Public Sector Strike(s)

dshart

daveyjp wrote: »

"I don't fully accept the argument but that's not important"

What don't you accept? The fact your pension is paid for by taxpayers? Sorry to have dropped this bombshell on you, or were you in denial about the truth of who pays your pension?

Well your argument is definitely not true for companies who get majority of their earnings from abroad

julieq

dshart wrote: »

Well your argument is definitely not true for companies who get majority of their earnings from abroad

Precisely, or who generates any cash outside the UK public sector. It would only be true if the public sector was the source of all cash for purchases which is evidently false. But the point is that even if you accept your argument completely you'd need a balancing of pensions, not inequality in favour of the public sector.

julieq

CLAPTON wrote: »

accrued rights except for the index linking to cpi rather than rpi

Is that true? I don't doubt you, just would be good to see a reference. If the linkage to rpi was contractual in the original T&C it would be very difficult to change.

CLAPTON

julieq wrote: »

Is that true? I don't doubt you, just would be good to see a reference. If the linkage to rpi was contractual in the original T&C it would be very difficult to change.

the change from rpi to cpi has been very very widely reported and includes other benefits

I doubt whether cpi had been invented when the original pension rules were drawn up
in any event I'm not saying it's illegal but that it is a significant change and is not consistent with the government statement that no-one within 10 years of retirement is unaffected by their changes


there is a thread somewhere on the pensions board about an
e-petition on the subject

julieq

If it's contractual it would be impossible to reverse for accrued benefits I would have thought. Interesting one that. Possibly the T&C are vague about inflationary measures.

Andy_L

julieq wrote: »

If it's contractual it would be impossible to reverse for accrued benefits I would have thought. Interesting one that. Possibly the T&C are vague about inflationary measures.

The scheme rules, by reference to other Acts, say whatever rate the SoS thinks reflects prices changes. All the other documentation & transfer valuations say/use RPI

Jimmy_31

julieq wrote: »

OK (I don't fully accept the argument but that's not important), but the pensions being offered to public sector workers are more generous (cost less, return more) than those in the private sector. So let's balance it. That means saving more from income, just as the private sector employee does.

What private sector pension ?

CLAPTON

Jimmy_31 wrote: »

What private sector pension ?

as you know the NEST scheme starts for large companies in 2012

the government is delaying the start for the smallest companies
yet no threads or complaints on these boards

dtsazza

pd52 wrote: »

people also forget about companies such Tesco that make billions of £££ profit yet pay national minimum wage that is then topped up with working tax credits paid for by our taxes, how is that fair?

Just because a company makes a profit doesn't mean that it should pay it's workers more. It's meant to make a profit; it's meant to leverage the abilities of the employees to make them more productive than they would be alone, and to keep a portion of that extra productivity.

If the labour of a Tesco employee is worth more than £6/hour, why don't they ask for that much? Tesco would happily pay them £10/hour if it was cost-effective to do so, i.e. if having them quit meant less profit to the company than upping their wage. The unfortunate truth is that unskilled labour is worth comparatively little (more and more so each day in a world of increasing globalisation and computerisation).

In that respect, it's fair because they're being paid the correct market rate (arguably higher in fact because of NMW). What do you propose a fair price for their services would be, and how have you arrived at that assessment?

Going4TheDream

Andy_L wrote: »

Other than, possibly, having to have the lights on longer how is flexi-time a "massive cost"?

I said 'massive perk' not massive cost. Nice try

But actually whilst you mention in it , in the particular office I was describing paying people double time to work on a Saturday to catch up the work that should have been done in the week, seems like an unnecessary cost to me, especially when they are paying someone who hasn't even committed to their contractual hours that week, so they get their full salary for the 35hrs probably did 25 hrs of those, then pay them double time on Saturday for 8 hrs..... so they still only do 33hrs work but get paid for 41.........

Nice work if you can get it eh? all paid for by the taxpayer and badly managed.