Proposed Public-Sector Strikes ?

[eighthobstruction]

Sorry likely to be the usual-suspects [how many of us are there 20-30 posters] ahem cough debating....but....for me it's a diametrically opposed situation....a contract is a contract....but times are changing....the £ is changing....longevity is changing....etc etc....

[greenilex]

I have been very lucky with my teacher's pension, mainly because I was made redundant just before early retirement was scrapped and got in under the bar. The local authority which reorganised my post out of existence was obliged to provide compensation.

Please be clear - it's not riches - but if I'm careful I have a little to spare for travel.

My younger colleagues will be working much longer and will be lucky to be able to pay everyday bills. It's a grim prospect. Kids tend to appreciate young and sparky teachers - reasonably enough - and don't see why they should listen to dinosaurs. Class teaching is one of the most exhausting activities known to humanity.

For all these reasons I think the authorities should show public servants they are valued by negotiating adequate and even generous pensions.

[kernelbogey]

Although I'm not directly affected by the pension issue I may join the march in protest against this neo-liberal government agenda

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/sep/12/march-of-the-neoliberals

and hope others will too. It would be wonderful if this could be the focus of mass protest (with two million protesting as in the case of the 2003 march against the Iraq war) as democracy itself seems to have failed us.

[scottycelt]

Class teaching is one of the most exhausting activities known to humanity.

For all these reasons I think the authorities should show public servants they are valued by negotiating adequate and even generous pensions.

I'm sure it is, just like most jobs nowadays in the private sector that don't offer the same shorter hours and longer holidays.

At the same time, you also expect these just as valuable private sector workers to subsidise these 'generous' public sector pensions, while many of those private sector workers have to make their own less than 'adequate' pension provisions out of their own, often meagre, salaries?

What a cheek!

[barber olly]

I'm sure it is, just like most jobs nowadays in the private sector that don't offer the same shorter hours and longer holidays.

At the same time, you also expect these just as valuable private sector workers to subsidise these 'generous' public sector pensions, while many of those private sector workers have to make their own less than 'adequate' pension provisions out of their own, often meagre, salaries?

What a cheek!

I think you'll find that many recipients of public service pensions are not receiving massive amounts and have, in the main made significant contributions during the whole of their working lives. The private sector which is championed by successive governments as been so efficient an example to the public sector on how to run things, has totally messed up on pensions and its now less than sufficient or generous provision is now being equated to the public sector being greedy and unfair. The Banking sector has also totally messed up and we are paying for that and their unsustainable bonuses. Finally in amongst all this 'unfairness and overgenerous provision for public sector workers, I cannot recall any senior cabinet minister mentioning the over-generous pensions for MPs!

[ahinton]

The threatened strikes are in protest at various impending government spending cuts and forthcoming reductions in pension values, most especially those in the public sector. Whilst the latter is understandable (higher contributions for longer in order to get a smaller pension), the fact remains that pensions as a whole are undergoing a major crisis from which their ultimate sustainable recovery seems most unlikely. Pension fund values are dependent upon market conditions and performance; state pensions are dependent upon the government having sufficient funds to continue to pay them which, in times of economic hardship when the tax take decreases, becomes ever more onerous and, when massive state borrowing compounds such woes, a proportion of state pensions is paid out of borrowings and that can't go on forever. Given not only the fact that people live longer but that many of them face being unable to afford to retire, the preceived need for pensions may indeed reduce in proportion to the ability of government or pension trustees to continue to pay them in the first place.

[jean]

Class teaching is one of the most exhausting activities known to humanity.

I'm sure it is, just like most jobs nowadays in the private sector...

No, not 'just like', as anyone who's done both could tell you.

[eighthobstruction]

Does anyone know the pension arrangements for Firemen/women....they retire earlier, 50? [I guess mostly for safety reasons]....but how small/ large is that pension likely to be....also they have to find another job (but their training must open them to Fire Officer positions in factories and Office Blocks etc....)

Link to Shop StewardsNet....http://www.shopstewards.net/

[scottycelt]

No, not 'just like', as anyone who's done both could tell you.

Both sectors have an almost infinite variety of jobs ... no one has done them all!

Most people I know in both the public and private sectors are exhausted by their jobs today. They all have my sympathy!

I find the idea, that one sector is somehow more valuable than the other, absurdly pompous and ignorant, and indeed slightly worrying when emanating from some in the teaching profession.

[handsomefortune]

> The private sector which is championed by successive governments as been so efficient an example to the public sector on how to run things, has totally messed up on pensions and its now less than sufficient or generous provision is now being equated to the public sector being greedy and unfair.<

as illustrated by the above post #9 barber olly?

[Serial_Apologist]

While feeling motivated to join the demo in solidarity, I believe strikes to be an outmoded way of applying pressure, and just alienate the rest of the public. Unions have to move to new strategies, including civil disobedience in the workplace, non-coverage for redundancies, work-to-rules where previous negotiated contractual obligations are being betrayed, alternative work plans with cross-sectoral liaison, taking powers of desicion-making away from the managerial class that has always been the real problem at the same time as casting all the blame.

S-A

[kernelbogey]

While feeling motivated to join the demo in solidarity, I believe strikes to be an outmoded way of applying pressure, and just alienate the rest of the public.... S-A

I agree with this and inadvertently blurred my meaning in post no 3. A massive turnout on 30 November could be a much more effective gesture in influencing public opinion on current government fiscal policy.

[greenilex]

My statement about class teaching very carefully didn't specify type of school. Mr Chips ended up just as exhausted and poverty-stricken as the rest of us.

"Smart" action is where its at. More power to the people's elbow - so long as it doesn't have a pint glass permanently attached, of course.

[jean]

Both sectors have an almost infinite variety of jobs ... no one has done them all!

The original comparison (yours) was between class teaching and private sector jobs. That's what I was responding to.

I find the idea, that one sector is somehow more valuable than the other, absurdly pompous and ignorant, and indeed slightly worrying when emanating from some in the teaching profession.

I don't believe anyone here has suggested that the level of exhaustion experienced says anything about the value of the work performed, have they?

If those of us posting here weren't mostly in white collar jobs, we'd probably have pointed out that some sorts of heavy manual work aren't easily undertaken by people in their 60s and 70s.

[eighthobstruction]

some sorts of heavy manual work aren't easily undertaken by people in their 60s and 70s.

or late 50's

I'll drink to that Jean, dragging myself about up and down a slope with heavy things all morning....[lovely weather today luckily ....but what tomorrow]