Proposed Public-Sector Strikes ?

[greenilex]

Thanks for the information, e.a.

Surely this question must be asked more forcefully, perhaps by judicial review? What justification do they give for not releasing it?

I doubt if the Official Secrets Act applies.

[Old Grumpy]

This question has been answered for the NHS pension scheme following a freedom of information request.

Apparently the scheme has had an annual surplus for the past several years and is forecast to do so until 2015, by which time the surplus is forecast to be in the order of £11 billion. This surplus has not been reinvested into the scheme - oh no - it has gone straight into HMG's coffers and disappeared. As with the teachers the NHS scheme was also restructured (2008) and normal retirement age increased to 65 (from 60). The new (2008) scheme is based on career average earnings, not final salary.

OG

[Lateralthinking1]

I guess that I ought to comment on this matter, not that it matters much if I do. It might be helpful to declare my background here. I was a member of what became the PCS union from the moment I entered the workplace - 1985. I had studied trade unions at university, lived in Yorkshire during the Miners Strike and attended union benefit gigs in the late 1980s. Billy Bragg. I now roll my eyes at it. I was also largely non-active in my own union until 2009. With Gordon Brown's proposals for significant changes to Civil Service arrangements, I started attending meetings. All of them and became one of, what, 15? The 14 others were the stalwarts over decades, essentially a clique that was not wholly inviting and, to some extent, union jaded. For the latter reason, they couldn't find five people to attend the Department's union branch conference in Brighton in May 2010 so I volunteered and went as a Rep. It was interesting to see how quickly I became identified by other people as the union man. I was asked questions and always went out of my way to be helpful. But I doubt that the PCS leadership saw me as anything other than an outsider who needed to be kept in his place. Meanwhile, senior management, who never mentioned the names of people who were actively opposed to the proposals, spoke of us as "sadly misguided people" to the majority in our absence before going on to collect MBEs.

I was let down badly by PCS. The current Government said that Serwotka had been very wrong to take the Labour proposals to the courts. It would do. The courts had declared them to be unlawful. In that statement Maude, who has done far more direct damage to British people than bin Laden ever did, indicated how he felt that morality was without not within the law. So he changed the law and in the aftermath, the union managed to do enough to protect those who were not wholly vulnerable - the greatest beneficiaries being those who wanted more and could afford to risk losses - while being the Government's bete noir. There are more similarities between the two than either would admit. So now we have Hutton and pensions. Good old Labourites, eh? Always there to help out a few Tories in dire need. I am no longer a member of PCS and can view these matters from distance. I do not believe in the onslaught on the public services. That includes the matter of pensions. I have no time for the arguments of the senior and mid-range grades in the private sector. That "we lost ours so they must lose theirs". Decisions are made in the early 20s. You choose to go into riskier areas or not so. You look to making a mint in the good times or settle for steady but low income. You fully believe in the ethic of enterprise and make good, if only in the good times, or you reveal the true Arthur Scargill in you when it all goes pear-shaped and argue vehemently for a lowest common denominator, not without an unedifying vengeance.

At the same time, the economy is allegedly a basket case. It seems to me that it is not outrageous to expect those who have the good fortune still to be in work to pay more for their public sector pensions. I realise that this will be financially difficult in many cases - it would have been for me - and yet less difficult than being out of work. The slippery slope does worry me. If this happens, what happens next? Still, I hear that senior civil servants will be among those on the picket lines. They are about as deserving of public sympathy as Cameron and will poison the sounder arguments. Unions are bunglers. What also worries me is that they will drive ahead with strikes for the benefit of Serwotka and one or two other egotistical individuals and pull the whole house of pensions down. Will they now be messing up the pensions even of those of us who have left forever more? I don't support the strikes. The wrong people will suffer most. PCS do things with tortoise-like speed and go for the arbitrary all-encompassing approach. Effective walkouts would be sudden and targeted. They should have a diary on their desks of all of the events where it is the better off who would suffer impacts - royal occasions, visits of heads of state, pally meetings between Ministers and elements of the private sector who show no inclination to reform responsibly. Unfortunately such things won't ever happen.

[greenilex]

I have a lot to thank the NUT for - not least my extra pension - and think they generally proceed wisely.

I wish the labour movement and the co-op movement could iron out their difficulties, though.

[Lateralthinking1]

Stop press - It is all ok. The nation will be saved. Clegg says his party is punching above his weight and Alexander says that it is sticking to its guns. How these politicians love the violent metaphor. It just puts me off. I find it lightweight.

Don't know if anyone caught the photo of Nick on the BBC. I just can't do that smile with the turned down upper lip. Not sure that anyone genuine could do.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I have a lot to thank the NUT for - not least my extra pension - and think they generally proceed wisely.

Sadly the teachers' unions spend far too much time trying to ridicule one another. My own union, NASUWT, seems more intent on trying to outdo the NUT than it does in helping teachers faced with injustice.

[greenilex]

For years the aim has been a single union for the teaching profession....maybe if all those who like that idea take time to press for it we might get somewhere.

Of course we have "history" but if we can't rise above it what are we doing in a union?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I think those at the top of the various unions have a vest interest in keeping themselves separate. After all, who needs 2-3 general secretaries? Government love it, of course, because they can divide and rule.