General Chat

I couldn't believe that had happened. Don't quote me but I think the papers said lower paid NHS workers earning between £15,000 and £26,557 wouldn't have to pay increased contributions next year. Most Civil Servants including first line managers earn less than nurses so how unfair is that!! I can't see the Unions being happy at the inconsistency.

Well, the govermnement has made some concessions on Health Service and teaching pensions, so that would be a yes.

Did the strikers win?

What worries me is that at the moment they have increased the retirement age to 67 going up to 68 I am only 47 and my retirement age has already gone up by 7 years since I started working at aged 17. We know it is going up to 68 in a few years time. BUT how many more years will they add on to this before I get to retire. They say that we are living longer but how do they know I will and when I eventually retire will I be in a fit state to enjoy it.

I am part time and I know I can put money into a private pension which I do but this wont help me much. The amount you can put into a private pension depends on the amount you earn. It has also been hit hard by the fall in stocks and shares.

My NHS pension wont give me much either. I think it is a percentage of you weekly wage. I earn about £100 per week. So That isnt going to go far in 20 years time, if I am allowed to retire then. WE are not allowed to go full time at our Health centre so I cant increase my hours. Their are no jobs in our area so I cant get another one.

If they keep on increasing what I have to pay into the pension scheme what will I live on now. If they get rid of tax relief on pension contributions then I may as well opt out.

How long will it be before the Government decides that they can no longer afford to pay State pensions so scrap it. All the money I have paid into it wont help me then It will have gone to pay everyone elses pension'.

As for the strike I do think that people should stand up for what they believe in. If we dont the Government will keep on walking over us. I dont think it will do any good but you should be allowed to try.

A someone said Pensioners now get a raw deal but what makes you think that it will be any different when we retire. If we are allowed to retire and if there is still a state pension availble to us then?

Jane

Annx - apparently the same number of persons is switching/swopping - the staff have not and cannot find out the reasons why. The switch is only for 3 years and then they all switch back again.

Chris, usually moving staff to other offices like that is for reasons like some kinds of work being moved to particular locations to be more cost efffective. They have to transfer people if there are not enough people who want to move with the work.

Bernard and Janet, i agree with both of you. I think that for too long the public sector workers have been protected from what the private sector workers have suffered from forever.

In the '70's when everyone was on strike on and off, I was training to be a nurse in London. I can remember being shocked to discover that, in one of the strikes, our oxygen porter, known as Jim O2, was on strike. He was the only oxygen porter in our hospital and hundreds of patients suffered. We students were running around delivering oxygen cylinders to wards when we should have been with our patients.

In the "coal not dole" strike my step-mother was an ardent supporter of the miners. She failed to see how ironic it was that she put her bucket outside her front door, a 6 bedroom house in a private road in a posh part of London. Now I would love to live in a house like that, but I did say to her to her she might collect more cash if she trolled the streets, which of course she didn't.

Thank you everybody a nice debate
everybody with diffrent opinions
all said with thought and some really good posts


WELL DONE xx

There is so much wastage in civil service. Speaking to an acquaintance this morning whose daughter works in CS she informed me that some staff from daus. office will be transferred to an office in another town about 12 miles away and staff from that office will be transferred to hers!!!

Gets better this will be for a period of 3 years and travel expenses for that period will be paid for!

Apparently no one can find out the reasons why? My reaction was try an MP or leak to press!

It is as good as BBC transferrring staff to Manchester to save money and looks like it is costing a lot more!

Public purse - easy pickings?????

Instead of striking about future pensions I think there ought to be strikes about groups who don't contribute to the system,immigrants who receive better benefits than our own society, to the youngsters who are bringing children into this world living on benefits and young people who refuse to do menial jobs because they are only paid the standard rate of pay.

In days gone by apprentices were always paid lousy wages but this was in the hope of getting a good salary after the age of 21. Nowadays most young people haven't contributed a penny at 21, whether that is because they are on benefits or that they are still educating themselves, which is good in itself but it is a luxury that could only be dreamt about by most people years ago.

Qualifications came from day release from work, together with a couple of evenings of study. The last thing that would have crossed the mind of young people fifty years ago would have been bingeing on money that they didn't have.Today some women expect their state pension, simply because their husband paid stamps. Sure, like everyone else they expect money because they have spent their lives bringing up children and plumping up cushions, whilst other mothers have been getting up at six in the morning, looking after their families and still doing a full-time job which means paying taxes to keep others in the life of their choosing.

I think if the truth be known, everyone knows that people are living longer, and that there isn't any spare money in the pot. Yes I think the bankers should be made more accountable, but so should the quiet parasites who are allowed to remove money from our system just because we try to be a fair society and look after the vulnerable.

When I saw an article in the paper a couple of weeks ago where a teenager had fathered about 17 children, and his own mother had disowned him, I see him just as dishonest as the MPs who make false claims.

In times of plenty all this seems irrelevant but now we are going through a rough patch it is time to sort out. - jl

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

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."

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.

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 !!

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

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

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.

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?

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

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 !!!