270,000 Civil Service Workers To Strike For 2 Days

Kohoutek

If you pass a jobcentre today you may be handed a flyer by a loyal, low-paid civil servant striking in protest at government cuts. As a mid-ranking civil servant with a union membership stretching back to my joining the public sector, I assure you, fair-minded member of the public, that the best thing you can do for that low-paid civil servant is tear up the flyer and urge them to get back to work.

The flyers are a continuation of the campaign of misrepresentation, dogmatism and deceit waged by the PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka, itching to flex his mandate following his narrow re-election last year. The tragedy is that it is the vulnerable, lowest-paid members of his union who are suffering for his vanity.

Serwotka brazenly misinformed us in the pamphlets accompanying the ballots that "it is the low-paid majority who will be affected" by "drastic cuts [to] compensation payments", a recurring, and wholly untrue, theme throughout his campaign, and a sentiment that has scared these vulnerable members into striking against their better interests.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/08/civil-service-strike-pay

Rabble rousing still pays well these days!

Bob Crow (RMT) - £79,564 in salary, £26,115 in pension contributions, £13,013 expenses
John Hannett (USDAW) - £81,742 salary, £16,389 pension contributions
Billy Hayes (CWU) - £83,530 salary, £14,190 pension contributions
Sally Hunt (UCU) - £63,743 salary, £7,612 pension contributions, £2705 car benefit (start of June 2006 to end of May 2007)
Paul Kenny (GMB) - £81,000 salary, £21,000 superannuation (pension contributions), £8,000 car
Dave Prentis (Unison) - £92,187 salary, £23,603 pension contributions, £11,646 expenses and car benefit
Derek Simpson (Unite-Amicus) - £62,673 salary, £16,156 pension contributions, £13,333 car allowance, £26,181 housing benefit
Mark Serwotka (PCS) - £82,094 salary, £26,104 pensions contributions, £2,245 additional housing cost allowance and additional housing cost supplement
Steve Sinnott (NUT) - £99,846 salary, £23,963 pension contributions
Tony Woodley (Unite-TGWU) - £59,333 salary, £9,552 pension contributions, car fuel £3,360
Matt Wrack (FBU) - £66,389 salary, £44,281 pension contributions, £5,134 car

http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2009/01/15/while-millions-take-pay-cuts-union-leaders-rake-it

kennyboy66_2

Kohoutek wrote: »

Labour's policies have encouraged the benefit trap by raising the minimum wage, abolishing the 10% tax bracket and making people lose benefits too dramatically when they start earning money. I read that there is an effective 70% marginal tax rate for people on the boundary between being eligible for tax credits and not.

If the government wants to encourage work, not welfare dependence, it should raise the personal allowance and/or reduce the minimum tax bracket to 10% or 5%, and change the balance of the benefits system to reward those that work, and be harsher on those that do not work, unless they are prevented to from disability.

that is what the working tax credit system attempts to do. Plenty of things wrong about it, but the intention was at least to support families in work. The biggest losers under Labour have been the low paid, single or married couples. Raising the personal allowance mainly helps the well off - unless it is clawed back at a certain level, as does reducing the first tax bracket.

westv

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

But ten or twenty times the money someone working in the private sector would get.

Only if the private sector worker gets the minimum. I'm sure I read on the net somewhere that around 50% get more than that. Myself, when I got made redundant (private sector), received 30 weeks pay + extra.

kennyboy66_2

Kohoutek wrote: »

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/08/civil-service-strike-pay

Rabble rousing still pays well these days!



http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2009/01/15/while-millions-take-pay-cuts-union-leaders-rake-it

I do find it strange that many of the young low paid are striking in support of the minority.

Probably feel it's the thin end of the wedge & once the older well paid group have been dealt with, then it will be death by 1000 cuts.

Kohoutek

kennyboy66 wrote: »

that is what the working tax credit system attempts to do. Plenty of things wrong about it, but the intention was at least to support families in work. The biggest losers under Labour have been the low paid, single or married couples. Raising the personal allowance mainly helps the well off - unless it is clawed back at a certain level, as does reducing the first tax bracket.

I was basing it on things like the quote below (can't find original, but explained well here). I know the source is a Conservative blog, but I assume the figures are correct.

Who have been the winners if the low paid, singles and married couples are all the biggest losers?

In the 2010-11 tax changes, the personal allowance is clawed between £100,000 and £112,950, creating an effective marginal tax rate of 60%.

I know reducing the first tax bracket would help the well off too, but I don't that would be a disaster. The benefits system exceeds all revenue from income tax already and may soon take up NI payments as well. We're hardly a low tax society as it is, especially with the 50% rate.

Here’s how it works. Take the situation of a couple with two children and a combined income below national average during 2008-9 of anywhere between £10,000 and £25,000. For each additional £1 that they earn,

they pay 20p more income tax
they pay 11p more national insurance
they receive 39p fewer tax credits
All this is cumulative. 20 + 11 + 39 = 70p. So here’s the shocking reality that I haven’t heard any politician mention on the Today programme. The 39% withdrawal rate of tax credits has a far bigger effect on families earning below average income than the 20% income tax rate (31% including the income tax masquerading as national insurance). The current system of tax credits thus disincentivises work and adds to the poverty trap.

Everyone has been talking about the rich who will pay 50% tax (61% with national insurance). What about the poor who are already paying 70% tax? Work an extra hour for a minimum wage of £5.73. You take home just £1.72. I am horrified.

http://conservativehome.blogs.com/centreright/2009/05/tax-rates-are-highest-for-the-poor-not-the-rich.html

baileysbattlebus

StevieJ wrote: »

Are you saying that someone on 29k gets more severance pay than someone on 31k.
If that is true the ones who proposed that should be first on the list

Someone on £29k could get £60k - someone on £31k could get £62k.

Up to 3 years pay for someone on less than £20k (over half of all civil servants), to get 3 years pay you have to have worked over 20.5 years.

If you earn £23k the most you could get would be £60k - not the £66k you would have been able to get previously.

So under £30k between 2 & 3 years pay - up to a max of £60k

Over £30k - up to 2 years pay. So if you earn £33k the most you could get would be £66k - not the £99k you would have got prior to the changes.

If you earn £80k you could get up to £160k not the £240k you could have got before.

If you are able to take an unreduced pension (you are 60) it is 6 months pay.

The changes benefit the lowest paid (those under £20k) - it is the higher paid who will get less than they would have done before.

Basically it is one months pay for each year up to 5 and 2 months pay for each year after that.

So if you have worked for 7 years you would be entitled to 9 months pay as a redundancy payment. 10 years you would be entitled to 15 months pay.

kabayiri

westv wrote: »

Only if the private sector worker gets the minimum. I'm sure I read on the net somewhere that around 50% get more than that. Myself, when I got made redundant (private sector), received 30 weeks pay + extra.

The client I am working for at the moment I think reflects the newer type of organisation picking up ex-government work.

It is 'not for profit' and tries to keep a tight rein on all expenditure, especially staffing costs. You wouldn't call it generous.

I know people who are grads there on rolling annual temporary contracts. There isn't a suggestion of them receiving a payout. The work just finishes.

This sort of reality just doesn't compare with the compensation being described here.

kennyboy66_2

Kohoutek wrote: »

Who have been the winners if the low paid, singles and married couples are all the biggest losers?

I should have said low paid single people & low paid childless couples.

Like it or not, lowish - middle paid couples with children have done very well with the tax credit system.

Pensioners have also done well under Labour (compared to previous Tory govt.)

Bit of a challenge for the Tories to persuade those pretty large groups to vote for them

ukcarper

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

As in above post..

104 weeks pay for those on 30k, and 156 weeks pay for those on 30k or below in the public sector.

Versus just 10 weeks pay for someone with 10 years service in the private sector, or 20 weeks pay for someone with 20 years.

I mean, seriously, in what bizarre fantasyland existence does any public sector worker think they are entitled to 3 full years of full pay as a redundancy payoff?????

Get off your ar5e and find another job !!!!!!!!!!!!

It truly boggles the mind that anyone expects more than 3 months pay for getting laid off.

So no matter how long they have worked for they get 102 weeks pay

movingforward2010

ILW wrote: »

A friend of mone within a local authority has been given the job of getting all management staff to have to write a report explaining what they actually do, and it's value and relevance to the organisation. Many are struggling.

oh the irony, a job to check what other people are doing in a job :rotfl: so a 'non' job in itsself