Public Sector Strike(s)

brit1234

tartanterra wrote: »

Why do you think that the public sector shouldn't reflect the private?
Do you think you should be treated better than us?

It depends on the job, in certain professions yes. I have worked in both private and public jobs. My best ever pension scheme was with a private company, far better than my so-called gold plated public sector pension.

Also in certain jobs you can't all work decades more such as army police and fire service.

Its easy to cast judgement with a 9-5 mon-fri job sitting behind a desk.

I can also say that certain manual jobs in the private sector you shouldn't be expected to have large increases in service before they retire.

ali-t

The overarching theme of this thread is that everyone, to some extent or another, feels hard done by regardless of whether they are in the public/private/voluntary sectors or unemployed/retired/unable to work.

I work in the public sector but am not striking as I believe that something has got to give and that the current state of play does not reflect the ethos and projected lifespans of when it was all set up. Realistically, a person can now easily have 30+ years of pension payments while they are fairly fit and healthy and could have feasibly paid in for the same amount of years as they will have paid out for them. That is totally unworkable.

Credit-Crunched

real1314 wrote: »

300 job losses? Do you live in the real world?

Try 300 job losses times 2367. Of which over 100 times the RBS cuts are in today's announcement.

"Haven" forbid indeed. :cool:

Amy hard facts to show the 710,000 job losses?

Apologies for the miss spell of Heaven, wont happen again

tartanterra

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Your post in response to Helen just summarises all of this brilliantly.

It's not us and them.

It's us.

Public or Private, most of us are suffering while the rich continue to control the government like puppets on a string. All of us are merely working to proivide for ourselves, our loved ones and offspring, and all of us just want a fair deal for a fair day. By that, we just want to be able to pay our bills and have just a little left over to enjoy life while we are here. It's not much to ask, is it? We don't want to make just enough money to enable us to get to work and pay our bills.

Every problem we face today is because of greed of the people at the top.

It's not a result of a nurse having a cup of tea at the expense of a taxpayer.

I feel this is a slight cliche, but we are all in this together. Whether thats the policeman ready to endanger his life to protect your house, or whether it's you as an electrician making sure the elderly in their care home are not going to get electricuted.

We all need each other. Having a go at each other isn't doing any good, as at the end of the day for us "normal" every day folk, the difference between working in public or the private sector is trivial in terms of wealth. We can talk about a free cup of tea and a 14% public contribution vs a 3% private sector payrise all day. But we are homing in on one single factor.

Meanwhile, the rich laugh at us squabbling with each other, and log the time and energy spent laughing at us down as an expense.

We have bankers taking hundreds of thousands JUST in bonuses. Ex MPs at war trials, getting paid to be there. High end public sector directors getting paid twice for having conflicts of interest.

Meanwhile, we argue with each other over a cup of tea and a polo shirt.

This is us. We are being engineered to fight amongst ourselves, while those above us simply pocket whatever they can, at any point they can, and create massive problems for our younger generation to deal with long after they have enjoyed their bloated, greedy lifestyle.

Whilst much of this is true and I don't disagree with it, I don't change my opinion that it's churlish to complain about not getting free tea, when many of us don't know if we will even have a job next week.
(My current "booked in" work from Monday is approximately zero).

If we are truly all in this together, then the public sector should realise that they need to reflect the rest of the society they are employed by.

The next few years are going to be bad for most of us.

grizzly1911

brit1234 wrote: »

Also in certain jobs you can't all work decades more such as army police and fire service.


I can also say that certain manual jobs in the private sector you shouldn't be expected to have large increases in service before they retire.

Agree.

Doesn't solve the problem, either, that the jobs aren't there in the first place or that if they are another generation will be starved of the opportunity. Where will they get parked?

Graham_Devon

tartanterra wrote: »

If we are truly all in this together, then the public sector should realise that they need to reflect the rest of the society they are employed by.

The next few years are going to be bad for most of us.

Ok, thats fine.

But if thats the case, I want to see company cars, car allowances, share schemes, insurances and bonuses gone for the private sector.

Then we will really be on a par.

Fair?

Jack_Johnson_the_acorn

tartanterra wrote: »

Why do you think that the public sector shouldn't reflect the private?
Do you think you should be treated better than us?

Idiot, their is a lot of envy in your posts.....

Clearly we should both be treated equally well, it's not the public sector's fault that you're getting shafted.

How about the government stick to the agreed terms and conditions that we have signed???

It's fair to up pension contributions for those newly joining as they can sign up to it if they think think the terms are agreeable or go elsewhere if its not...

We(in the public sector) have already had job cuts, increased workload, pay freezes and cuts. Now they want to effectively further cut our pay by upping our contributions but give us less when we eventually retire years later than originally agreed.

The main benefits to being a civil servant is the good pension scheme (or was).

tartanterra

brit1234 wrote: »

Its easy to cast judgement with a 9-5 mon-fri job sitting behind a desk.
I'm an electrician. I don't have a "desk".

I can also say that certain manual jobs in the private sector you shouldn't be expected to have large increases in service before they retire.
Can you explain that in English?

Out of interest, what do you do in the public sector?

tartanterra

Jack_Johnson_the_acorn wrote: »

Idiot

Wow! Nothing like reasoned debate. (And that wasn't it.)

OptionARMAGEDDON

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Ok, thats fine.

But if thats the case, I want to see company cars, car allowances, share schemes, insurances and bonuses gone for the private sector.

Then we will really be on a par.

Fair?

Only when you agree to give up non-performance time in job related pay rises.