Would you take a paycut?

There’s an interesting debate going on on Education Posts, http://educationposts.ie/forum/viewtopic.php?id=20226, regarding teachers taking a paycut in order to save the jobs of colleagues who will be gone due to the increase of class sizes.  Instantly there was a barrage of “not before hell freezes over” before some interesting points were raised about our current conditions.

For example, one poster suggested that yard supervision could be cut.  This has been met with huge resistance as was the suggestion of travel expenses for teachers shared between schools.  One retort was that no other profession would be expected to work over their lunch break without being paid.  However, it’s only recently that we started getting paid for it and teachers simply did it as part of their job.
I love getting my supervision money and I treat it like a bonus in July/August each year. I tend to spend some of it on my car tax and insurance and the hundred or so that is left is spent on treats.  I do look on it as a treat.
Imagine the government decided to pay us for our planning.  Hypothetically, let’s say we weren’t in a recession and still in the middle of the Celtic Tiger and the goverment decided to  pay us for 1 hour planning per week. (I know we do a hell of a lot more…but hear me out!)
We’re not getting paid for it right now but we all still do it (and more).  Wouldn’t we think of this new “planning” money as a treat?  That’s how I felt when the yard money came in.  We were doing it anyway and now we were getting paid for it.  If I was given the choice of reducing class size and losing supervision pay, I’d think about it.