I think we, Joe Public, have a responsibility to support strike action

[OverSharon]

listening to teachers say that better teacher funding will mean better quality education over time has made me ‘realise’ (shower thought epiphany) that’s true of everything.

if we support strike action, we support people being happier at work, instead of the public sector feeling like they are required to work for us whether they like it or not.

…my opinion: it’s actually all of us that are bearing the brunt of the cost of keeping inflation down. The physical and emotional cost. If we begrudge strike action, we continue to allow the government not to think of other ways to tackle inflation. If they can’t raise wages, lower our cost of living.

I support why most people are striking but I don’t think increasing the pay alone solves the issues. For example, the NHS, they should be able to have their own agency staff bank but monopoly laws prevent that. So we have this crazy situation where the NHS is spending far too much on private sector bank staff and nurses are basically encouraged to go work there. There are anomalies like this which need addressing and includes the pension issues for consultants.
Take teachers - the expectations are too high to mark and continuously assess every kid and make every kid do academic GCSEs even if it doesn’t suit the kid and to whip the management into a frenzy to keep on top of paperwork over and above kids actual mental health and real education, because if you are on top of paperwork you are more likely to get an outstanding. Pay isn’t the real problem for most teachers - it is too high expectations, poor behaviour, too many working hours (when in many private sector jobs you might get a bonus or additional pay for overtime).

The real issue is the actual shortage of labour across many sectors so who still wants to do these jobs where you require significant skill & training and poor working conditions and zero gratitude from the public. When you can easily get a cushy working from home job paying the same if you have those kinds of skills . So there are just not enough people willing to do this anymore and the working conditions become worse and worse due to a shortage of staff which is frankly unsafe in these sectors.

Essentially, we now have the economic issue of opportunity cost of not being able to work from home. The jobs that require long hours and actual presence by people will command a premium so the government will need to wake up to this fact and the rest of the people working from home happily will have to pay more taxes or increase their own productivity.

So I think we need to ask which are the most onerous and underpaid jobs that require actual presence and significant difficult working conditions. I don’t think just paying the whole sector more is a good idea because there are plenty of NHS workers with good working conditions, working from home, for example.

India just overtook you as a larger economy. Your government cannot make your cost of living go down because the price of so many of your commodities are fixed in other currencies.

No, the answer is not to raise wages to meet inflation but to slow inflation down by investing in this country's infrastructure, manufacturing, by carving out better trade deals with the EU and other countries. This would revitalise the UK and generate wealth as well as tax revenue. If you want higher pay for public sector workers, don't vote Tory and don't vote for Brexit (too late unfortunately). I wonder how many of the public sector workers who are now striking did in the last elections?!

I am not saying the largest, am I? one off is the key :)

And yes, they can. They can subsidise industries, or give support to people directly or indirectly.

Yeah! shit for everyone.

I am not going to get started on India - who have basically essentially benefitted directly from the war in Ukraine and purchasing cheap energy from Putin.
Brexit and the weakening pound was the dumbest thing the UK has done in 500 years.

It's got fuck all to do with furlough.

I'm not sure that such high demands after a 2 year pandemic when much of the country was shut down is right.

And the strikes are hurting industries badly affected by the pandemic.

We need to build back up first

Tiny island logic? IDGAF where you went to school, nobody I know talks as stupidly as that. What the hell is wrong with you. Get off of Mumsnet. What kind of debate is that?? Seriously?? You think that’s intelligent? The mind boggles. I personally will not be interacting with you again. And I’m worried for you.

How? you are asking government to spend more on public services when they have already spent loads of furlough. Furlough money was borrowing it has to be paid back.

Why are you so angry?

it’s just a fact that the price of energy inputs are set in other currencies, you cannot dictate those prices at all.

So why are they the occupations with massive shortages? No one wants to do these jobs any more, or they do til they actually start and realise how bad things are, then run back to the private sector

I couldn’t agree more NannyOgg. I’m also a great admirer of your username - she’s my absolute favourite. Altogether now: “Oooooh the hedgehog can never be buggered at all….” We need fewer strikes and more general Oggishness round these parts imho.

I love this! They were bleating about wasted potential the other day in their news and pleading with people to come back to work. Yeah right. They mean go back to the job centre so that they can be told they have to do a course and join a career pathway that they never had any intention of doing prior.

I don’t know if you saw earlier but I’m not in favour of raising wages. I’d prefer to re-stabilise the economy somehow. I just have no idea how, which according to some people means it cannot be done and I should stop thinking such thoughts 😆