aibu to think that all those striking on thursday are being selfish and greedy?

[hellospoon]

And they should be thankful that they even have a job?

In a day where thousands of people are unemployed and living in poor conditions surely these teachers should be thankful they even have a job!

Many parents are having to take leave, some unpaid I presume the effect that it will have on family's is ridiculous.

yanbu

i support the teachers and others grievances

OP YABVVVVVU

YABU and are also incredibly stupid. Have you read the Hutton report? You may be surprised if you do. Then again some ministers could actually do with reading it to before they start saying things are 'unaffordable' or 'unsustainable' (whilst still picking up their extremely generous pensions which ar te only ones wich aren't being targetted for cuts).

How many ministers are there? 650? How many teachers are there? 400,000. Do the maths.

Plus there's the fact that ministers only have their jobs for 5 years at a time, whereas teachers expect to keep their jobs for 30 years +.

Err RobF they still get the pension anyway - ministers dont need to do 40 years to receive it :)

How many bankers are? Why should the lower paid workers take the brunt. And, why on earth are similar people quarelling instead of uniting?

Here's what I have witnessed; in my bunch of graduate acquantances, 7 entered banking; in the City. 5 were made redundant, one even interviewed for national paper in a see-we-are-suffering-too-and-this-is-our-punishment-there-is-fairness-afterall-lay off the banks type article. The 5 were given a redundancy package of one year salary (I know at 30 years, 3 of them were on over 120k) on which most travelled the world or just spent their time living lavishly; unbeknown to the public that they were certain about getting their jobs back (clandestine winks from Big Boss).

Within 2 months they were all reinstated, on a higher or same salary......and get this - a month ago, 6 of them had received untaxed bonuses! I know one of them bought a car worth 70K with his, and he said his was modest compared to x's. Shouldn't we be looking somewhere else instead of arguing over nurses, teachers, lower paid private sectors?

Oh, and from another twonk ex-graduate colleague who made it into the Houses of Parliament - a pint is only only a quid in the bar there. trivial point I know (thought youi might like to know).

I saw that TickTock and thought it rather odd too. I don't even think the union woman put a very good case forward either. She could have done a much better job.

Actually I expected a much greater proportion of the programme to be taken up by the strikes than it was. So many people out on strike - you would have thought that would have lead to a lot of discussion between the parties. Instead they pretty much agreed that the unions shouldn't have given up on the negotiations before they had even finished and that they shouldn't have gone out on strike. The pointlessness of the strike action is even more apparent.

I will have to agree to disagree with the last two posters. If nothing else this thread has shown me that misery loves company. If anything the private sector workers should be out protesting about their own pensions.

Protesting to who exactly?

Their employers would be the usual target, no?

Unlike the public sector, noblegiraffe, employers in the private sector can't draw on a bottomless pit of (tax payer's) money when pension pots get a bit dry. Hence I suspect that most employees in the private sector who protested about their pension would be politely shown the door.

I was answering the question about who they would protest to, not whether it would actually get them anywhere.

However, whether the pension pot is 'dry' is apparently debatable. Also, it could be replenished from other sources such as banks who apparently have been a far bigger drain on our economy.

"Hence I suspect that most employees in the private sector who protested about their pension would be politely shown the door."

You say that like it's a good thing...

I agree Pang - misery loves company indeed.

My terms and conditions are shit, yours aren't and that's NOT FAIR seems to be the general consensus among some.

The Labour party have however, said that the Conservatives have gone about the pension reforms in a very bad way from the start. they have criticised them for not talking, as they should be, or listening as they should be, to the unions. they have said that they have not seemed to, or appeared to be doing either of these things as they have clumsilly announced bits and pieces as they went along. There were some labour mp's,by the way, who did suuport the strike. would i be mistaken to say that political parties don't usualy support strikes anyway, so to say that 'not even labour supported it' is actually niether here nor there.

look, the thread is wearing thin. people can think as they wish. one thing is for sure though, driving down the public workers pensions is not going to make private pensions come up. in fact, it will probably do the exact reverse. another thing is for sure, and that is that this pensions business takes us another few steps closer to whole new world of private sector over taking our schools and hospitals and services.

by the way, where is hutton in all of this lately? anyone heard a pip from him and the way 'his report' is being used? if you wrote a report, and then no one asked you what you thought, whilst everyone was arguing over it, wouldn't you want to say something either one way or the other? anyone else think this a bit odd?

"I agree Pang - misery loves company indeed.

My terms and conditions are shit, yours aren't and that's NOT FAIR seems to be the general consensus among some."
It isn't fair when we are the ones paying for it. That's what people don't seem to see. It's not the government versus the public sector. It's the public versus the public sector. There's no reason why they should have far more generous pensions than the private sector.

Been out all day so not been back to respond to my question on who the private sector workers should be complaining to about pensions.

I knew somebody would say complain to your employer like that would solve everything. In the current economic climate complaining to your employer won't work if they don't actually have a pension plan as many many small employers don't, if they do have a pension plan and the business can't actually afford to put in any more in because people are living longer and they can't keep up with the increased costs that involves, when redundancies are a real possibilty and it is either have less money put into your future pension by your employer or lose your job in the here and now.

What about the people who have private pensions and have nobody to complain to about the fact their pension is going to be paying out less and they are going to be working longer? What are they supposed to do?

They don't need a union - a union can't make money out of thin air, mores the pity. It can negotiate all the wonderful terms and conditions it likes but if your employer doesn't have the money, what are they going to do about it?

This isn't about wanting the public sector workers to suffer just because the private sector has - I would love the public sector to keep their wonderful pensions. It is about wishing the public sector would get real and not try and make those who have already suffering to pay for their unrealistic expectations, because the majority of people are not earning as much as teachers and can't afford it.

Driving down public sector pensions isn't about making private sector pensions better. How on earth would that work anyway? The two aren't related except that they are both affected by people living longer and the vagaries of the economy and the stock market. That is an irrational thing to say.

Since the whole thrust of this thread has been about comparisons between private and public sector pensions, ie; private workers pensions are a pittance and apparently, according to most of you, public sector pensions are not. It was not an irrational thing to say because the people arguing that public sector pensions should come down are the very same people saying that private pensions are low and so therefore, so should public sector pensions be.

As an aside, I have read posts about lloyds bank and indeed, for the people losing their jobs is dreadful. It is more dreadful that they have ex employees being paid 100k per week, I wonder how much their pensions are...when the 'tax payer' owns 41% of that bank? Seems to me, people are indeed moaning in the wrong direction. And if they still, think they are right, then one may have thought a little more compassion were needed considering 'they have had to suffer' already?

As a further aside, isn't it funny when people talk of taxing large companies, it's deemed as wrong because people say those 'companies will move abroad', or we need those companies. Yet when we talk of cut backs to public sector workers it is ok, yet they earn far less. It is obviously down to how our opinions on the public sector and how much we value it. It is sad, it is not valued because one day we will look back and say...remember when...

Regarding private sector employees, they could make their voices heard to the government if they so wished. They too, could either get a yes or a no.

Nobody is saying that because private sector pensions are low public sector pensions should be low too.

They are saying that because private sector pensions are low you can't expect the private sector to pay more at the expense of their pensions and financial secuity just so the public sector can continue to have their larger pensions because that is what you are asking them to do.

And why would private sector employees want to lobby the government? I don't get what they would be asking for. What has the government got to do with their jobs? There pensions are between the employee and their employers.

Sheesh - 'their pensions', not 'there pensions' obviously.