General Chat

Do you think it did any good
I do
it saved the Govenment millions in wages

WHAT DO YOU THINK ????

True Joy. I have never worked out how they can lose a days wages for a strike and think they can ever make up that amount with a pay rise. A days pay these days is quite a lot. To say nothing of the money that was being spent on booze in Wetherspoons at lunch time by the strikers. Seemed like a jolly to me.

Don't know, but what I do know is that instead of it being relatively quiet ( wednesdays are) at the shopping centre today it was heaving with kids out of school, and probably also those on strike using the day to go Christmas shopping, so I beat a hasty retreat without buying anything.... it saved me some money if no one else :-D

Governments does not pay their wages, We do (the tax payer)

I have gone through life when things have changed at work (pay and conditions) and either had to accept it of move on,
personally i tend to change jobs if i am no longer getting what i was contracted for (by way of pay and conditions)

If they are not happy with any new deal then they need to do the same and not expect the future tax payer to foot the bill.

Roy

There are a lot of people looking for work who'd like their jobs/wages. (And I speak as a retired Civil Servant...... Who never went on strike in my life.)

MY SON HAS A SAYING
Give a man a gun and he can rob a bank
but give a man a bank and he can rob the world

the governments much the same to me
no matter whos in power
the poor will always be poor

and no matter how you look at things the OAPs of today
have earned a better deal than they get
they fought to keep us free many dies for the same cause

yes your right the pubs and shops will benifit from the strike
and most of the local children have had a field day
the cimema was packed today

Please remember that government workers pay their taxes too, if they want to loose money by supporting the strike then that is their right todo so and the money spent in weatherspoons is theirs to spend they have earned it..... also school isnt a child minding service its there to educate children. .....they picked an excellent day for it ...last payday before xmas . :-D

The public sector has been overinflated for years..so they have to take their medicine like the private sector have had to...my dad lost £25,000 on his final pension pay out...didn't see anyone shouting loudly on HIS behalf...

They're only bringing public sector pensions broadly into line with private sector ones.........EVERYONE has to work longer and collect less...it's a fact end of.

Or of course you could just close your eyes to the whole thing and end up like Greece.......beholden to the EU community for the crumbs thrown at the table.........there's your stark choices...i know which i would choose. !!!

Industry has/had the choice of a pension Government workers do not they dont have the choice to opt out take it or walk!

No I didnt support the strike this time I went to work like a good little sc*b :-(

its a loosing battle as far as I am concerned .

I have watched the television today and have come to the conclusion that no one has come up with a legitimate excuse for the strike.
I left school at fourteen, not paying a full stamp until I was eighteen, but contributing at the lower rate at first. Nowadays people join the work-force at 16, 17, 18, sometimes in their early twenties and "perpetrual students" at a very much later date, so why the angst about having to work longer to receive their index linked pensions. I paid contributions for fifty-one years and at a later time contributed to a private pension, using pre-taxed money to fund it. The pension I now receive is not index linked. Where were these union leaders and strikers when Gordon Brown was robbing the private pension funds?
In the Seventies and Eighties I spent quite a lot of time abroad, demonstrating and selling machinery to bring in foreign currency to this country, which was badly needed to maintain our balance of payments. Will today's action have done anything to help our balance of payments situation?
Bernard

he pension I now receive is not index linked. Where were these union leaders and strikers when Gordon Brown was robbing the private pension funds?

Indeed Bernard...no one said a bleeding word !!!

Well said Bernard,

I am also one of the people who did have a future private pension that would see me through my retirement on a modest income until in 1997/8 Gordon Brown decided to rob 5 billion a year off us, now thanks to him my pension fund is worth didly squat


Roy

just to add, for those who forgot the labour government and Gordon Brown gave all MP's a pay rise and also gave them selves a generous pension deal the same week as he robed our pensions

Don't you think though it's really less about the pensions per se than the fear that the country's economy is slipping so far into decline that every penny of any pension you might have is becoming too precious to risk losing, given that any increase in the state pension is likely to be very small in relation to the way inflation is going in the foreseeable future?

I am a retired Civil Servant and like Hayley could never see the point of strikes either. I don't think they will get any sympathy in today's climate.....not when everyone else is suffering too. But I do feel sorry for those who have also recently lost jobs with Public Sector cuts as this is another blow on top of that.

There has been too much hype in the papers when they state average salary, pensions etc. The majority of civil servants are on low pay and have small pensions. The figures get distorted by what the top brass get. Also, you needed 40 years service in the dept I was with to get a full pension.....not many achieve that.

Yes, some people would like their jobs/ wages now. Years ago in the govt dept I worked in we always had vacancies because people turned their noses up at our low pay and pensions then. They wanted the higher wages they could get in the private sector instead! They didn't take the opportunity then and now they have changed their tune, forgetting the years of higher salary and private company perks they have had.

Rose makes a good point, I think we all are trying to hang onto what we have in fear of where the axe will fall next.

If I was still teaching in schools I would have supported the strike, I only went on strike once for one day in my entire teaching career so it wouldn't have been an action I'd take lightly.

All the reasons why were well said on TV yesterday but I will add that PS pensions should be left alone while the super rich get away with their dreadful anti-social behaviour. Off shore accounts, tax avoidance etc - tbhey are upto every fiddle going. When they are dealt with it will be time to look at the contriubution the low paid should make to get us out of the mess the international money gamblers got us into.

PS workers are not responsible for the world recession. The gamblers known as bankers are, and they have been allowed to get away with it.

For a start let's get rid of tax relief on pension contributions. A person earning £100,000 a year can stash away £20,000 a year into a pension fund - tax free. That's the equivalent of the government handing them £8,000 per annum. Nice going for them when a person who only earns £20,000 a year has to pay tax on it.

Gwynne

MY OH RETIRES IN 6 MONTHS
DUE TO REDUNDANCY 18 YEARS AGO
HIS PENSION MOVED ,THEN THE COMPANY HE
WORKS FOR NOW BEING SOLD TO A GERMAN COMPANY
HIS PENSION IS WORTH £600 ,,,A YEAR
AS
FOR STRIKES AT HIS OLD FIRM IN THE 70'S TWO STRIKES
OF 13 WEEKS WERE A WASTEOF TIME,HE VOTED NOT TO STRIKE
BUT THEY DID,
WE NEVER MADE THE MONEY HE LOST UP AND STRUGGLED

Hayley-are you sure they will not be able to opt out of the pension scheme in the future ?

I feel sure I heard one of the Union leaders saying,on Television yesterday,that "what will happen is that people will otp out and then be on benefits which will cost the government more "

Like Bernard I also left school at 14 and started working and paying NI
I paid for 46 years and have found it difficult to understand why,if you start working X years later you should not expect to work longer the other end.to get the State Pension which is assessed on the number of years
paid in ?

I think the protests are about their Occupational Pensions ?

I have to admit that I am totally confused by the figures being bandied about !!

The Strike wouldn't have done any good - the Government has made up its mind already. PS workers for years have contributed less, and their employers more (percentage wise) than the private sector. And even though the PS workers don't realise it, their funds are tied in with the Stock Markets.

Get rid of tax relief on Pension Contributions? That would effect *everyone* who pays into one, not just the higher rate tax earners.

They should be leaving the jobs of the front line workers alone, and culling some of the levels of the over bloated bureaucracy.

We are all living longer; What it boils down to, is that there is not enough money in the Pot. Do we want to go down the route of Greece, and cut the salaries of Public Sector workers by 25%? I think not.

Just to go back to what I was saying about the shopping centre being busier , from the Daily Mail this morning ,

" the combination of striking workers and parents trying to entertain their children on a day off from school triggered a pre-Christmas mini sales boom."

So every cloud has a silver lining for some then. At least the shops benefitted.