to think that doctors shouldn't go on strike over pension changes

[starwarrior]

Why shouldn't they just suck it up like the rest of us?

People would be more sympathetic if drs had striked a couple of months ago when the NHS reforms were coming in that will threaten its very existence. Instead they decide to strike only when their hugely inflated pensions were brought into reasonable levels. We ALL know their pensions are too generous, It does not matter what they are doing or have done to receive them. The idea that this will prevent people training as drs is laughable. Medicine is highly desirable and competitive.....there is a reason for that.

Can the BMA take industrial action on a non T+C issue? Its one thing to take ation over pensions, but I dont know if they could withold routine care on the basis of not liking the NHS reforms?

btw it isnt a strike. Doctors will be at work and available for emergency work.

@BartletforAmerica

You say "Government projections suggest that the 2007-08 changes are likely to reduce costs to taxpayers of the pension schemes by £67 billion over 50 years, with costs stabilising at around 1% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or 2% of public expenditure" means that it is sustainable.

Correct me if I am wrong, but if it was sustainable there should be no cost ( i.e. 0% of GDP) to keep it going. As you state it, it means every-year the public sector are taking out more than they are putting in. This money comes entirely from the private sector, and the workers there have taken the brunt of the troubles. Do you think this is "fair" ?

And before anyone starts spouting off about the private sector just sucking it up and not standing up for their rights, my experience is that the private sector did fight, but they understood that the current situation was unsustainable so they fought for job protection for all (in preference to pay-rises for some, redundancy for others).

As I said in my previous post, and this is the key, if what is proposed is such a bad deal then go and get something better elsewhere (with all those private sector perks that people seems to believe in). As far as I know benefits earned-to-date are protected, so what are people complaining about ?

Floralfancy - its not unusual for there to be an employer contribution to pensions, in private or pulic sector.

I earn a similar amount to a doctor, work similar hours etc. I contribute 25% of my salary into a defined contribution scheme, and can expect a pension of around the average salary.

Doctors pay around 15% of their salary into their scheme and can expect a pension of around 3x the average salary.

So forgive me for eyerolling.

@hiveofbees

True, but in the private sector that come from money earnt by the private company. In the public sector it also comes from money earnt by the private company. Why should that contribution top-up public sector pensions in preference to private sector pensions ?

@hopefullyrecovering

Exactly the situation for my DH. What you say is true, so the arguement for "fairness" used by public sector workers just never stacks up. Whatever people pay in should be directly proprtional to what the get out.

Because its part of the package?

Why are we wasting money on letting staff take annual leave then?
In fact why are we paying NHS staff at all?

BTW the pension changes involve the loss of the final salary scheme.

Floralfancy - you do know that across the public sector people dont all pay pension contributions at the same rate? Different staff groups pay different percentage of their salary.

@hiveofbees

Come on... you can't answer those questions yourself.

Maybe you can't
Why are we wasting money on letting staff take annual leave then?
Because if there was no leave, there would be more errors and besides no-one would want the job.

In fact why are we paying NHS staff at all?
No-one would do it if it didn't pay anything.

And with ref to your BTW comment: Doesn't the pension earnt up until the recent changes still work on final salary ? And the future pension contributions switch to career average ? What is wrong with that ? No-one has had anything taken from the yet, and if they don't want something they expected to be taken away then they can go and get another job ? No ?

@hiveofbees

You say "you do know that across the public sector people dont all pay pension contributions at the same rate? Different staff groups pay different percentage of their salary"

Yes. Can you tell me which staff groups pay enough contributions that would actually fund their pension were it sourced in the private pension sector. The answer is none. So I guess your point is that some staff groups get huge subsidies from private sector tax payers (net taxpayers), and some staff sectors can smaller subsidies from private sector tax payers. My point is that none should get subsidised.

When I see public sector workers marching with their "fair pensions for all" banners I think it must make a lot of people angry. What they are asking for is "fair pensions for all public sector workers".

@hiveofbees

And no need for a long game of reply-tennis here. I think everyone is entitled to an opinion. I know mine and feel it strongly, but don't want to force it onto others.

Yes this could go on all day....

And we did start early

My little one (first) has really just started teething, and last night was his first really hard one with red face, runny nose, and lots and lots of screaming at full volume. Not that any of that influences my posts here of course !

Have a nice (non teethy!) day

Doctors have a justified grievance. At the moment the NHS is nearly a monopoly employer/contractor for doctors in this country so there isn't much option of going off to get another job elsewhere. Besides, do we really want trained doctors to leave and get other jobs or, god forbid, do the government a massive favour towards privatisation and find ways to continue to 'doctor' outside the NHS?

@Sillylilly

But that situation hasn't really change for decades, so when UK doctors trained they knew they were signing up for that. And I am not sure what you mean when you put apostrophes around doctor in your last sentance. If my NHS GP decided to go private would she suddenly lose all her ability and professionalism ?

@Freesea

You say " That's whole point! Doctors used to get 60k a year, and that junior doctor will take the same amunt of years training, work as a consultant for longer, retire later and only get 48,000. me think you have shot yourself in the foot there"

The amount wasn't the point though, so no idea why you think he shot himself in the point. The point... is that the "only" 48,000 per year pension requires a pension pot of 1.5 million pounds. To reach that in the private sector I would need to put in 1,600 of my salary for the next 40 years. Doctors are not puttting that much in, so they shouldn't get the 48,000 pension out. It is simple.

Weighing in here!:

I must admit I feel a bit equivocal about the doctors situations, though I am in favour of public servants in general taking action (I am one and I did on that on the first Day of Action). My reasons for doing so are:

-The government is in breach of contract in reneging on the pension deal. I don't recall anyone shouting for my 'rights' when I was a newly qualified HCP in London in 1983 working 27 hour shift and earning practically nothing. The 'pay-off' was reasonable T&Cs, a reasonable pension and a steady job. All of those are gone now

-The fact not a single banker, lawmaker or regulator has been punished for the mess we find ourselves in

-Our present government is turning itself inside out to preserve the wealth and influence of the rich

-The campaign to make all non-public service workers genuinely believe that The Crisis was caused by the nasty, greedy public sector workers, not poor governance and banker greed. The ensuing 'race to the bottom' we are all apparently buying into.

BUT... the 'problem' is-

As Gerry Robertson/Robinson found out (sorry if I got his name completely wrong!) in a Panorama style programme about 6 months to a year ago, a major barrier to change in the NHS is the entrenched, inflexible and unmoveable position of many (not all!) consultants who still feel it to be their birthright to play golf on a Friday afternoon and sweep through the wards in a glorious trail of housemen..

Where I work, my jaw frequently drops open when I see how recalcitrant our consultants are. We're just been 'merged' with another Trust and whilst it means a 30% cut to the pay of our junior staff working out of hours (yes, we're fighting it!)- to give them apparent 'parity' with the other hospital, all the departmental consultants have been given a (secret- note your and my money...) £10,000 'sweetener' to help ease them through the strain of the merger. I'd say 70% of them will not do a jot of work over and above that 'contracted'; most turn up at 9.20am and are nowhere to be found by 4.30pm; many openly go skiing on paid-for, all expenses 'study leave' with maybe one or two lectures thrown in at the Gstaad based 'conference'. All park illegally on site and are never 'done' like the rest of us who don't use the P&R 2 miles away.

Two work hard and conscientiously, one or two can be 'persuaded, the others are in a free-for-all, loudly proclaiming their 'rights' having studied so hard for so long. They are 'the bankers' of the NHS, and whilst this born-to-rule arrogance is on the wane in the modern NHS, stripping them of these 'rights' is costing vast amounts of public money to soften the blow (I recall the GPs were the ones who opposed the NHS in the first place, til they were offered ££). In short, it annoys me how the rest of us public workers are told, straight, here's your pension cut, tough sh**; but the docs will make a huge fuss, then will appear to 'accept' the new (probably improved) deal, but in reality be being given, privately and covertly, 'expenses' deals or better contractual arrangements to keep them on side.

Finally it pee's me off that the docs didn't ballot til after the first strikes, wanting to see how badly the rest of us were cut down before making their stand!

I can see that doctors feel hard done by, but in the current economic climate I dont have much sympathy for the bleating of highly paid public sector workers. I work in health in the private sector and in recent years we just cant recruit medics of any sort as they all know they are now much better off in the NHS. Previous negotiations of the GP contract massively improved their T and C's. More money for less work and poorer service, i.e. no night cover for patients.

Their employer has every right to change future conditions of employment and it is ridiculous to expect a struggling private sector, where no one has anything like the benefits they have, to keep funding them at the level they have become accustomed to expect. Private sector wages have been frozen for 2-3 years in many areas and final salary pensions are long gone. We deal with doctors every day and none of my professional private sector colleagues have any sympathy for them at all.

Why should doctors see themselves as so special

Litten tree, I completely agree with you, that is exactly what we see. BUT I do wish people would stop talking about bankers when they talk about the private sector. They are not at all representative of the majority of private sector workers

I fully support the strike ( and I'm not a doctor - though I am a HCP

elastomum- what I meant by 'bankers' was bankers! I didn't mean to use them as shorthand for 'everyone who isn't a public employee'!

I think a lot of private sector employees are getting a bum deal as well, really I do, but one of my comments was about how the government is doing quite a good job in convincing everyone who isn't a public employee that the Crisis was caused by 'those greedy nurses and their adequate pension provision'- but the answer isn't to give all employees a bum deal!

When it comes down to the nitty gritty, however, I'd say I do support the strike as the doctors, too, signed up to a given T&C deal which is now being reneged upon, but I don't think their 'case' is as water tight as say a nurse's as we all know the government will do a deal with the doctors as they are 'one of their own'. It won't be 'open' or open to easy scrutiny, this deal, but it will be struck, as much as anything because no one has yet tackled the idea that doctors are 'above suspicion' (see putting GPs in charge of the NHS budget!- What I want is a impartial, benign, humanitarian accountant in charge of the health pound, thanks, not a group who can be so utterly self-interested as doctors have been known to be!).

yyy Litten

www.guardian.co.uk/money/2012/mar/07/pensions-tax-relief

nb - tax relief goes up the hgher your income
how much does that cost then?

private sector pensions are crap because of private sector employers, not public sector workers