To be stressed out about pressure to strike

[peppapighastakenovermylife]

Without saying too much, my 'organisation' has announced strike action.

I really do not want to do it but feel awful at not. I wouldnt actually have to cross a picket line or anything (can simply work at home) but feel like I 'should' strike.

The strike is over our pensions. I understand the impact but feel that I can't worry about something now that will happen in probably 35 - 40 years time. I feel pretty lucky to even be able to afford to pay anything into a pension, let alone a company one. The returns are still better than other private pensions. However I understand why some are striking.

It is potentially two days strike. I cannot afford to lose that money. I am the main wage earner and just come off SMP. If I strike food will either be going on the credit card with no clear means of paying it off soon. There are more pressing issues such as redundancy, fuel costs, reductions in tax credits and so on looming. I feel like I need to worry about now rather than way in the future and do not have the 'luxury' that many well paid members of staff might have of not really noticing the loss of a days pay.

Would you strike? Have you gone on strike in the past? I am too 'young' (I wish ) to have really been in this situation before

They sit there whingeing particularly university people, they are some of the worst.

Strange to report, most academics are not purely motivated by wealth. People choose to direct their intelligence towards different goals.

So OP, have you decided yet whether or not you will strike?

What - back to the original question rambling? . Yes I will strike based on the logic on this thread - I am in the union so therefore I should. I will then need to make a longer term decision whether to stay in it

Good! I'm really glad to hear that . I'm afraid I didn't follow all the twists and turns this thread took but I do think it's an important principle of trade unionism that we all stand shoulder to shoulder to protect our colleagues. It's a really important issue and well worth taking a stand on.

Good luck!

Xenia,

Well,you are a thoughtless right winger. I am actually to the right of centre, but I do think about things a bit.

For instance what does "fed " and "housed" mean? And who are "the poor". Do "the poor" deserved to be housed in a house with an internal lavatory, for instance? After all, it used to be considered acceptable to have an outdoor loo. And do they deserve enough calories to sustain them to age about 40 or to be able to have a balanced healthy diet? And what about all the modern "necessities": phone, TV, internet? If it were not for the concept or relative poverty, none of the above would be considered a necessity.

And, I wonder how you would have done on your investments (and me, for that matter) without the bank bailout? Or, was that a case which demanded state support rather than people getting off their arses??

Noble - because I accept there is a difference between my abstract politico-philosophical ideals and real life where people are sick, old, in desperate need of help that (because of how society has evolved over the past decades) only the state can provide. My ideal would be a Nozickean ultra-minimal state or the sort of voluntary taxation advocated by Auberon Herbert but I content myself with writing about them, campaigning for the TPA and Freedom Association, voting Conservative and hoping the private sector will pick up.

Thanks byrel - I went on the 'entitled to' website and I could be claimng a hell of a lot until I move back into paid employment/start the PhD but I don't.

mimile - Possibly yeah but a lot of my personal beliefs come from my Father who left a council estate in Barnsley with no qualifications and became very successful entirely through his own work. I get that because of housing etc this is a bit more difficult now but it can be done. The state should be a safety net and the sense of entitlement in this country is disgusting.

Xenia as always you are right. Flat rate of tax 10-20% would increase revenues and be fairer in the true sense.

A TV is not a necessity (I don't have one, terrible things) and the housing benefit reforms are a good thing to me because noone should have the 'right' to live somewhere that the tax payer is paying for when most tax payers couldn't afford it themselves.

HappiestBlonde,

Dependency is dependency whether it is on the state or on Daddy. Ask your Dad to take you off his medical insurance and make sure you live independently and not at home, pay all your own rent (mortgage) etc before preaching to others.

Your Dad is self made. You are not, though. You are taking benefits from the state of Daddy.

Until 2 weeks ago I worked in the city, larry, so my savings are entirely of my own making.
I do pay my own rent.
I do not take money from my Father (aside health insurance but that's like £40 a year, I could pay that if need be)

The difference is the money my Father used (after the 40% tax) to pay for my education did not come from other tax payers.

So please get your facts right before spouting shite like that.

And Happiest,

Where on earth do you get thei idea that a 10-20% tax would increase revenues (it would not)? Show me any evidence. It is a fact that increasing taxes beyond a certain point leads to more avoidance/evasion and that it is self destructive. On the other hand, that point is way above 20%. Probably somewhere between 40-50% is the cutoff.

You cannot model a country like the UK on Singapore or Hong Kong for all sorts of reasons (size, demographics etc).

happiestblonde i completly agree! the sense of the entitlement within the wealthy is disgusting.

maybe if wages were higher more people could afford to go to work (ridiculous notion), oh but wait no the conservatives are cutting jobs and banks arent landing to normal people to start up businesses. oh and no one has any money to pay through the nose for items from independent shops and services while multinationals offer the same cheaper products as they are out sauced to over worked and under paid often child labour work forces?

when is this world going to wake the fuck up? we need everyone in gov out, in every party.

dam right we need trade unions and strikes-how else can we protest against the rich pissing all over everyone else? what a surprise the conservatives dont like them, self preservation gone fucking mad

Happiest,

Apologies for my errors. You keep talking as if you were your father, though. And, en passant, £40.00 per year for comprehensive medical insurance. Call PPP, my guess is £200 minimum.

COnsidering it's the ridiculously high taxes of the 'wealthy' funding most of the welfare state and the public sector I wouldn't say they are 'pissing all over everyone else'.

I find the visceral hatred towards higher rate tax payers astonishing.

No, someone asked if I would feel the same if I had had a harder life up til now - I said I don't know but I've seen first hand that self reliance is a valuable tool for success. The medical insurance is attached to his so perhaps the £40 is just the addition for me, no idea really it's not something I've given a lot of thought to.

Happiest,

I tend to agree. However, certain sectors who have been bailed out by the taxpayer maybe should pay higher taxes.

The argument over whether the City has (net) contributed taxes is not an easy one to make one way or the other. The bailout cost should include the direct money, the implicit cost of the guarantee and the real cost of the BOE special repo facilities and increase in balance sheet. Sure, the employees pay a lot of tax but was the bailout more or less? Hard to know.

On the other hand, I cannot but say that 52% (and that is what it is) is way too high and that the public sector is way too large. Blaming bankers does not alter the fact that New Labour used the chimera of the booming financial sector to pump up unsustainable and inefficient public expenditure.

Not all of the city needed bailing out...

Agreed about Labour's unsustainable and inefficient public expenditure.

I worked in the City for 23 years and I am afraid it did. Some banks were in a better position (JP Morgan, Deutsche, Goldmans) but the interdepencies were huge. If RBS had been allowed to fail, the rest would have collapsed like a heap of dominoes. Look at the repercussions from Lehmans, a relatively small investment bank which did not even have any depositor funds.

Fair point. Did you support the bailout?

On a point of principle, no. Selfishly, absolutely. Given that I am not employed now and live on my investment portfolio, I would have been in a tough position without it. Even money in accounts (of over £50k) would have gone to zero.

Very theoretically, after a few years of complete ugliness, it would have been very effective in rebalancing the economy. But no one wants a deep depression for a decade, even if it feeds the next real boom.

I said 10% but that's the flat tax rate in Bulgaria. 20% is more likely and only if you cut back the frontiers of the state quite a bit which would be a good thing.

As for whether I woudl have been harmed if the banks failed, not directly as I made money and married someone who earned less so got nothing on the divorce just lots of debt which means all these low interest rates for me personally are "never had it so good" as poor Lord Young foolishly but with some merit said.

I think 52% from 2011 (tax and NI) is actually lower than the true rate because of the withdrawal of allowances on higher earners too but roughly it's 52% (and htat's a lot less than the effective 90% low earners seem to be going pay if Pickles triumphs over Duncan Smith on the supposed - it will pay to work plan which the current Government seem to be no b etter at than all the others).

OP: if you are going to strike, send me a PM and I'll send you a voucher for some food if needed. I will be striking.

I kind of wish we were striking...I have to lecture for 5 hrs straight that day...no wee or coffee breaks