Public-sector strike: does it get your support? Please vote in our Facebook poll

I had my pay frozen 2 years in a row.
My pension age was increased by 5 years.
I'm seriously underpaid for my grade, but am still expected to take on extra responsibilities.
I can be called by work at any hour but don't get paid overtime.
I've no idea whether I will still have a job in 6 months time.
I lost my final salary pension nearly 15 YEARS AGO, while working for a financial services company - they clearly knew what was coming.

Yet I work in the private sector. Surprised? The grass isn't always greener on the other side.

The fact is that the economic climate has changed since I started work; more people are living longer and final salary pensions are no longer sustainable. No point getting bitter about it.

However... I do think the Unions have done their members a dis-service by focusing on pensions (clearly not sustainable and the offer is still substantially better than private sector) rather than pay and lack of funding into healthcare and education.

But the strike is about pensions, so I'm 100% against it.

mrsmcv, what we have gone through in the last few days with our little boy, who as you may have seen above, has autism, and depends on his daily routine to feel safe and secure..is not merely an inconvenience! We already have had to give up our professional careers to care for our child...we can't afford to give up a days pay because his teachers choose to punish us and him to illustrate their grievances. Thousands of parents of special needs children across the country have had to deal with the consequences of this action today and we are threatened with more in the future.
Watching your child 'meltdown' because they can't cope with a sudden change to routine is heartbreaking to watch. What may seem an inconvenience to you, is a huge problem to many.

If we don't back them, we will all pay
and if we do support them we will all pay even more.

This is not a "race to the bottom" on pensions
it is a step back from an unaffordable level of benefits that should never have been offered in the first place.
It is DEEPLY galling that 68 year olds have what we 46 year olds will NEVER get
but if we carry on helping ourselves to unaffordable benefits, the shit we are dumping onto our own children is utterly immoral.

Support it 100 percent. If we don't back them, we will all pay. What's one day of inconvenience? Nothing. People take longer off when it snows. Unless they work in the NHS.

I don't support it even though I am a nurse in the public sector.

We have to move away from these gold plated pensions, they ARE more generous generally.

Years ago public sector workers were very poorly paid so deserved a generous pension, not so nowadays for most of us. Lower paid public sector workers are protected pension wise.

The country just cant afford such generosity as now exists.

Blossom60, in Ireland special schools would be exempted from strike action for this reason.

Support.
NHS Pension reform re ageing population took place 3 years ago. Plenty of money in the pot.

This is purely about reducing the deficit, but Govt are not honest enough to say so.

The "damp squib" is not likely to make much difference. The facts are the nation is virtually bankrupt as yesterday's Autumn Statement made clear. We are also all living very very long, not the original 2 or 3 years we did into retirement when the state pension arrangements are set up. Public sector wages exceed the private sector on average and the gravy train of Labour party indulgence of public sector workers is over.

Most public sector workers however do not really receive very much by way of work pensions anyway and the changes tend to take away from the better paid in the public sector much more than the lower paid. Many many of us in the private sector are provided with no pension at all and we pay huge taxes to ensure the publhic sector workers can retire for 30 years on pensions we don't ourselves get. The nation is fed up with this and these changes are being made.

The strike will not stop them being made. I don't support the strike but I pay school fees as I was wise enough to make good career choices to ensure I could so was unaffected by the strike (although some private schools have been hit). I would not remove people's right to strike of course and we will not as tax payers have to fund the wages of strikers as you don't get paid on strike so I suppose every cloud has a silver lining.

I support it. Not on facebook.

We have an autistic child at a special needs school. We have just spent days trying to calm our little boy who became distressed because the school informed us that the children would be spending the strike day in another school due to lack of staff. Then less than 24 hours before the strike was due to commence we were informed that both schools would now be closed leaving us trying to juggle our commitments so that we would be home to look after him. Our little boy doesn't cope with child care or baby sitters and he is quickly panicked when his routine is disturbed leading to violent meltdowns. We no longer have professional jobs, flexibility in the workplace is vital to us. We can't afford pensions, holidays are just impossible dreams both financially and because he can't cope with them. We work part time in order to give our child the support he needs. We can't come home from work and relax...we deal with autism every day and every night. We will have to work for the rest of our lives. I am, quite frankly shocked that special needs teachers would abandon these children and their parents like this in order to make their point. The threat of more strikes like this fills me with dread...how far will they go to get what they want.

I don't understand all of the detailed information about pensions tbh, but I think we all need to have a bit of shift in our thinking about retirement. I think we are witnessing the baby boomer generation having a generally good time (NHS, higher education paid by the tax payer, state pension etc) but for those of us in the younger generations we will not be as fortunate

I work in the private sector and so does my dh. We are in our late 30s/early 40s and don't really expect to retire. I guess I believe that I will try to find some work as long as I am physically able - hence although at the moment I have a relatively well paid job I would expect to downsize job wise as I got older....and ideally if at all possible using my experience, rather than my physical ability or ability to work long hours, travel etc as I get into my 70s. Of course, I can't know what will happen. I do pay into a pension, but realistically I don't expect it to support me, just like I pay NI, but I accept that when I retire the state pension will be minimal.

I am 100% in favour of the strike-its not just teachers-its a lot of low paid public sector workers who will suffer badly if current pension reforms go through.

TalkinPeace2 I know each county has its own fund, I missed out the s on statements. 13% is a much bigger deficit than the USS. I bet it's not the highest deficit in the many schemes though. Or the lowest, to be fair.

Retirement grade bumping used to be endemic in the University Sector. Not any longer though, or so they claim.

Just think how much the Union members subs could have been reduced if it had not been for this
www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/jul/18/unite-leader-golden-goodbye-row

It would be really helpful if people could explain some of the acronyms etc. It is hard to follow the conversation when there are a lot of references using letters only! Thanks.

Career average would stop the bumping. My DF was on a board of governors a few years ago that were asked to vote for the head teacher to have a significant pay rise in his last year before retirement to increase his pension. My DF abstained but the others were pressured to do this. In the private sector this would not have been possible for company directors in final salary schemes who had to take the average of the last three years and were under pensions legislation capped at a maximum remuneration amount. Career average would still provide a good scheme.

Just heard the leader of the TUC bluffing his way through a Radio 4 interview about the no discussions point the unions were spouting. Turns out this was greatly overplayed as discussions have been taking place at scheme level. Both sides are using misleading info and this has got to stop.

There is no single LGPS statement.

Every County operates their own.
As a Hampshire employer I only get to see the HCC LGPS detailed documents and attend their AGM. The deficit is currently 13% - but the actuarial basis on life expectancy varies from county to county - and the HCC scheme is a very large one.
Also different LGPS schemes have different rules on Admitted bodies (which affects a lot of the private schools)

If you look at the Hutton review in detail, the move to Salary Average from Final salary will definitely benefit the lower paid and will stop retirement grade bumping (an offensive practice most commonly done in the Navy)
Also the incremental changes in contributions will hit the highest paid FAR harder.
One thing I do NOT agree with is the fact that contributions are based on FTE rather than actual earnings.

And the elephant in the room that I've corresponded with John Whiting on is the tens of thousands of low paid workers with several part time jobs who have cumulatively earned enough to get a state pension but as each job counts separately will not get one.

I support the strike. I am a nurse and we work such long hours for a low salary - our pensions are one of the few things we have. Don't get me wrong, I love my job but there are going to be less and less people looking to go into nursing and teaching if it goes on like this.

100 % against

Talkinpeace2 I'm not going to agree to disagree with you when I'm right and you are wrong. These are factual issues, not matters of opinion.

On the other issues (which are more matters of opinion but with a factual basis):

I don't have access to the LGPS funding statement. I do have access to the latest USS funding statement and it is underfunded, not by very much...but then, the actuarial assumptions are almost certainly not as accurate as they should be since this is an interim statement while the valuation as at last March is completed. It's not great. It's not terrible. But it's not great. :(

Obviously none of the unfunded schemes is anything other than a catastrophe waiting to happen. :(

I completely agree that the union leaders and the fat cats in the public sector are completely shafting the vast majority of public sector workers. And practically the entirety of tax payers. As are the government.

I do not agree that this situation cannot be fixed without completely trashing every public sector pension (although I don't agree that all the proposals from the government constitute a complete trashing of every public sector pension). I think the first area for re-evaluation from both sides should be the pensions at the top of the scale.

we can agree to disagree on FRS17

but do you agree with the other main points?

• NO defined benefit scheme is currently properly funded
• the leaders on both sides (Unions and Politicians) are shafting all of us while looking after themselves

TalkinPeace2 No. Everyone knew that the unfunded schemes were a ticking time bomb well before FRS17 was issued (minimum 10 years). FRS 17 was not the main driver in making funded schemes look at their viability, it was PA 96. Neither FRS 17 nor PA96 were anything to do with Gordon Brown. If anything, the Maxwell hoohah and the consequent statutory and regulatory changes distracted attention away from the unfunded schemes. Which turns out to have been a bad move.

Most public sector schemes are unfunded. The LGPS and the USS are rarities, not the norm. Both of those are in much better shape than the unfunded schemes though which should really tell us something especially when you consider both of those schemes have had periods when they have been non contributory for employees.