To think that nurses who choose to strike over pensions will not get any sympathy from the general public??

[McQueasy]

Unison have voted to strike on the 30th, this means that nurses within that union have the choice to participate. As a result of this the NHS may have to operate as an 'emergency only' service for the day. Cancelling routine work, clinics, operations etc.

The governments pension proposals are ridiculous, in essence the average worker will pay between £50-£200 a month more towards their pension in what is realistically a levy. They will not see a penny of that when they retire (if they ever are allowed to retire as the age or retirement gets pushed back and back)

However, as operations, clinics and routine work is cancelled in an already stretched system, I cant help but think that public sympathy for this strike will be minimal.

I'm a nurse in the NHS. I was always always against HCP's striking because I didn't feel that it was fair to patients. But for the first time in my time as a nurse, I have been reconsidering that opinion, because I'm at the point where I'm fed up feeling constantly under attack and ignored by the current government.

Over the last couple of years, my pay has decreased, while my role and my responsibilities have increased exponentially. With an increasingly older population, the pressure on healthcare staff is increasing, with no extra pay and now a pay cut as pension contributions will increase for less pension at the end.

HCP's have put up with all the cuts - to pay, to resources, while trying to manage a continually increasing work load, and I think the pensions thing is the straw which will break the camels back.

The argument that private sector workers are losing their pensions / not getting pay increases - I accept at the moment, but if that argument is going to apply to the public sector now, then why several years ago when the economy was booming, was it acceptable for public sector workers to have lower than inflation pay increases, when private sector workers were benefitting from the good economic climate. If the public and private sectors are going to be compared wrt pensions and pay at the moment, then there should be a guarantee that public sector workers will see the benefit as the economy grows, and should get pay increases on par with the private sector as the economy grows and pay rises start happening over the next few years again.

I know there are private sectors which have suffered, and I don't expect public sector workers to be treated in a different way, but if equality is to happen between private and public sector, then it should be in good times as well as bad, ensuring public sector workers benefit when the economy is strong, not just making public sector workers take a financial hit when the economy is poor.

the alternatives are not more cuts

the alternative is to fairly and correctly tax the massive institutions like the banks and make them pay for the way they have fucked up the UK's economy

plundering public sector workers pensions will not help this country get back on its feet

it will save a few billion in the short term, whilst continuing to allow the people who can afford to pay for their own mistakes off the hook again and again

I can see it must be very galling indeed to have been offered a certain pension and it now be renegotiated. I'd be annoyed too.

However, the sad reality is that for the last ten years the stock market has not supported the pension funds as had been hoped.
Private companies have renegotiated all their pensions. They've had to, the writing was on the wall.
The previous administration knew full well that the public sector pension problem was huge and wasn't going to go away, but there was no political will to deal with it.

The fact is that although there is currently a surplus, the funds simply will not support the public sector pensions as currently contracted. So the pensions that will be drawn in say fifteen twenty years will not be covered by the funds. It will therefore fall to our children to fund the shortfall.

Given that our children will already be entering a world where tertiary education will cost a small fortune, where the vast majority of benefits will have been eroded, where houses are an unaffordable luxury, where state pension will be a thing of the past...can we really saddle them with this extra burden? Won't these young people have enough on their plates?

wooly sadly a fully finded scheme isn't sufficient for the future.

I don't know if there are any actuaries around on here, but the ones I know tell me that funds would need to be huge to cover the future obligations and the state of the stock market hasn't produced the necessary returns.

@Wooly/AF. OK, so what you are saying is that instead of cuts, you want to increase taxes on corporations yes?

Sure, that's one way of doing it. But bear in mind that companies can, do and have left the UK for cheaper tax climates. Now I'm sure some will go yeah good riddance, or no they won't.

But just look at the list of companies that have left.

United Business Media, WPP, Regus, Brit Insurance, Shire Pharmaceuticals, Informa and Wolseley to name a few.

Raising taxes on companies will make more leave. Then where will we get the jobs from?

In actual fact the best way to stimulate the economy is actually to slash corporation tax for a few years. Attract companies to come back or set up in the UK. Let them create jobs and then collect extra taxes from the new employees via income tax, VAT and a smaller (but better than none) corporation tax.

The fact is that the pensions were offered in a fit of optimism. Private companies did the same.

Then it becmae increasingly clear that the funds were not going to be able to support the future drawings.
Private companies renegotiated. Had to.
Now either the public sector pension shave to be renegotiated or we have to accept that we are leaving it for the next generation to sort out.

All talk of bankers, corporartion tax, vodaphone, phillip green et al is just noise. We all know that no government is ever going to raise revenue that way.

So which is it?
Pubic sector pensions remain as they are?
Or our DC pay?

niceguy, yes, let the corporations leave the UK then

like all the HCP's/teachers/emergency service workers/civil servants etc it costs us taxpayers billions to train because they can find a better lifestyle and more respect for their skills elsewhere

Maybe we should have a referendum for kids/young adults aged 16-21. At the end of the day they are the ones who must pay. Not us. I think their sympathy would be much less.

Essentially we're saying "We want you to pay our existing public sector staff who have been promised pensions we cannot afford without raising your taxes. A pension none of you will ever enjoy. Do you want to pay?"

nobody should be leaving the UK, in other words

highly trained professional people will though

AF, i've no idea what your point was.

niceguy...were any of us asked if we wanted our pay freezes/pension cuts/rising inflation/job losses/cuts to public services ? To pay for mistakes a minority of greedy and deluded people have made with what was once a rich and prospering economy

what do you think the answer would have been ?

And don't say we were asked when we voted this current govt in. Because we didn't.

Making public sector workers pay with their promised futures is not the answer.

AF the promised pensions were daft and unfeasible way before the banking crisis.
Private companies have been rejigging theirs for the last ten years. Ask any actuary and they will tell you that this has been bread and butter work.

The last government knew that public sector pensions were in the same hole but didn't tackle it.

The reality is that pension funds rely on the stock market. And that has been a problem for some time.
Sure the banking crisis did not help but trully these pensions were not affordable in the long term except in the most bullish of markets. And markets just don't sustain in that way.

The public sector workers were sold a pup in truth.

And now they have to ask themselves, do they continue to insist on what they were illadvisedly offered and damn the DC who have to pay for it, or do they renegotiate.

Their choice.

AF, there's no point debating how we got here and who made the mistakes. Whether you believe it was all the capitalist pigs/bankers or successive government overspending is all rather academic.

We are where we are.

The only thing which matters is what we do next. Our taxes are already amongst the highest in Europe. Both personally and for corporations. Asking people/companies to pay even more taxes to fund things which (with hindsight) shouldn't have been promised is not the answer either. Raising taxes unilaterally is

As for cuts, all three major parties promised cuts. There was no credible party which said they would not. The only difference between the three main parties was what they would cut and over what period. So that should tell you about what little choice we actually have.

Sorry, the raising taxes bit went a bit wrong. My point is raising taxes in the UK alone is just going to make us uncompetitive at the time when we need to be MORE competitive.

If we want to shift the burden of taxation to companies rather than individuals then we need to coordinate this globally.

Most people don't realise but only a small amount of the overall tax we get comes from corporation tax. This has always been the case. Upping corporation tax not only drives businesses abroad but doesn't come anywhere near plugging the gap.

If public sector workers contributions rise beyond affordability for the worker then people will surely leave the scheme which will make it even more unsustainable than it allegedly is now

learning but can the answer really be to preserve the status quo and expect the next generation to pay for it?

I honestly don't know.

But either way we should be encouraging people to seriously consider making provision for their retirement rather than making personal (as opposed to state) pensions only affordable for the affluent.

I completely agree.

I also agree that we should be realigning expectations about pensions and what returns they actually bring in. Anyhting that is guranteed is not realistic as the stock market can never be guaranteed.

The real danger is the damage to confidence in pension schemes. I actually have a public sector pension myself but my confidence in it is dwindling fast. We would seriously have to work out if I could afford to remain in it whilst balancing the.risks of not having anything.

And it wouldnt surprise me in the least if the state pension was abolished by the time I get there! But then I am getting very cynical in my old age

I am a complete pollyanna about most things in life...but not the economy.

I too am convinced that the state pension will be abolished for all but those on the bread line.
I am also convinced that tertiary education will become riotously expensive (in line with the US), that many benefits will be eroded and that house prices will not drop significantly. I have huge concerns about employment generally in the UK.

This is the world our DC will inherit.

I'm really not keen to pass on the extra problem of the pension deficit.

The new test of how well you've done in life - can you afford to contribute to a pension. Frightening really

YABU - do their job for one day and then see how you feel. They work far harder than doctors!

Lasslass said - gaelicsheep - hardly the same is it because you have choice.

Indeed, I have the choice whether to use many of the useless offerings provided by the private sector. I don't have choice whether to use energy unfortunately so I seriously object when my children freeze while the huge amounts I pay line the pockets of the directors.

You have choice too. Emigrate.

But this attacking of public sector pensions is so misleading, and is a way for the government to set people against those who will strike by perpertrating misinformation and hiding their agenda. I pay into the LGPS, and some of the facts we've had via our Union are:

1. Without a single penny more in contributions, the local government pension scheme could pay all its liabilities for twenty years.

1. The NHS pension scheme gets £2bn more in contributions than it pays out in benefits every year. This additional money isn?t stored up for future pensions payments but goes straight to the Treasury to help pay for the bankers? crisis.

1. Changes negotiated with the previous government have already reduced the value of public sector pensions by 10%. In particular, under the so-called ?cap and share? arrangement, the cost of pension contributions for public sector employers was capped, so that future increases in pension costs above a set level would be paid entirely by employees.

1. Research by independent experts such as the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) and the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) has already proved that both pension schemes are affordable and sustainable for the long-term, and that the cost to the taxpayer of public sector pensions has already fallen.

1. The relevant ministers want to increase public sector pensions contributions by 50% for those earning over £15,000. This additional money won?t be used to improve pension schemes for the future ? it will go to the Treasury. So, in effect, it will be a tax on those that can ill-afford it.

1. The number of people contributing towards a company pension scheme in the private sector has almost halved since 1991. Two-thirds of private sector employers do not pay a single penny towards their workers? pensions. This will force millions of workers into poverty in their retirement and the taxpayer will have to pick up the multi-billion pound benefits bill.

1. The average pension for local government workers is around £4,000 a year and £7,000 a year for NHS workers. For most women it?s even less.

The Government want to up our contibutions and then take £900 million out to help pay some of the country's debts (or keep other taxes down)...it's an extra tax funded by Public Sector workers. But it's being sanctioned by people who don't work in the Public Sector who believe that somehow we have any easy time of it, and then have the temerity to retire on a 'huge' pension to boot.

The LGPS will be in trouble if people can't afford to pay into in the future - that's not the case now: the Government are being ridiculously short-sighted IMO. The LGPS has assets and it contributes to the economy. What happens if it does come crashing down as people are priced out of contributing, and withdraw instead?

I have seen NO balanced reporting of these issues in the national press. I will go out on strike and like everyone who strikes on that day we will be roundly condemned by all and sundry...