ANY QUOTES USED MUST BE ATTRIBUTED TO MURNAGHAN, SKY NEWS

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
On Wednesday millions of public sector workers are expected to take strike action over the government’s plans to try to reform their pensions. Schools are expected to be most affected with as many as nine out of ten schools facing closure as the three main teaching unions have voted to walk out. In a moment I’ll be speaking to Mary Bousted, head of the teaching union, ATL, and the Cabinet Office Minister, Francis Maude, who has led the negotiations in part with the unions. Also watching the discussion are our Twitter experts, Vincent Moss, the Sunday Mirror’s political editor, we’ve got Kevin Schofield, I’m pleased to say, the political correspondent at the Sun and also delighted to have Craig Woodhouse from the Evening Standard, all tweeting, they provide their reactions via Twitter which you can read on the side panels and can follow on our website, skynews.com/politics and of course we want you to join in using the hashtag #murnaghan. Well let’s say a very good morning to Mary Bousted, general secretary of the ATL who joins me from Bolton. Still calls at this 11th hour from the Labour party and indeed from the TUC for talking to continue, that’s done and dusted isn’t it? This strike is going ahead from your point of view.

MARY BOUSTED:
Unfortunately I think the strike will be going ahead, yes. We’ve waited now for this government to engage in real negotiations throughout this year. We are at a situation where at the eleventh month of negotiations, they finally put a figure on the table of what they’re prepared to pay for public sector pensions. These negotiations have been characterised by disarray on the government sources, on the part of the government, on a complete dislocation between different departments and the Treasury and it has been like boxing in the dark to try to negotiate with them.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
The court of public opinion is going to be crucial in whether or not they end up saying we think these strikes are worthwhile given the disruption that they cause. A lot of people are confused about what the actual realistic sticking points are, from your point of view what – and if you can be as simple as possible – what did you want to hear from the government side that would have enabled you to recommend to your members that we don’t go ahead with strike action?

MARY BOUSTED:
The precursor to what we want is proper negotiation because what’s been offered at the moment is simply unacceptable. It is not possible, it is simply not possible for teachers to work until they are 68. If teachers and other public sector workers have to pay 50% more in contributions, all that will happen is that the schemes will become unviable. Young teachers, young public sector workers, many starting their jobs paying back thousands of pounds of degree debt, will simply opt out of the pension scheme and that will cause a crisis. So there is lots that we need to discuss. We can come to a settlement but we need proper negotiations and we need a much better package than is on offer at the moment.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
Okay, heard that, but what do you accept, and of course Francis Maude is listening in, what do you accept from the government’s point of view, do you accept for instance that a teacher that’s worked twenty years or more and then retires will get a far better pension than someone in an equivalently paid job in the private sector?

MARY BOUSTED:
Well there is an issue about private sector pensions but I just put this point to you – in the last year for which figures were available, that’s 2008, private sector pensions got in tax relief £35 billion, sorry £37.5 billion, £12.5 billion more than was paid out in public sector pensions. Now I think the question that has to be asked of the private sector is, why when they get this massive tax relief are their pensions so bad? The reason for that is that there are hidden costs in private sector pensions, they are very, very expensive to run, they lack transparency and they are not invested very well. Now you don’t address the issue of appallingly poor private sector pension provision by decimating public sector pensions.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
Lastly, have you got any suggestions let’s say for working single parents or families where there are two parents who are both working, one of them at least is going to have to take a day off work on Wednesday because their teacher is on strike and they are going to lose money because they have got to take that day off? What do you suggest they should do?

MARY BOUSTED:
Well the first thing we want to say is that we are very, very sorry that we are forced to take this action again. I can’t give detailed suggestions for each family and each circumstance but what I can say is your teachers would very, very much more want to be in the classroom with your children than taking strike action, it’s the last the they want to do and we would not be here if this government had been able to negotiate it’s way out of a paper bag. We hope now that they’ll learn how to do that.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
Just very briefly, we were saying 90% of schools could close, is that the kind of turn out you are expecting?

MARY BOUSTED:
Yes, it is, those are the figures that we have. There are going to be very few schools open and indeed public sector services across the range are going to be affected and we regret that but we don’t take responsibility for it.

DERMOT MURNAGHAN:
Okay Mary Bousted, thank you very much indeed, general secretary there of the ATL.