Public Sector Pension Strikes – A JOKE !

thegirlintheattic

howee wrote: »

Someone will come along and confirm this but I am almost certain your figures are wrong. Where did this information come from?

The official calculator on the TPS website. The numbers are rounded though.

Miss_J

Chrisblue1962 wrote: »

Has anyone noted that Unison have called a strike in which only 22% of its members voted for strike action and 71% of it's members couldn't even be bothered to vote!...A Total Disgrace... this is at the same time when people in Syria and Egypt are dying for the right to vote and have access to democracy...

I'm in Unison and I am one of those that "couldn't be bothered to vote" Not because I couldn't be bothered to vote but because I don't feel I can strike even though I wholeheartedly agree with the reasons behind the strike. I work in an essential NHS service and feel it would be unfair on the patients if I did strike. However I am angry at what the government are doing on a whole to NHS workers and we have got to stand up and fight.

I regularly work 13 hour shifts, many without a break, I on average work in excess of 44 hour weeks. I alternate between night to day shift working. Recent research shows that people working in this envirnoment die approximately 10 years earlier than those in working more convential Mon-Fri 7.5 hour shift patterns. I love the job that I do, but as each year passes I see that more and more the government want more out of us, jobs that are not replaced, extra services we are expected to cover etc etc. I don't earn a fortune, I earn a decent wage but slog my guts out to earn us and quite frequently feel burnt out, this together with media and political attacks on the services we provide.

I simply can't afford the difference in pension contributions that are being suggested, over the next 3 years my contributions will increase to an extra £73 a month. The government have already frozen our pay for 2 years despite the cost of living, and are now capping pay at 1% pay increase for 2 years in 2013 and claiming that many workers will gain through incremental changes in salary. What the government don't add is that they have already tried to shelve incremental pay increases for NHS workers but the unions have fought back against this.

I want a decent pension for the very hard work that I do so if I eventually do get to retire at the age of 67 I can relax and enjoy life a little, I rather suspect though that I'll end up being finished off through ill health, caused by the job conditions I work in currently.

dshart

dori2o wrote: »

I see you have missed the point completely.

When those newer entrants into the public sector start work, they sign a contract which includes the new pension scheme as part of the renumeration. They have the option not to take the pension, they have the option not to take the job offer.

However, those who have been in the public sector for a number of years signed a contract with the government, which the Gov't also signed confirming the T&C's of that employment and it's associated renumeration.

The argument is that they should not now be allowed to change the existing terms in operation of those who THEY have already agreed the T&C's with.

In contract Law it takes agreement of all parties to change the T&C's of a contract. The T&C's cannot change without the agreement of all parties tied to the contract.

That is of course unless you are the government and you simply change the law to suit your own agenda.

I do not believe I have missed the point at all. When you signed up life expectancy was shorter than it is today so there has been a change in the equation and this needs addressing. They are not going back and recalculating it from when you started work, you keep the accrued benefits, its just from when the changes are implemented.

I guess another way they could do it is to sack everyone and re-employ them on new terms and conditions, which is something I have seen happen in a private company. Then you would keep your present accrued pensions but have the choice whether to take up the new terms.

On one hand people mention solidarity yet they are happy for a two tier system to be in place where new entrants into the public service are on poorer conditions. Taking it to the extreme you could have someone who joined the scheme the day before changes came into effect and someone who joined the day after, assuming both these people started at the same age and worked the same length of service and job why should their pensions be different? I know that if I was the second person I would be a bit peeved to say the least.

Zelazny

thegirlintheattic wrote: »

The official calculator on the TPS website. The numbers are rounded though.

The calculator at http://www.teacherspensions.co.uk/calculator/calculator.html is a little misleading as it shows benefits under the old scheme and new scheme side by side, but neglects to mention that you need to add them together to get the total. It does not compare the current scheme with the proposed new scheme, it just works out what your pension would be under the new scheme while showing the benefits you have already accrued under the old scheme (or will have by the time of the change).

Looking at your numbers, I can get a similar result if I say born in 65, salary of 35000, expected final salary of 35000 and started working as a teacher in 85. This gives a total of 30 years under the old basis and only 16 under the new so of course the old is higher. The point is that the two figures are added together, not taken singly.

The only change that's taken into account on the calculator is the change to average salary, so for your benefits to drop by a given amount, your salary needs to change by more than that amount.

For your pension to change from 13k to 9k, your salary would have to increase by a factor of 2.6 over the course of your working life (this is in real terms, not including inflation). That sounds like a hell of a step up from where you are now to the top of your pay scale, and the important thing to consider is that even then you'd only see a change from 13k to 9k if all of your service were after 2015.

If you'd care to tell us some details, there are plenty of people here who'd be more than happy to tell you how much you'll actually get (in this case, it sounds like 9k+13k = 22k pension).

Gracchus_Babeuf

UglyMug wrote: »

A Public Sector worker earning £30,000 contributing 10% (£3,000) a year for 40 years will get an index linked pension of £20,000 (based on 1/60ths). Current life expectancy means they’ll receive this for about 20 years. This was acceptable, a few years ago when life expectancy meant they’d receive it for about 5 years. This is not acceptable now, annuity rates have dropped to a third (a £100,000 annuity now pays £3,333, it paid £10,000 twenty years ago), in the last 6 months alone annuities have gone down by almost another tenth. In twenty years the cost of private pensions has gone up threefold whilst Public Sector pensions have remained unscathed.
When they retire their pension contributions and national insurance payments will cease (thus saving them over 20%), their (age related) tax code will commence and they’ll also get a state pension (it’s being proposed this is raised to circa £7,000 a year soon). Their net income will be greater during retirement than when they worked. This is totally unjust and a mockery to other pensioners. The vast majority of this injustice will be funded by the Tax Payer.
Paying £3,000 a year for 40 years to receive £20,000 a year for 20 years is an exceptional deal. It’s absolutely ludicrous that they’re going on strike because they’re expected to pay a bit more, or work a bit longer, or receive a bit less.
In the Private Sector paying this £3,000 a year may just mean one escapes means testing in retirement. Any insurance company that forecasts a pension even close to £20,000 a year for this sum is lying.

I now expect to receive various responses to this post from the feel sorry for the Public Sector brigade saying that I’ve got the wrong view of how the deck chairs are arranged on their Titanic:

Namely:

1) The figures are incorrect – They’re close enough.
2) They’re on a 1/80ths scheme - Oh dear they might have to take a slight drop in income when they retire compared to when they worked.
3) They haven’t had a pay rise for 3 years – One way of reducing the costs of their final salary based pension is to slowly reduce their final salary.
4) They earn less than £30,000 – Then the comparable increase in their income during retirement will be even greater.
5) Their pensions are fully funded – These types of pensions ceased in the Private Sector because their liabilities can not be calculated, the shortfall in their schemes will have to be met by the tax payer.
6) They work very hard – Don’t we all?
7) They can’t work when they get too old – Neither can the rest of us.
8) Their employer makes additional pension contributions - This is in effect extra pay, do their Unions add this when negotiating their salaries?
9) They don’t have 40 years in the Public Sector – Then they should have funded the rest of their pension from their time in the Private Sector and realise what a wonderful scheme they’re now on.
10) Everyone in the Private Sector has a company car – Which planet are these people on?
11) They also pay taxes – Which is 20% of their income, do they go to the pub with their mate and buy them a pint after they’ve been bought 5?
12) The Private Sector should demand better pensions – If Private Sector companies had to fund similar schemes they wouldn’t survive and there wouldn’t be a Private Sector and then there wouldn’t be a Public Sector.

They’ll have a million other reason for these strikes and believing the utter rubbish spouted to them by their Unions. The real and only reason is their unfettered and totally blinkered GREED.

Interesting, though deeply flawed, arguments, but the government's approach to solving this as been very shortsighted. By targeting everyone in the public sector, including the low paid, they have antagonised everyone. What they could and should have done is kept the current pension schemes but capped the amount of pension obtainable to, say, £20k a year. That would have hurt the 'fat cats' but not the ordinary workers on average or below average incomes. And public sector pension were costed a few years ago and found to be affordable. The only reason the government wants to kill public sector pensions is (1) to reduce the deficit and (2) to look good with City and the CBI -no other reasons.

atush

So, basically they are striking because they can't do math? Confusing a 9K pension with their RW entitilement to 22K?

dshart

Miss_J wrote: »

I'm in Unison and I am one of those that "couldn't be bothered to vote" Not because I couldn't be bothered to vote but because I don't feel I can strike even though I wholeheartedly agree with the reasons behind the strike. I work in an essential NHS service and feel it would be unfair on the patients if I did strike. However I am angry at what the government are doing on a whole to NHS workers and we have got to stand up and fight.

I regularly work 13 hour shifts, many without a break, I on average work in excess of 44 hour weeks. I alternate between night to day shift working. Recent research shows that people working in this envirnoment die approximately 10 years earlier than those in working more convential Mon-Fri 7.5 hour shift patterns. I love the job that I do, but as each year passes I see that more and more the government want more out of us, jobs that are not replaced, extra services we are expected to cover etc etc. I don't earn a fortune, I earn a decent wage but slog my guts out to earn us and quite frequently feel burnt out, this together with media and political attacks on the services we provide.

I simply can't afford the difference in pension contributions that are being suggested, over the next 3 years my contributions will increase to an extra £73 a month. The government have already frozen our pay for 2 years despite the cost of living, and are now capping pay at 1% pay increase for 2 years in 2013 and claiming that many workers will gain through incremental changes in salary. What the government don't add is that they have already tried to shelve incremental pay increases for NHS workers but the unions have fought back against this.

I want a decent pension for the very hard work that I do so if I eventually do get to retire at the age of 67 I can relax and enjoy life a little, I rather suspect though that I'll end up being finished off through ill health, caused by the job conditions I work in currently.

Everyone wants to retire with a decent pension even the people who dont contribute anything at all. The thing is we can all tell the story of how hard we work and how under appreciated we are and how we deserve better. The thing though is that in all sectors public and private there has been or will be tightening of our belts.

You should still have voted even if you did not feel you could strike. I do not know the way the ballot was proposed, but you could have voted against the strike because you felt it was unfair on your patients. By not voting you have opened it up to both sides to make claims (not just you personally but everyone who "could not be bothered to vote"), one side claims that the ballot gives them a mandate to take strike action while the other claims that only a low percentage voted so they want rules changed.

You say you cannot afford the increase in pension contributions the changes will bring, but the fact is you cannot afford not to if you want any sort of decent retirement. Look at the advice given on these boards to anyone who asks the question about whether they should contribute to a public sector pension and the answer is always yes, even from people who feel the changes to the public sector pensions are justified.

dshart

Gracchus_Babeuf wrote: »

Interesting, though deeply flawed, arguments, but the government's approach to solving this as been very shortsighted. By targeting everyone in the public sector, including the low paid, they have antagonised everyone. What they could and should have done is kept the current pension schemes but capped the amount of pension obtainable to, say, £20k a year. That would have hurt the 'fat cats' but not the ordinary workers on average or below average incomes. And public sector pension were costed a few years ago and found to be affordable. The only reason the government wants to kill public sector pensions is (1) to reduce the deficit and (2) to look good with City and the CBI -no other reasons.

The problem with simple solutions is that they are not always that simple. Though in principle your idea sounds good for majority of the lower paid workers who will get smaller pensions, the so called "fat cats" would pull out of the schemes as they could get a better return on their money elsewhere and this would lead to a dent in fund income especially in schemes where current pensions are paid from current contributions rather than invested funds.

sheffield_lad

Zelazny wrote: »

The calculator at http://www.teacherspensions.co.uk/calculator/calculator.html is a little misleading as it shows benefits under the old scheme and new scheme side by side, but neglects to mention that you need to add them together to get the total. It does not compare the current scheme with the proposed new scheme, it just works out what your pension would be under the new scheme while showing the benefits you have already accrued under the old scheme (or will have by the time of the change).

Looking at your numbers, I can get a similar result if I say born in 65, salary of 35000, expected final salary of 35000 and started working as a teacher in 85. This gives a total of 30 years under the old basis and only 16 under the new so of course the old is higher. The point is that the two figures are added together, not taken singly.

The only change that's taken into account on the calculator is the change to average salary, so for your benefits to drop by a given amount, your salary needs to change by more than that amount.

For your pension to change from 13k to 9k, your salary would have to increase by a factor of 2.6 over the course of your working life (this is in real terms, not including inflation). That sounds like a hell of a step up from where you are now to the top of your pay scale, and the important thing to consider is that even then you'd only see a change from 13k to 9k if all of your service were after 2015.

If you'd care to tell us some details, there are plenty of people here who'd be more than happy to tell you how much you'll actually get (in this case, it sounds like 9k+13k = 22k pension).

+

This is the issue half of the one's striking have not got a clue about how good their pension is or they have been mislead by their unions.

Miss_J

dshart wrote: »

Everyone wants to retire with a decent pension even the people who dont contribute anything at all. The thing is we can all tell the story of how hard we work and how under appreciated we are and how we deserve better. The thing though is that in all sectors public and private there has been or will be tightening of our belts.

Not all areas are tightening their belts, take for example Northern Rock a bank that has been bailed out by the government for bad money lending decisions. Those employees who have been lucky enough to keep their jobs this year have been awarded a performance related pay bonus this year, some amounting to 5% of their pay. Coupled with the fact that some of them earn more a year than me as a qualified professional makes me a little angry at the fact the increase in my pension payments will be going in part to paying for the bank bailout.