to say this to all the teachers who are striking next week

[Memoo]

As a parent I am 100 % behind you.

I really appreciate that you put your life and soul into your job and im sorry more people don't get just how hard you work for the benefit of our children.

Don't let the bastards grind you down!

I currently work in both healthcare for the NHS and in retail part time and I know which job will become full time once my children are both at school - not retail!
The paperwork thing and changing things annually applys to all services, public and private. It is down to all Governments and a lack of care about long term aims, as someone else has said they care about what makes them popular. This decision is a brave one by the tories and makes them hugely unpopular, but it will benefit our children for years to come.

I am a nurse and will be striking on Wednesday. Not all nurses are in the RCN. It was a difficult decision and not many from my office are striking. Couldn't do it if it put clients at risk. There are also redundancies of support staff being made where I work which will increase my workload. This is when there is a shortage of people doing my role and govt have pledged to increase the workforce, what they forget to mention to the public is the cutting of the needed support staff prior to training workers who do my role. The RCN has recently reported that 56000 staff set for redundancy. very scary times. The govt can't be trusted.

Being seen to manage debt is important.

It's not about what the government wants to do. It's about what it HAS to do.

It's not about politics, private sector vs public sector. It's about mathematics. People are living longer. Therefore pensions will cost more. Yet the number of people contributing is static. And the contributions are already not enough.

The government has the largest peacetime deficit on record. £150 billion this year alone. So to continue to argue for a pension which you are not paying for is frankly ridiculous. It's like your son demanding an the latest xbox game when you are a step away from being declared bankrupt because "You promised". Actually you didn't even promise. It was your ex who's fucked off into the sunset who made all the promises he should never have done.

For those who think the government should honour the agreed pensions, can you suggest where the money will come from? If you can then I'm sure we'd all love to hear it. Especially the politician's.

Frankly all I've read is a bunch of people who are demanding their pensions and not one person gives a shit who pays.

I anxious it won't benefit our children, because the people who can't afford it will pull out of the scheme and then there really will be a massive gap to plug. It won't benefit our children that the teaching profession has such a poor retainment rate because the various governments can't stick to anything. And it won't help our children when the profession doesnt attract the high flyers the govt wants because the perks for them aren't there. You can't compare teaching to retail. I too have done both.

why doesn't the govt just lower the employer contributions instead of the workers having to pay more of their pay towards the pension?

Craigslittleangel. No, this "thred" ahem, has actually displayed a very insular view.

You are a teacher, right?

But teachers do earn a decent wage. They deserve it to . I just think that us or most likely our children will not be able to afford the multiple tax increases needed to fund all of this down the road..

I'm confused who will pull out of the scheme (the public sector workers?) then others will pay less to fund them later on. There is still the state pension.

I work in the public sector, in a university. I belong to the University Superannuation Scheme.

Unlike nearly every other public sector group, we have a fully funded pension scheme that is doing pretty well. The predictions are promising and it is likely to be able to meet its obligations. It is not met out of current taxpayer income, rather it is fully capitalised.

In fact, our scheme is doing so well that many senior executives in USS received bonuses last year in excess of what the average professorial salary is for a year. Yes, you read that correctly, they trousered more in bonuses than nearly all academics earn in a year before tax.

So given this wonderful success, what are they doing?

They accepted £75,000 of taxpayers' money to think of ways to reduce our benefits, and they are seeking to pare benefits to the bone whilst raising contributions. This hasn't gone down very well, as you can imagine.

So we are striking? Because we are being shafted, that's why. They are invoking the financial crisis as a means of ensuring executive salaries of university and pension managers continue to rise exponentially, while the people who are at the front line get none of the bounty.

We may be many things, but we are not stupid, and we are not incapable of reading the annual USS reports and reading between the lines, either.

3LittleKittens. The problem is the gap is projected to be so big (if nothing changes) that the situation is untenable. So the only realistic solution is for employees to contribute more and expect less back.

And therein lies the problem. Employees don't want to pay more and don't want to get less. What they want is for someone else to pick up the tab. But someoneelse is skint and has no money.

If the government keeps paying out for pensions at the rate it has been doing then the country will be bankrupt.
IT IS MATHS
On average people are now living about 80 years, far longer than when pensions were introduced. For example my mother retired aged 55 having worked since 16 in the public sector, it isn't beyond the realms of reality that she could live to be beyond 90. In which case she has contributed for 40 years which is less than half her life! Yet her pension will run until whenever.
If this scenario is bourne out for a huge amount of public sector workers then there is no option but to cut pensions and increase retirement age.

I've heard great things about the Uni pension schemes.

Re redundancies the gov aint running a charity. When my dp's company needs to cut costs they get rid of people.My sis works for a big charity and I have friends in retail.All have suffered the same and all are having to do with less/no support staff.

I get the distinct impression people on this thread think the gov shouldn't get rid of anybody in the public sector ,shouldn't address pension inequality and cutting the deficit and shouldn't expect anything more ever from public sector workers because they're errr special and above the rest of us.

If someone tried to significantly reduce my take home pay in a time of high inflation, make me work several years longer, and when I eventually do retire give me less to live on, I would definately want to protest.

Public sector workers are not taking this action lightly. Most do what they do because they passionately believe in the public service they provide. The Government's sums don't even add up. Civil service pensions were actually reformed in 2003. They are using the economic situation as an opportunity to make changes for ideological reasons.

Sorry to disapoint SwedeHeart but I'm not. But typing and not stopping to check. Thanks for the call out on it though.

Niceguy 2. Thank you. It is not a them vs us situation. It is partly to do with maths. I do care who pays for the pensions. Like many, I have paid tax and Ni contributions since I was 16. I've paid. I care about where that money should be spent. And strangly I think spending it on pensions for public sector workers is fine.

Same as state pensions iggy, Too simply put, too many old people taking money put and not enough young people putting money in creates an issue that needs supporting. Same will happen to the public sector pensions of we the worker can no longer afford to pay in.

Emaily - you sound dreadfully naive :(

Sorry, one too many too in that last post!

You are right Emaily. The government sums don't add up. Which is exactly why things need to change.

Income £540 billion
Outgoings £690 billion.

Now how are you going to close that gap without making people redundant, cutting services and lowering benefits (like pensions)? It's impossible and anyone who tells you otherwise is lying.

If the country doesn't sort out the deficit then all services would have to be privatised which would inevitably lead to greater social and economic inequalities, the people who could afford private schooling/ healthcare would pay insurance or for private education, the people who couldn't afford it who are on low incomes would become more deprived due to ill health/ lack of education and tax would rocket for the well paid. Services would have to be privatised because there would be no money to repair schools/ hospitals/ purchase new equipment etc. Never mind declining teacher numbers! In light of the other option of continuing in this way, I choose pension cuts!

Craigs. The issue isn't whether or not you've paid tax & NI. It's as a nation if we've paid enough. The answer to that sadly is no.

For too long politician's have deluded us into thinking we can increase public spending whilst lowering taxes. We can't.

Yes aging population. Half of NHS spending is pensioners. So we can not keep these too generous pension schemes going as they are (will probably need tax raise and more as well). To get an okay standard of care for all we have to cut back.

Anxious, indeed this is what the Tory govt will say the reason is for privatising these services. They are creating the perfect scapegoat when privatisation is something that they're a massive fan of. Our reduced pension will make it much easier to privatise us, far more attractive business proposition if they have lower outgoings to honour.

Niceguy2. Thank you for the correction to something I wan not actually meaning to suggest.
Here's a thought, and do tell me if i'm not being clear, why don't we make teachers pay may more tax and NI and higher rates into their pensions. Oh stop, they already do that. They do that even though they agreed to reduction in the rate paid into the pensions by the government 5 years ago.

Iggly, I KNOW that changes are going to be made I object to the proposals as they stand. I want a fairer more transparent and Honest deal. One that doesn't penalise women. We are not so stupid to think we are striking for no change. We are striking for (amongst other things) fair change.