Incensed again

Moby

howee wrote: »

Yes your right selling our gold & robbing the private sector pensions pot were Gordons finest hour. Not forgetting all the money he put away while we were in the good days grrrr

You have a short memory I'm afraid. Read your history and you'll see Lawson also taxed the private pension pots!

The fact is everyone pays for everyone else’s pension. Companies with occupational pension provision for their employees include pension costs when pricing their goods and services. All taxpayers pay for the cost of inadequate pension saving (increasingly prevalent in the private sector) through the tax and national insurance spent on increased take up of state benefits, NHS and council care services.

The_Angry_Jock

Moby wrote: »

The fact is everyone pays for everyone else’s pension. Companies with occupational pension provision for their employees include pension costs when pricing their goods and services.

Which is subject to competition, thus the cost of goods and services been forced down leaving smaller and smaller margins for luxuries like pensions. Unfortunately I can't shop around for a better deal on my taxes.

Moby

The_Angry_Jock wrote: »

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Which is subject to competition, thus the cost of goods and services been forced down leaving smaller and smaller margins for luxuries like pensions. Unfortunately I can't shop around for a better deal on my taxes.

Totally agree...Capitalism.. unregulated is not all its cracked up to be is it! Its time for change!

The_Angry_Jock

Are they not trying to bring in changes, that you're arguing against?

I'm sick of seeing "it's time for change" being screeched by people who are at the same time fighting against change and giving no other suggestions than "tax the rich", that will not solve anything.

cyclonebri1

Gracchus_Babeuf wrote: »

Enjoy your sour grapes. Would you like single or double cream with them? :rotfl:

For a start, why should a public sector worker give a !!!!!! about your particular circumstances? Do you care about theirs? No, so why are you pontificating about who deserves what? Public sector workers have enjoyed good, solid retirement benefits since the year dot and now they are seeing not only pay cuts but also requests to cough up more money towards reduced pensions benefits! In the private sector it's the law of the jungle, due to the government never having wanted to impose a regime on private sector organisations. But the difference is that in the private sector if you don't like what you get paid you can !!!!!! off elsewhere, not the case in the public sector where pay is pretty much standardised throughout. If you have only been earning £30k after 38 years in engineering (the blue collar type I take it) then either (1) you weren't much good at your job or (2) you were too lazy or unambitious to look for opportunities elsewhere. And you also forget one of the important causes of the dispute: the government's wicked and underhand decision to replace RPI indexation with the lower CPI, that doesn't reflect true cost of living.

And bollox to you too, but a few facts for you;

I retired early (55)from my 1 and only ever job I guess I am a little sour being forced to throw in the towel after failed spinal surgery nerve damage, then 6 weeks later whilst recuperating I had a cycling accident in which I fractured my skull in 2 places, fractured my back and fractured my back. As an added bonus I was discharged from hospital with a deep vein thrombosis.

That lot was a close call, but why do I mention it? it's only relevant to me and mine but in my view grounds for being sour about my own company, pension systems in the private sector in general, and as in this post the generous public sector system and as I see it the way the improoved or watered down reforms (depending on where you stand), have been dismissed by the unions

FYI I was earning around £40k 15 years earlier when I was a "blue collar worker", something you not I seem to have an issue with.
Not very good at my job??, I retired as Chief mechanical and Electrical engineer running a staff of 20 engineers, responsible for all general production facilities, hiring/firing insurance compliance/design/ contractor management in other words, the lot.

Add to this I was also the companies Hygiene Manager, we worked under food processing regulation, and was the company Health and Safety advisor and Safety policeing.
Why didn't I leave?? Do you not realise what has been happening outside of your cosseted environment??
Do you not realise how jobs have been getting harder and harder to find over the last 10 years??

And do you not consider that I might have actually enjoyed my job??, right up to the last few years.

That is the sort of money that is paid today in the ailing private sector.

My story, the employment bit, is common to alot of todays industry, under such dire competition that every employee is pressed and multitasked for no added reward.

You need to get out in the real world and open your goddam eyes and ears:(:(

The_Angry_Jock

cyclonebri1 wrote: »

I retired as Chief mechanical and Electrical engineer running a staff of 20 engineers, responsible for all general production facilities, hiring/firing insurance compliance/design/ contractor management in other words, the lot.

Add to this I was also the companies Hygiene Manager, we worked under food processing regulation, and was the company Health and Safety advisor and Safety policeing.
Why didn't I leave?? Do you not realise what has been happening outside of your cosseted environment??
Do you not realise how jobs have been getting harder and harder to find over the last 10 years??

And do you not consider that I might have actually enjoyed my job??, right up to the last few years.

That is the sort of money that is paid today in the ailing private sector.

My story, the employment bit, is common to alot of todays industry, under such dire competition that every employee is pressed and multitasked for no added reward.

I work in structural engineering in a very, very large firm that covers virtually all aspect of construction. Since 2007 my team has been reduced from 12 to 7 (a bare minimum), no payrises and those few lucky enough to be on FS pension (not me) have had to triple contributions as the company dumps £100k's into the fund. Meanwhile our rates are been slashed so much that it's impossible to deliver a job without losing money...we lost £65,000 this year, bear in mind I've got more work than I can handle, I've had to work (unpaid) weekends, evenings and cancelled holidays, I've even worked 24 hour shifts to get stuff out the door because project managers agree to ridiculous timescales for fear of losing work.

Even now the big cheese are working through the 6th wave of redundancies, we're now getting to the point where there's a skeleton crew in offices trying to win local work but they don't have the resources to do the work, it all has to be shipped out (M&E draughting is all done out of China!).

I'd love another job, earning 30% more than I'm on now but there's nothing there, the industry is on it's knees. At the rate things are declining I'll be out of my job by Easter and packing shelves in Tesco.

And like Cyclone, I do enjoy my job, it's what I've always wanted to do.

Andy_L

dshart wrote: »

Why aren't private firms made to pay ~14% into employees pensions whilst the employees paid in ~6.5% and we get the same pension provisions as public sector workers? The answer is simple, the companies couldn't afford it and the schemes could not generate enough money to pay out pensions at the rates quoted, which again proves that the public sector pensions are under funded and are much more attractive than private sector pensions.

One would hope that NEST will follow the Aus/NZ example and gradually ratchet up contributions to that level, with employers paying (part of) annual pay rises into pension rather than salary

Koicarp

dshart wrote: »

I'm not arguing the rights and wrongs of reduction in staff, but the fact remains as you admit something needs to be done. One of the ways they reduce costs is by staff cutting, whether this is right or wrong is another matter as some would say it is rationalisation and streamlining the service and making it more efficient.

By reducing staff we increase any pension deficit. We also increase the numbers of old ladies who don't get fed, decrease the number of hospital beds, increase the number of people waiting many hours in A&E and increase complaints thereby decreasing public confidence in the service. With decreased public confidence we can then privatise, bring in more competition and decrease our nhs staffing, which will decrease costs.......................
Service users (all of us) will suffer.

atush

I can see plenty of room for staff reductions in the NHS- but not among nursing staff.

What needs to be reduced are mangament positions and paper pushers. How many nurses can you hire by getting rid of one useless manager?

bilbo51

atush wrote: »

I can see plenty of room for staff reductions in the NHS- but not among nursing staff.

Do you want to back that up with some numbers/facts?