dunroving

For those of you living here or moving back, what do you think of the strikes?

I work in the public sector and am not striking for several reasons.

I think that regardless of what you think of striking as a means of influencing things, the current public sector pensions are clearly unsustainable. The maths just don't add up. Actually, correction: The maths do add up, but would have to be paid for by everyone else (via increased taxes, or decreased proportion of taxes available for other public use). The money for sustaining current pension conditions won't just appear from thin air.

lenehan101

But the economy supposedly didn't suffer when private and public sectors got the day off for the Royal wedding? Yet it will cost half a billion for today's strike action so the government claim.
I was in the civil service for 17 years and striked occasionally, not usually with any results but with all services coming together then they must feel they have a point. Nobody wants to strike or lose pay but sometimes you just have to stand and be counted. I support it.

Les

dunroving

I'm not sure about that - the news coverage generally included estimates of lost revenue due to the public holiday.

I missed 7 weeks of teaching back in the 70's when teachers went on strike. I can't imagine that ever happening again. Bloody hope not, the economy would then be well and truly screwed.

I think people have fair grievances (I'm not happy about the changes that already have occurred to my own pension system), but the solution seems to be presented in very simplistic terms (if we strike, then we'll get our old pensions back).

The more annoying thing to me isn't that pensions are being changed (I still have an exponentially better deal than most people in the private sector), but that we are all paying the price for actions of people who generally have got off scot-free (Scot-free?), in fact are enjoying record bonuses, pension pots, etc. (politicians, bankers, CEOs, etc.) I'm no anarchist, or communist, but I would rather see strikes against the screwed up, exploitative capitalist system built by corrupt politicians, financiers and big business. I would have been a lot less bothered if the rioters earlier in the year had burnt down several of Fred Goodwin's holiday homes, instead of the local shopping centres and local small businesses.

[Forgot to also say that in my job, striking for a day is almost completely ineffectual - working to rule would have a much bigger effect on the ability of universities to operate. That's why I'm not striking - no-one would notice or be affected. the biggest employment issue for university lecturers IMO is that we get paid 37.5 hrs for doing about 60 hrs work most weeks.]

pommybird

No offence intended to anyone who works in the public sector and I'm not generalising, but when I listen to the people who I know personally who work in the public sector, and are striking, it is clear they live in cloud cuckoo land, they should try working in the private sector and have a taste of the real world.

What part of enormous national deficit and global financial meltdown do these people not understand?

Sorry, rant over.

dunroving

I work in the public sector and am not offended in the slightest.

pommybird

Good, I never like to offend, not on this forum anyway

All my friends who work in the public sector have vastly superior benefits to those who I know work in the private sector, plus more flexible working, they've been moaning on that they work an hour extra after their contractual hours for no extra pay, mercy me, I've had jobs where I've nearly doubled my contractual hours at no extra pay and we were just expected to get on with it!

I've had to bite my tongue a few times with them!

dunroving

I think like anything else (private sector included), not everyone is in the same situation. I can, for example, sympathize with the nurse who is worried how on earth can she turn a patient in bed when she's 68, or binmen and other public sector workers who do crappy jobs for not a lot of money.

On the other hand, there are a) too many public sector chiefs making silly wages for producing reports in some language no-one can understand, and b) people like some acquaintances who are on a decent salary teaching, get 11 (or is it 13?) weeks holiday every year and will retire at 60, or another friend who works for the local council "inspecting" all of the municipal golf courses. He may be made redundant in the next few years but if so, could retire in his mid-50's with a very generous early retirement package. These guys know they have it good and are quite smug about it. It's a shame, but I think the public perception is that everyone in the public sector is like the latter folks for whom I see no reason to strike at all.

pommybird

Indeed your points are very valid, the public sector covers a whole plethora of jobs and circumstances, I'm sure there are some worthy causes but the friends I know who are striking are in teaching and administrative positions and IMO from what I have seen have nothing to be moaning about.

On a side note I would just like to ask, why is it that whenever they interview a representative from the unions on the telly or on the radio, he/she always seems to be a Scouser?

BristolUK

I spent over 30 years working in what was DHSS, became DSS and then DWP.

Pay was extremely low. There used to be pay comparisons with similar jobs (not that there were that many, what with the constant abuse, threats and assaults...even the odd murder) but every year they showed we needed about 20% just to catch up.

So the government abolished those reviews.

The public always complained about the benefits system being complicated. Must have been true for staff then eh? Especially with the rules constantly changing.

I went to work in a multi-agency project for 4 years doing much the same work with the same difficult clients as colleagues from the council and other 'voluntary' organisations. They were all on at least 30% more than me.

As well as thorough benefits knowledge, I also needed a certain amount of immigration expertise and sensitivity in areas such as bereavement, child sexual abuse, drug abuse and mental health awareness.

Oh, and supervising 5 or 6 staff.

My salary for all that in 2001 was a pathetic £15k. The vast majority of the staff in the offices I worked at were on less. I was one of the few on the maximum possible due to length of service and every bit of merit pay available for good annual appraisals.

There was a time when all Civil Service grades got the same rates of pay for the same type of work no matter the department.

Now it's different. Before I (escaped and) moved to Canada grades in the MOD were earning more than higher grades in DWP.

Several colleagues in DSS/DWP transferred, got large pay rises but dropped in responsibility/job description. One described her new job as a stationery clerk.

There were exceptions in each office. Perhaps about one in every 40 postions were cushy little numbers, away from the pressures of dealing with the public.

All Civil Service jobs are not the same.

Returnee

The strike is over a change in the pension system for public workers. Even non-government workers are getting one of the worst national pension payments in Europe. Perhaps the whole population should go on strike.

BristolUK

Strikers should be shot

says Clarkson.

Returnee

I hear the government has cut back on police firearms and bullets, so there may not be enough guns or bullets to carry our your wishes

northernbird

Abso-bloody-lutely

Fejaouk

I think sometimes people have to stand up and be counted, when something proposed by goverment is wrong. As a nurse I dont know how the goverment expects us to work till we are 68! It will be the infirm nursing the infirm essentially. However I think the financial landscape may be different when I come to retire, or I hope it will be. However I suppose we all just need to prepare for the worst personally and not rely on big-goverment as they seem dead set on pulling one over on us and bailing out the too big to fail companies to the detriment of the people they are supposed to be representing.

Scottie.

dunroving

He's an overpaid, immature pillock. He joked about people committing suicide on the same show.