Crunch time for council workers’ golden pensions

Old_Slaphead

I was riduculed on some other thread for saying that the true public sector employers (ie taxpayers) contribution required to provide for their employees pension was in excess of 30%.

Seems like the figures have now been ratified by PwC

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/pensions/6106471/Pensions-apartheid-gap-widens-to-17300.html

Won't affect me too much but how are the next generation going to be able to afford this colossal cost in 20+ years time ??? It's about time we adopted the German model and made a 'balanced budget' a legal requirement of government.

Or how about starting all pensions (including public sector ones) from the age of 66 and increasing up gradually to 70 over the next 20 years ????

macaque_2

And of course there is the other little public sector scam, the big payoff:

http://www.personneltoday.com/articles/2009/08/28/51936/civil-service-severance-cuts-may-spark-industrial-action.html

The Cabinet Office has proposed big cuts in redundency terms, which can lead to payouts of up to 6.5 years' salary, according to the paper.

I wonder if these people ever stop to think that this is our money that they are plundering.

StevieJ

Old_Slaphead wrote: »

I was riduculed on some other thread for saying that the true public sector employers (ie taxpayers) contribution required to provide for their employees pension was in excess of 30%.

Seems like the figures have now been ratified by PwC

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/pensions/6106471/Pensions-apartheid-gap-widens-to-17300.html

Won't affect me too much but how are the next generation going to be able to afford this colossal cost in 20+ years time ??? It's about time we adopted the German model and made a 'balanced budget' a legal requirement of government.

Or how about starting all pensions (including public sector ones) from the age of 66 and increasing up gradually to 70 over the next 20 years ????

What about this Where did the other three go these articles seem quite cavalier with the facts.

Shell and BP are the only FTSE100 companies to currently offer a final salary scheme to new employees – but BP will close its scheme to new members next April.

BTW I thought German unfunded pensions were far higher than ours ?

donaldtramp

macaque wrote: »

And of course there is the other little public sector scam, the big payoff:

http://www.personneltoday.com/articles/2009/08/28/51936/civil-service-severance-cuts-may-spark-industrial-action.html



I wonder if these people ever stop to think that this is our money that they are plundering.

From the article...

Plans to cut generous redundancy payments for Britain's 500,000 civil servants could trigger a legal challenge by public sector unions, the Times has reported.

Bring on the strikes, there is no public support and the less we have to pay them, the better IMO.
The unions seem to forget that the government makes the laws. The government can do whatever they wish. Just as Brown did when he grabbed private sector pension money.
The unions will be crushed,. There is no public support and the next government will have the will of the people behind them. The very people who are sick of seeing their tax being frittered away on other peoples pensions and being told what to do by a big brother government.
.

StevieJ

donaldtramp wrote: »

From the article...

Bring on the strikes, there is no public support and the less we have to pay them, the better IMO.
The unions seem to forget that the government makes the laws. The government can do whatever they wish. Just as Brown did when he grabbed private sector pension money.
The unions will be crushed,. There is no public support and the next government will have the will of the people behind them. The very people who are sick of seeing their tax being frittered away on other peoples pensions and being told what to do by a big brother government.
.

Will of the people :rotfl:

donaldtramp

StevieJ wrote: »

Will of the people :rotfl:

Yes Stevie, that's what opinion polls show.
Do you understand politics? Or what voting enables?
Socialism in the form of Zanu labour is finished.
In about 7 or 8 months time you're going to witness an enormous backlash from whoever gets in. They have no other choice. They will have to pay down Clowns overdraft.
Lets see who's :rotfl: then eh? I'll wager it won't be the public sector.

Andy_L

Old_Slaphead wrote: »

I was riduculed on some other thread for saying that the true public sector employers (ie taxpayers) contribution required to provide for their employees pension was in excess of 30%.

Seems like the figures have now been ratified by PwC

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/pensions/6106471/Pensions-apartheid-gap-widens-to-17300.html

Has anyone found the actual PWC report? The only Public Sector pension one I can find on PWC's site is the "Tortoise & Hare" one from May.
http://www.ukmediacentre.pwc.com/Content/Detail.asp?ReleaseID=3233&NewsAreaID=2

Cliveski2009

I happen to work for my local city council. I appreciate my pension should be good when I retire but should I feel bad about that? hell no!

I chose my job for the job itself, if the pension was less I would still have accepted it. It's not my fault the benefits are so good. I'm sure those who are complaining would not do so if the shoe was on the other foot.

If there is a problem funding the pensions then perhaps the terms should be changed for new starters. The terms of existing employees should not be changed as to me that would feel like a broken promise.

epz_2

I think a lot of people are missing the the point about wages, this includes the people who set the public sector wages over the last few years.

I know a few genuinely world class engineers who earn substanitally less than they could as mindless number crunchers. At my work its we all tend to work very hard (1) and the pay aint great but the work is interesting and important and this is the reason they can pay top people comparitivly low wages.

Now I know engineers tend to have a different outlook on the world but I personally feel good about doing a job that is interesting and worthwhile it's worth earning less than some soul crushing job trying to reduce some rich sod's tax bill.

The application lists are full of people wanting to work in the public sector as the conditions job security tend to be better, if they wanted to work in the private sector they they can leave. Why they were given such big pay increases because the private sector paid so much is beyond me.

(1) for the last 3 weeks i worked about 96hours a week and I don't get OT

baileysbattlebus

donaldtramp wrote: »

From the article...

Bring on the strikes, there is no public support and the less we have to pay them, the better IMO.
The unions seem to forget that the government makes the laws. The government can do whatever they wish. Just as Brown did when he grabbed private sector pension money.
The unions will be crushed,. There is no public support and the next government will have the will of the people behind them. The very people who are sick of seeing their tax being frittered away on other peoples pensions and being told what to do by a big brother government.
.

You say bring on the strikes, there is no public support - there may be no support from you or other people who receive no direct help from gov't/councils. And you say the unions would be destroyed. And the gov't would have the will of the people behind them, which people and how many of them?

Off the top of my head I don't know how many people in this country receive pensions, child benefit, Child Tax credits, working tax credits, child care help, unemployment benfits, disability living allowance, income support, housing benefit, care home payments, care for the elderly in the home, bereavement payments, etc etc.

If civil servants/council workers walked out en masse - there is a strong possiblilty that all or some of those people receiving some form of state help would find it stopped. No money going into the bank. No money to buy food, no one coming in 3 times a day to feed and clean up grandparents or parents. Landlords not getting their rent, farmers not getting EU money, care homes not getting paid.

There may not be public support - but there would be a public outcry. Which the gov't would have to sort out and people could be going hungry. Would people blame the civil servants or the gov't for causing the situation? You might find the unions have a huge swell in numbers, instead of being destroyed may end up being more powerful as more people join.

I don't disagree with some of your views by the way. Just putting forward an alternative picture. I'm not a civil servant or anything either.

I think there is a fairly delicate path that needs to be walked - unlike the slash and burn you advocate.