New pension proposals

J_i_m

I will not be striking.

My decision is not based on the pension nor the public's perception of the services, as we're already under appreciated and taken for granted anyway.

The reason that I'll continue work as normal is because I work in a secure hospital for mental health. Which has to be staffed 24/7 as do all hospitals. I don't think the potential harm caused to people by such an action is acceptable.

However, I still think "I'm a tax payer and I pay your wages!" is a shortsighted view.

dshart

Moby wrote: »

This is totally wrong if it is happening...no wonder the safety record on the oil terminals has been atrocious!





As has been indicated previously. Everyone pays for everyone else's pension. Private companies include the costs of their pension schemes when pricing their goods and services.

Where do you get that the safety record on oil terminals has been atrocious? The oil industry work under some of the most stringent safety regulations going. Yes incidents do happen and yes they usually make big news when they happen, but overall safety has very high priority. This is why the workers have to go through stringent medicals every two years and why they have to do offshore survival training regularly as well as other safety related training. As people get older it becomes more difficult to pass the medical or the training and if you don't pass you are not allowed offshore. So even if you wanted or needed to work till 65 or 70 you may not be able to. In such a case you are forced to take early retirement or find another job whether you like it or not.

With regards to companies including costs of pension schemes when pricing goods and services, I am afraid that is hardly relevant any more as very few companies still retain final salary schemes. Majority now just contribute to an employees private pension and there is no further liability to the company. Maybe that's what the government should do with the public sector pensions, just pay the employees and employers contributions into a private pension and get rid of any additional liability. I can guarantee you if they did that the pensions for the public sector would drop drastically.

jamesd

dshart wrote: »

And which of these solutions are acceptable to the unions?

There's a tradition in employment: the employer decides how many people to hire and what terms to offer. The potential employees decide whether to accept them or not seek work there. New employees don't have to be offered the same terms as existing ones - that's how the private sector started phasing out final salary pensions.

The traditionally acceptable solution for unions is fewer jobs with less reduction in pay and benefits.

Current employees get to keep their current terms until/unless made redundant. Say by a private hospital taking over a regional health services contract and leaving insufficient work for the NHS staffed hospital in the area. Or by a privately operated school ending up taking many of the pupils and leaving an excess of teachers in the local authority directly managed schools. Or by contracts with private ambulance companies. Or hiring foreign soldiers, say from Nepal. Or relocate an office 400 miles away to an area with lots of unemployment and see who wants to move with their job.

There are many ways a government can go about trying to reduce public sector employment. Whether any of them make sense depends in part on the relative costs of providing services in each way - if public sector is cheaper there' no point. If it's more expensive than that's an incentive for an employer to cease using as many public sector workers.

MsSupertech

RichardJ "You're not actually, no-one who receives all their income from the state is a taxpayer, it's an accounting trick."

Well that's one way of looking at it - but one way or another (tax, NI, Superann) somebody has been nicking over 30% of my pay for the last three decades...