It's STILL tough and not getting better - so how are we coping?

Wee_Jo

Thanks Katie

BB1984

hi everyone, just been catching up after being away at a festival all weekend. Was great fun but caught a cold on the 2nd day so I had to go to bed early! Off work sick today and thought I'd come on here and see what's been going on.

RE unions - god they do my head in. I work for local government and am sick of being pestered by our Unison reps to join the union. They try and make out that if you aren't a member of the union, you'll be completely screwed over if you're not careful - as if you don't have the same employment rights as everyone else in the country...! It's scare-mongering and reminds me of a cult sometimes, the way they preach and bang on! I don't want to join the union, I think striking is morally wrong, and I don't want to be a member of any society that has an affiliation with the Labour party, thank you very much.

As for that idiot Bob Crow, I'm fed up with seeing his round shiny face on tv claiming to represent "the people" and trying to convince everyone that the only way to protect our families is to revolt against the government and go on strike every 5 minutes. Incidently, his tan suggests to me that he can afford a fair few more foreign holidays than the majority of the people he claims to represent (I don't generally complain about what other people earn, but for him to take home something like £80,000, and claim to be at one with the average bus driver etc, takes the micky in my book).

I agree with those who have said that they haven't managed to hop onto the public sector gravy train. I've only worked for local Gov. for a year - before that I worked in the private sector. I took a 10% pay cut to get my current job, and I made that decision on the basis of having weighed up the whole package. I knew that I'd have a better work/life balance (i.e. not being forced to work 20+ hours per week free overtime), I knew (thought) the pension would be better, and I'd have mroe job security. Frankly, if you take away those things, then why would anyone half decent stay working for the public sector? You have to look at the whole package of salary/perks/pensions/holiday/conditions before criticising what public sector workers do or don't get.

Having said all that, I know a few people where I work who moan NON STOP about how crap it is to work there but they've stuck it out for 40 years...! The people who moan the loudest are, as far as I can tell, the ones who do the least work, spend the most time making cups of tea, and are the first to start banging on about how important the union is.....! Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Anyhoo, that's quite enough ranting from me for one afternoon, I think it's time to have a lie down!

BB

mardatha

I am no use at searching .. all I can mind is that I had to haul a big high pram with a newborn in it up 7 flights of stairs in the pitch dark stairwell of a multi storey flat. With a toddler whining at my feet as well. LOL must've kept us fit !

lambanana

Ok then, not only do I earn less than the "average" wage but I get the statutory minimum holidays and am not sure of the perks? I'm not getting any training or offers of such and as for the pension, I pay into it as I don't have a choice (a large contribution from a small salary) but who knows what that will mean when I actually do retire as that's around 40 years from now, will it even be there then?

We had bin strikes in Leeds last year, it wasn't much fun at all to put it mildly. I do hope that it doesn't happen again or worse with more services on strike.

The_Thrilla

gailey wrote: »

Sorry to be all doom and gloom but yesterday on news

LLoyds group made a profit lots of other banks are too.
But the point made was most uk banks still being propped up by cheap money from bank of england think borrowing 0.05percent to banks and banks then lending at 5percent above to customers so huge profit margin.

With a lot of borrowing the bank keeping interest rates very low does not always get passed onto consumere as lots of borrowing including morgages not linked to base rate and tracker morgages non existant at the moment.

Banks still not lending to small businesses and personal credit harder to get.
During the crunch hubby got letter from egg saying he was no longer desirable customer despite not missing a payment.

I understand banks have to be cautious and keep aside a certain amount of capital but they cant say that as an excuse at same time offering obscene bonuses.

The banks are currently being used as a hate figure to keep the public's eye off the ball.

Regarding your points about the lending of money. I have heard a number of people on the radio complaining that the banks wouldn't lend their businesses any money. And it is nearly always a restaurant. "We wanted to refurbish the restaurant, and NBank wouldn't lend us any money." Then they say: "We had to use our own money." Well, if that's the case, why didn't they use their own money in the first place?" By the time their radio interview is over, you find yourself saying to yourself: "Well if I were a bank, I wouldn't lend them any money either."

Regarding this antagonism about bank employees' bonuses. I have always been mystified by this. I am told that if you work in a cigarette factory, you can pick a ciggie off the production line and spark up. If you work in a car factory, you get special prices and easy terms to buy yourself a spanking new car. So if your firm deals in money, any perks will be in the form of money. Nothing immoral about it.

The recent crisis in europe has forced the governement to make deeper cuts as if we dont and we end up like greece then the public sector workers will realise whats on offer now is better than what could have been.

I think sometimes uk does not realise how lucky were are in terms of generous benefits system and free education/healthcare ect, we never look at other countries in great detail.

I hate to disappoint you, but the country's financial situation is just as bad as, if not worse than Greece's. The only difference is that in Blighty, we still hand out receipts.

A lot of public sector is admin or quangos. council salaries have risen too high.

I agree. The public sector workers are paid too highly. The managers get enormous amounts of money, and are totally irresponsible. Say what you like about Goodwin or Hayward; but, when they failed, they fell on their swords. When was the last time you heard of a local authority executive falling on his/her sword?

In our town, a year or three ago, the local authority workers were out on strike. There was a string of six pickets stretched across the entrance to the council offices impeding the thoroughfare, and jeering at passers by. They are claiming they are paupers, but they had plenty of money to buy drink with. These public sector redundancies can't come soon enough.

flipperOSN

I don't get the hate at public sector workers. It's worse salary than in the private sector with no bonuses in the good times (except for a select few). A few perks like pensions and better job security were there to make up for that, which seems balanced to me. Now everyone wants public sector workers to have to suffer and have no perks at all. I do understand that there's no money and cuts have to come, but you won't get anyone working in the public sector at all at this rate.

Anyway, I turned a couple of bendy carrots and leftover chicken gravy into some very nice soup for lunch so I'm happy. Having a NSD too which is nice

starjumper

I'm public sector (NHS) and I earn considerably less than I would in the private sector, I've a friend who earns a good 5k more than me for a similar job description but does a lot less than me and doesn't get half as much abuse and rubbish as I have on a daily basis. I joined the NHS to help people and to do my bit for my community, not for all the so called perks and this "fantasic pension" I keep hearing about. So far my perks have totalled losing half a stone from catching norovirus whilst going about the course of my work and that's about it.
Still, it looks like the country wants a privately run health service which will in reality cost twice as much and not be even half as good then good luck to them.

On the plus side we've just put away our small council compostables bin because we never use it as we compost everything else ourselves and we kept tripping over it in the kitchen.

The_Thrilla

flipperOSN wrote: »

...but you won't get anyone working in the public sector at all at this rate.

That's the general idea. There really is no choice: putting people in jobs that they can't do just to reduce the unemployment figures is not a very responsible way to run a country.

flipperOSN wrote:

Anyway, I turned a couple of bendy carrots and leftover chicken gravy into some very nice soup for lunch so I'm happy. Having a NSD too which is nice

Jolly good!

lauren_1

I got myself a nice nappy bundle off of ebay, it was just listed as 'nappy bundle', a picture of what looked like a load of terries, description of 'various terry nappies, some used, some not used, some need a boil wash and a few waterproof pants', no postage (10miles away )but buy now for £15.

I clicked, I collected, im in heaven.

The pile of terries turned out to be 15 terry squares but with 8 motherease one size, 4 toddlerease, 12 onelife, 8 sandys, 15 airflow wraps, 4 rolls of liners, 25 assorted sized bambino mio pre-folds, 9 pocket nappies and 10 other assorted shaped nappies that were not pictured.

Some have seen better days but some are brand spankingly new, im chuffed to bits especially as she only listed it an hour before I found it.

lambanana

What a bargain Lauren! Brilliant stuff.