by those in the public sector as unfair. Equality for all.

Henry MacDonald
Fairmead Avenue
Westcliff