Public Sector Pension Strikes – A JOKE !

NAR

jamesd wrote: »

Those who aren't interested in striking are less likely to vote. That's why the turnout is of particular interest in such votes. If it's low, though, it's easy enough for most of the members to just ignore the strike call in the same way that they ignored the vote.

Ah so you are a mind reader then? People don't vote because they are unsure, can't decide, or are just apathetic. They had the opportunity to vote no but didn't. Many may well ignore the call to strike - I would ask "why are you in the Union."

17 unions now have their members striking on 30 November, I will be very suprised if the government do not produce another (worthwhile) compromise next week.

Uglymug

NAR wrote: »

Ah so you are a mind reader then? People don't vote because they are unsure, can't decide, or are just apathetic. They had the opportunity to vote no but didn't. Many may well ignore the call to strike - I would ask "why are you in the Union."

17 unions now have their members striking on 30 November, I will be very suprised if the government do not produce another (worthwhile) compromise next week.

The government could announce another round of Quantitative Easing which means everyones money, including your pensions slowly become worthless.

Zelazny

CLAPTON wrote: »

how does funding make it fair?

and the Local Government Scheme is funded so are you saying that gold plated pensions are fair for Local Government but not fair for Teachers or Nurses?

It would mean that pensions weren't paid out of taxation, and the funding requirements would be plain to see. We could say "Well, this scheme is underfunded, so you need to increase either employer or employee contributions" and people wouldn't be able to question it, or claim that it's a tiny proportion of GDP so doesn't matter.

It would also mean that the benefits would need to be reasonable, as it would be a lot more apparent how much these pensions actually cost.

Ygor wrote: »

And the £40 increase in the basic state pension is connected with the merger of S2P into a single tier pension.

As public sector workers don't get S2P, they won't get the £40 increase either.

Treasury has already worked out that it's unfair for contracted out people to have received discounted NICs and ERNICs and to receive the same single tier pension £140 pension as someone contracted in who paid the full NICs and ERNICs rate. People who have contracted out, won't receive the full £140.

Fair enough - I wasn't aware of the details.

CLAPTON

Zelazny wrote: »

It would mean that pensions weren't paid out of taxation, and the funding requirements would be plain to see. We could say "Well, this scheme is underfunded, so you need to increase either employer or employee contributions" and people wouldn't be able to question it, or claim that it's a tiny proportion of GDP so doesn't matter.

It would also mean that the benefits would need to be reasonable, as it would be a lot more apparent how much these pensions actually cost.


.

I agree there are presental issues and it would be much better if the costs of pensions were made much clearer and the issues of who benefits and who pays

but pension for pension the costs fo a funded scheme are the same as an unfunded scheme and for public sector fall on the taxpayers

currently there is no debate about the general level of psnioner income overall, simply a debate about public provision

ILW

I have no problem with public sector workers getting large pensions. It is just expecting the private sector workers to pay for it that seems rather unfair.

Interested_Taxpayer

This is why we have now reached the stage of 17 unions deciding to strike on 30 November.

Just have a listen.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9526000/9526631.stm

CLAPTON

ILW wrote: »

I have no problem with public sector workers getting large pensions. It is just expecting the private sector workers to pay for it that seems rather unfair.

an oxymoron

bilbo51

ILW wrote: »

I have no problem with public sector workers getting large pensions. It is just expecting the private sector workers to pay for it that seems rather unfair.

Who do you think should pay for the pensions (and other costs) of public sector workers?

k66yla

My Royal Mail pensions are virtually worthless now. Many years ago RM/Government took a pension holiday for 13 years, whilst the workers still paid in. Now we are on a career average pension rather than a final salary one because they messed up!. The government will sell off RM cheap to a foreign buyer and keep the pension deficit(approx £8b) because of the £24 billion of assets.

Uglymug

Interested_Taxpayer wrote: »

This is why we have now reached the stage of 17 unions deciding to strike on 30 November.

Just have a listen.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9526000/9526631.stm

I’ve just listened to the recording.

The obvious solution must be to hand over the complete management of all the Public Sector pensions to their Unions. The Unions would surely agree to this since there’s absolutely no problem with the running of their self funding Pensions. With these Unions obvious expertise in the field of pensions the payments and benefits to their members would surely only ever increase.