Public Sector Strike(s)

grizzly1911

Going4TheDream wrote: »

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.

Depends on how critical /time urgent the piece of work is, and whether supervisory staff have messed up the rostering too.

IME public sector "soft" jobs are rarely that time critical.

Going4TheDream

grizzly1911 wrote: »

Depends on how critical /time urgent the piece of work is, and whether supervisory staff have messed up the rostering too.

IME public sector "soft" jobs are rarely that time critical.

That was my point, in this office flex mean flexi, no rostas, work your 5 or 6 hrs a day if you have a lunch break. My daughter was astounded when she started at the laxness. I understand that this is not throughout the whole PS, but I cannot believe that the LSC is the only dept in the Civil Service that allows this to go on?

grizzly1911

dtsazza wrote: »

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?

The point the poster was making was that whilst "tesco" pay the NMW as that is the minimum they can get away with that isn't necessarily a living wage in the eyes of the state.

The state then top up that pay by "benefits/tax credits" to make up that living wage. Effectively the state is subsidising "tesco" and working against the market. Some of those benefits will rise by 5.2% next year too.

Governments often work against the market for political reasons.

This doesn't just stop at today's pay it will also cast forward into retirement age too (on the current model)..

But of course we like to shop at the "cheapest place" interesting that Aldi pay up to c.50% more???

grizzly1911

dtsazza wrote: »

That's probably true. But you're suggesting that if the public sector disappeared, there would therefore be no buyers for the products, which doesn't follow at all. (The aggregate demand for the products would still exist, it would be merely be fulfilled by different counterparties.)

True but fulfilling that demand is unlikely to be any cheaper to the tax payer or the individual purchaser.

grizzly1911

FTBFun wrote: »

I don't get the pension age being raised as something one could really complain about.

It is a fact that people are living longer due to improved medical care, diets etc. That's obviously going to cause some issues as people live longer - life expectancy has risen by approx 8 years for men since 1980 and 6 for women.

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/lifetables/interim-life-tables/2008-2010/sum-ilt-2008-10.html

IMO that isn't going to keep rising and will probably fall for Mr/Mrs average with less exercise, obesity, diabetes, heart disease.

Andy_L

Going4TheDream wrote: »

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.

So you did, sorry. You did however say it was a seemingly "big cost". What you discribe shouldn't be happening and was, when I was in a flexitime arrangement, it was forbidden to accrue overtime until your basic hours had been met

grizzly1911

julieq wrote: »

http://cdn.hm-treasury.gov.uk/pensions_publicservice_021111.pdf

answer is that already accrued benefits are protected (as you'd expect)

From the above link.

"benefits already earned are protected;
for those in final salary schemes, those past benefits will be linked to their final salary when they leave the scheme or retire;"

And this suggest that your accrual todate say 10/60 will be based on your final salary not current. CPI increases would only impact any deferred element but that isn't what other commenatators are saying is it?

Quite how they fit that accrual into a CARE scheme is yet to be shown.

Couldn't see anything in the document (haven't tried too hard) relating to the uplift percentages v. current pay level. The 1 - 3 %, pre tax relief.

darich

It's almost funny reading the posts where the public sector staff argue one side and the private sector staff argue the other.
There's a lot of misinformation going around, most of it picked up from tory supporting tabloids like The Sun.

I think everyone agrees that savings/cuts have to be made.
What's annoying for public sector staff is that employment contracts are being changed, the additional pension contributions will not add to pension funds(they'll be going towards the deficit reduction) and it wasn't the public sector that caused this catastrophe in the first place.

I can understand and even live with having to work longer. That in itself means additional contributions to my pension fund. What I don't get is why my contract should be changed to suit the government when the situation was caused by the private sector ie banks. I'm not absolving the government of blame in the lead up to the credit crunch or how it's been handled. But I know for certain, it's not my fault, nor is it my employer's.

It's also funny to hear so many people lambast unions when they've almost certainly all taken advantage of a benefit, fought for by a union. Maternity/Paternity leave? minimum wage? health and safety at work? paid sick leave? etc etc

Hutton Report nailed it one sentence when he said "pension reform must simply become a race to the bottom".

CLAPTON

well everyone doesn't agree that savings/cuts must be made;
not until proper facts and figures are provided;
at the moment Hutton figures are that these pensions cost 2% of gdp and this is scheduled to fall to 1.4% of gdp

He gave no explanation or provided any figures to show why this was 'unaffordable' nor has the government; they have simply said it was so.

just by repeating the proproganda many times doesn't make it any more or less true


and remember that Hutton and the other 'worthies' were all keen for us to join the euro and didn't see the financial melt down coming.



what we need is a discussions about what is affordablle for all retired people and how to manage this for all the people

misskool

darich wrote: »

I think everyone agrees that savings/cuts have to be made.
What's annoying for public sector staff is that employment contracts are being changed, the additional pension contributions will not add to pension funds(they'll be going towards the deficit reduction) and it wasn't the public sector that caused this catastrophe in the first place.

I can understand and even live with having to work longer. That in itself means additional contributions to my pension fund. What I don't get is why my contract should be changed to suit the government when the situation was caused by the private sector ie banks. I'm not absolving the government of blame in the lead up to the credit crunch or how it's been handled. But I know for certain, it's not my fault, nor is it my employer's.

I work in higher education so have been affected by recent changes to USS and I'm funded by taxpayers.

In my case, my pension contributions have increased to 9% from 6% but what people fail to mention is that my employer (the government/university) contributes 13% so total contribution to a pension scheme is 22% of my salary. Find me a private sector pension that has such a large percentage of their salaries and I shall then complain of being robbed of my pension.

People working in the public sector seem to gloss over the fact that a good chunk of what they earn for their pensions is paid for by their employer.

And the public sector did cause the catastrophe by spending inordinate amounts of money it did not have. The government has a deficit because it doesn't know how to budget what money it has.