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?

Hold the government to account as the opposition? I’m not hearing enough from Starmer.

Wasn’t there an old theory, something along the lines of the private sector may get paid more than the public sector ( in some fields) but the pension is better in the public sector?

Generally public sector workers get six months full sick pay, and have their pensions heavily subsidised by the government. I’ve never personally worked for a private sector company that can beat that.

Of course it depends on what job you do, your earnings etc etc.

We are being steamrollered into fascism

😂It’s not really a good advert for the public sector that they treat you so badly you might need 6 months off work sick in order to cope. As for pensions, you can’t benefit fully from the pension unless you devote your entire working life to the service it is tied to - you can’t port it to a different employer. So bollocks to these features being hugely attractive to most people - either you are attracted to the career or you aren’t, you are not going to join just because if you are still working there at the end of your working life, you might get a reasonable pension (but might not, as the terms and conditions of pretty much all public sector pensions have been altered over the years). You might as well earn more and be free to invest your extra income as you see fit (and pay more tax to invest in better essential services) rather than be trapped by poor working conditions and lower than reasonable levels of pay on the fantasy that you will have a jolly retirement rolling in cash as your reward.

Public sector has reasonable pensions compared to private sector (although nowhere near as good as they once were) and they STILL can't get enough staff. The pension is not a big enough incentive to keep people working in rubbish conditions for less money than they can earn elsewhere. It's the same with school holidays for teachers/TAs. They're not enough of a carrot to put up with the crappiness of the job. If they were, there wouldn't be recruitment issues.

The people who are happy with these strikes are people who don’t regularly use the train and it doesn’t effect them in the slightest, so they can martyr themselves.

Good Pensions and sick benefits do not pay the bills right now.

However, it is sad that things that were considered the norm in the private sector 30 or 40 years ago have now gone, in my sector 6months sick pay was the bare minimum, we had great loyalty to our employer, knowing that if anyone broke a leg or had a long term illness, they would stand by us.

NHS staff need a good sick scheme, they cannot go into work like most can with a sprained ankle or a heavy cold and many are subject to attack by the public but even so, many trusts do have quite draconian sick policies.

@Miss03852 I rarely use the train but i have had my out patients appoint postponed 3x now and i still support the NHS strikers.
I support the train strikes because it is about safety, not just pay, i want guards on trains and i want a driver too, Network Rail operatives should not go out working at night in all weathers, middle of no where, with minimum staff & not trained.

I don't know why we can't adopt a semi privatised health service like in Australia. People seem generally satisfied with the service they receive

Yes, I think they need to look at all options here. You cannot have a free healthcare system fully dependent on people paying taxes, with a rising ageing population.

It’s not all about extra money, they’ve been throwing billions extra at it for years.

Maybe the other problem is many younger British people now don’t want to go into the NHS to be nurses. Work Xmas, New year, night shift for no extra thanks. Make all these sacrifices, when their friends can do good jobs working in other fields, including working at home.
Thats without working anti social shifts and being chronically short staffed.

I just don’t think nursing is seen as an attractive career to people now ,as it was 30/40 years ago.

So what you are saying is that capitalism will always rob most ordinary people?
Isn't that what people used to say about communism?

That's not true, even on this thread.

Well neither capitalism or communism will benefit the masses because of human nature. There will always be the winners and losers in any system. Humans are competitive and hierarchical in nature. The small minority will rise to the top the vast majority will live in their wake.

you can alter the rules to say who will rise to the top, but this just creates a different elite.

Time to create a different “elite,” then - the current lot are corrupt, have no sense of duty or responsibility and are incompetent.

And it is not actually human nature to allow greedy parasites with no obvious allegiances to anyone but themselves to rise to the top. That is what happens when things have gone badly wrong.

Er this 👆

Australia pays its nurses around £44k per year, an OT around £50k, for a far less stressed work life.

If wages had just kept pace with inflation, a nurses starting salary would now be around £32k.

I don't understand your argument, we either pay taxes direct and/or pay insurance, whatever system, we have pay.

There is no magic bullet on funding or staff shortages, though voting to kick EU health workers out of and limit them coming to the UK wasn't a great idea.

Perhaps if the Gov returned their yearly 11% pay rise or stopped wasting money elsewhere or take it out of the foreign aid budget. There's ways for them to pay people better, they just don't want to and don't care. It's almost 2023 we shouldn't have food banks yet usage is higher than usual. Our country is an utter disgrace.

But that’s the thing, it would just be a different set of people, who within a short amount of time would become corrupt and self serving in order to hang onto power. Leaders are very rarely nice people more interested in the needs of others than themselves, if ever.

Well why don’t you run for government and sort it all out?

I don't often use the train but I have a long term fairly serious health condition and I damn well use the NHS.

I've had two appointments shifted - and I STILL support the strikes!

Because I wouldn’t do a good job of it. I do know from history repeating itself, however, that whether by revolution, war or general disaster, systems this unhealthy do not survive. Intelligent leaders recognise when they have gone too far and take steps to correct it - or the new elite find deeply unpleasant ways to take over in which everyone suffers.

You do realise that we can't all be MPs, let alone get into Govt?

Though judging by the stupidity of that post, you clearly don't.

As for running for government, they are just the frontmen for the global financial markets. Everyone is working really hard to keep the markets happy - for diminishing rewards for the planet and the vast majority of the global population. Still, that’s OK, because Elon Musk has a get out plan - to inflict himself and others on Mars, so that we can trash this planet and move on.

Quite, agree on all of that