For all those who support the strikes

[chopc]

Where do you think the money will come from for all the pay rises? Are you personally willing to pay more tax?
We all saw during the pandemic it is the poorly paid essential workers that kept the country going and they totally deserve more money than the claps they got. However will YOU be prepared to contribute to the pot ?

If not where do you think the govn will find more money from?

Yes, im willing to pay significantly more tax.

If we can afford the pension triple lock, we can afford proper inflation linked pay rises for nurses. We have far, far more pensioners than nurses.

Well the train companies and Royal Mail are private companies who make lots of profit so I don't expect that to have a tax cost.

I would absolutely pay more tax to have decent services which are fit for purpose including the NHS. Don't forget that in this scenario those striking would also pay more tax.

I'm a single parent who earns £90k and I don't get child benefit because I earn over the threshold. Makes no sense that a household with 2 parents earning £49k each do get it!

It's just so depressing how bad this country is at the moment.
Working people going to food banks!

I would like to pay more tax but also ensure it is spent in the most efficient and effective way possible. We would probably need to get a more federal system so local economies have more autonomy over funding and spending

You say the bursary was abused? so you have evidence for this? or is it a belief, based on........

Why should someone stay in a job they find stressful, tiring and pays them so little? why not address the causes of this?

My DD is an AHP, she loves her job but in all honesty? she is being shat on, by staff, management and patients... all for 27k.

Nurses/Doctors are human beings, they make errors, screw up... just like the rest of us, no one is putting them on a pedestal but when you have a medical emergency... they are all we have.
But all you are doing is criticising them... with a series of anecdotal allegations designed to rubbish the NHS and its staff.

How on earth do you expect staff to be at their best when they are so short staffed, working 12 hr shifts, no breaks & money worries?

Professional? ....pay them as such then.

@RosesAndHellebores Desperately trying to ignore the "women should stay in the homes" argument for the sake of my sanity, it's quite clear you don't understand my point.

I believe in all sorts of state provided free services, childcare being one. I also believe in state-owned transport, power and water infrastructure, health and social care etc etc. I believe that the way to pay for these goods is through general taxation. Were we to pay for them out of taxation we would no longer need to pay for them out of the money that currently remains after taxation. Therefore the financial burden on our net salary would be completely different. It's a very simple point.

@RooRooCooChoo I have never ever said or argued women should stay in the home. I firmly believe that women should plan so that they can, comfortably, if they wish. Also that some women are "wired to be mothers" and some aren't. I was but it never stopped me working from 20 to 35 and again from 43 to 62 and to continue to do so.

I recall the 70s as a young adult. State ownership was truly not superb. I disagreed with water being privatised and they went too far with the trains. I do not want state provision across the board. The state has no business dictating how my children are cared for or indeed educated. They received a better education than the state is able to provide. The state will certainly not dictate how and by whom I am cared for in old age if necessary.

Our views are oppositional. I believe in individual freedoms and choice, you believe in a state run economy. Do you remember what it was like when everything in the UK was nationalised?

I would have no issue paying more tax for the NHS but not in its present form. The structure and culture have to change. We have experience of healthcare in Austria and France. It is significantly better than in the UK. We need to which to a model of social insurance.

Can you not understand being polite is part of the Service? Dp was sent to the emergency day surgery unit to be assessed by a consultant. Upon arrival, he was, asked in a surly manner,
"What do you want", the nurse couldn't even be arsed to get up, she just slid around her office on her chair.
He was told to go sit down over there. Eventually, he was approached by the same nurse, apologized to, and explained A/e hadn't updated the system.

The NHS does need a pay review but they do need a course on customer relations, I don't care how stressful you perceive your job, treat people with respect. There are posters everywhere reminding people aggression will not be tolerated. This however is a two-way street.
In my industry, talking to people like that would be a disciplinary, with an eventual dismissal if you carried on.
The NHS is well known for bullying.

@Alexandra2001 if your dd is being shat upon by staff and management does that not indicate the NHS as it stands is totally broken? Presumably the patients have just had enough. Paying nurses more without restructuring the NHS and sorting out its toxic culture won't hp the overall picture. I accept it will help individual nurses. Support for the strike though was not that widespread; very few hospitals participated.

For a start if we abolished MPs being able to claim expenses for their energy bills, and scrap the subsidised menu in parliament, that would go some way! Frankly they should only be able to claim expenses for work trips, if they're having to pay for their own travel or something.
Also if they had to follow proper channels for spending taxpayers money they'd get better deals on all their contracts, instead of spunking millions into the faces of their mates, it's an absolute shambles and frankly illegal. They all deserve to be locked away for what they've done to this country.

There's "no money", yet the government do this.......

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64006885

The govt claim "the country can't afford it", but are managing to afford subsidising the rail companies to the tune of £30 mill/ week to induce them to stand firm against the strikers.

Strikers are losing wages, businesses are losing money, public is being massively inconvenienced, rail companies are losing NOTHING and the govt it pulling all of the strings.

You ve either mis read or are deliberately ignoring what i wrote.

Staff shortages.... fix that and the NHS will improve.. no one has any time to support staff, too many PT workers because they simply find it too stressful.... as not enough staff.

You cannot fix or reform, remodel.. whatever you want to call it .. unless staffing is sorted first.

imho there are too many PT staff, so deal with childcare, pay, parking, shifts... longer term, more training places & open up nhs to EU workers, so no visas, no health insurances, right to bring in family, unlimited right to remain.

We should not be signing deals with Ghana to do the same, whilst refusing to do similar with EU.

Ghana is a developing country, EU member states are not... its immoral.

Given the constraints on the ballot majorities for strikes (the toughest in Europe) i think you will find there were majorities for strike action in every trust in England, just not enough to make strikes lawful.

Excellent post.

Some decades ago, when the Beatles were at the height of their fame, they were paying 95p in the £1 in tax. All very high earners were.

Then the Tories capped the maximum at 50p and the rich got richer at an obscenely fast rate, and the essential services went downhill because they weren't supported, and the poor got poorer and poorer.

The likes of Jacob Rees-Smug should not be able to filter their money through offshore account to avoid even the mediocre tax levels they're paying.

He and his ilk are the people who are breaking this country and robbing it blind - not the striking nurses, rail workers etc. The govt is working hard to divide and conquer the electorate, and to disenfranchise as many "undesirable" voters as possible with the new ID measures. They are trying to remove workers single weapon - the right to strike, and withdraw their labour; they are taking away so many civil liberties, such as the right to peaceful protest - and we are letting them do it!

They are being aided by the media which only very selectively reports what is happening - too many newspapers and news organisations are no longer independent. The few individuals who are and who try to speak out are silenced.

We live under a fascist dictatorship.

Good post.

Yes the Cons want the strikes... a: want to break & humiliate workers, putting them back in their boxes... knowing they can't afford to keep losing pay and b: use the strikes to attack Labour with.

The damage to the UK ie us lot ? who cares.

Each 1% pay rise for nurses would cost £700milliion so the requested 19% would cost £13.3Billion annually.
I'm sure if the nurses got this then many other public service workers would be queuing up too.
The NHS is currently unsustainable and needs a complete rethink.
I hope the nurses get some of their payrise but 19% is madness.

I hope the nurses get some of their payrise but 19% is madness.

I don't think they are expecting 19% - this is an opening negotiating position.

The reason the NHS is unsustainable is because successive Tory govts have deliberately made it so - underfunding, contracts to Tory supporting firms, rather than the most competitive, expert ones etc.

There are too may of our politicians on the payroll of too many big businesses - and American insurance and pharmaceutical companies are itching to get their hands on it.

Of course we don't have to have the American system - we could go for one of the European ones.

But we won't

We'll get the American one, and people will be made bankrupt if they get big bills - just as they are over there. I wish to Christ we had a good, strong opposition who would just blow this lot out of the water - the ammunition is there; the support is there; the decent politicians aren't.

Yes it’s just a ridiculous amount to ask for. And there’s so much focus on nurses but really if they got it then everyone would want it, there’s a lot of different roles in the addenda for change who would all deserve it too. Then there’s teachers who would then also want the same, admin, police, the list is endless.

I’ve been trying really hard, genuinely, to understand the different viewpoints posted on this thread so far.
What I can’t get my head around is this idea of “if nurses get a pay rise, so should teachers/admin/any other profession”.
Well, yeah, they should. No public sector pay should drag massively behind inflation over an extended period like it has done. So what are we to do? None of us strike and all stay badly paid? Or one organisation strike, and the rest might follow? Why would that be such a bad thing?

As for the repeated notions that 19% is absurd, it’s called a starting negotiation. You go in higher, the government hopefully enter negotiations and come back with an offer. We’re not expecting 19%. We’ve had a real terms pay cut over the last decade, the 19% represents 5% over inflation, giving us room for negotiations.

A PP mentioned about the role of a nurse changing over the years and I think that’s a very good point. (Sorry I can’t find it to quote)

Go back 15-20 years, a nurse’s role was closer to that of today’s HCA.

So along with our pay not increasing with inflation, we’ve also gradually been expected to gain more skills and take on more responsibility with no reward.

Well maybe the6 could request a refund of the £223million they paid Baroness Mourne for useless ppe. Because apparently they’re currently not going to bother. 🤷‍♀️ And that £223million is the tip of the iceberg. But hey, they seem happy to give their friends hundreds of millions of pounds for nothing!

So you’d pay extra tax provided that you got a load of free stuff in exchange so that you weren’t really paying more? Hahaha. How selfless.

Tax doesn’t work like that, I’m afraid. There have to be net contributors. I’m one of them, and proud of it. The people who generate more than they get back are the people paying for the state pension, and UC, and all the other stuff that poorer people need: that’s how society functions.

Your furious rant about “you whatabouters” rather gives away the fact that you don’t like being called on your own BS.

So how much goes back in tax and NI ? less tax credits/UC? better retention....so increased return on training costs and far less spent on agency staff.

Increased morale leading to greater up take of nursing/AHP places.. better productivity... less sickness.. its well known low morale in a workforce leads to a whole host of issues.

Since 2010, nurses have seen a 20% fall in real terms pay (RCN figures) as have other blue light services...

Why shouldn't they all get a decent pay rise....? why should have all the money saved by Austerity (apparently) only go to the likes of the Sunaks or the Hunts or the Zahawi's ?

The nursing dispute can be paused by just talking about pay...

Why won't the Govt even do this????

It’s simple to say “higher earners should pay more tax” but once tax becomes punitive people just don’t work as much. This is exactly what’s happening with experienced doctors- the tax charges on pension growth and loss of personal allowance means means that at a certain point by working more they earn less. Not proportionally less for each hour they work, they actually take home less money than if they’d worked fewer hours. Now of course, anyone in that bracket is fortunate to be earning a very good income but no one would work more to earn less no matter where they are on the pay scale. Why would you?

Taxation is complicated, you can’t just look at a workforce and say how much more money there would be if certain groups were taxed more because those changes to tax would in turn change the behaviour of the workers. It’s the same with big companies and how much tax they pay- it isn’t “fair” but if their tax bill went up by millions of pounds they wouldn’t just absorb that, they’d change something to make up for it (increase prices, decrease wages, move operations elsewhere, make redundancies). There’s always a knock on effect elsewhere.