Public-sector strike: does it get your support? Please vote in our Facebook poll

[HelenMumsnet]

Morning.

We'd love to know how you feel about Wednesday's public-sector strike action. Does it get your support - or not?

We've put up a little poll on our Facebook page to help us find out. Please do click and vote.

Thanks v much, MNHQ

Hello duchesse

I know there has to be realism and speaking personally, if they said they had to increase contributions but:

• actually negotiated and worked with us to agree the detail.
• increased the contributions slowly by - say 1%- a year.
• started after the pay freeze had finished (now in effect extended to 2015/16)
• weren't cutting hundreds of thousands of jobs at the same time.
• graduated the rise in pension age.

I wouldn't be on strike and I would take it on the chin.

But what they have done is used lies to mislead the public, have refused to negotiate in any meaningful way (request today apparently to get back around the table - first offer of a meeting since 2nd November) and basically given us the equivalent of a 30% paycut over the next 6 years.

That is too much to take - and I know is not about the deficit reduction but about idealogical changes to the PS. The amount they are saving through the PS changes in % terms of deficit and GSP is absolutely miniscule a drop in the ocean. So it isn't pivotal to their financial plan, but it is pivotal to their idealogical plan.

unintended consequences. Blooming autocorrect.

malak they have to increase the % because of the pay freeze. They need to get a certain amount of money 'in' (they need to be able to do the notional double entry to move it from one column to another in their ledgers) to be able to pay out the pensions to which they are already committed, which will be going up by 5%ish since they are index linked. If the pay to the working teachers isn't going up by 5%ish (ha ha chance would be a fine thing, for most of us, public or private sector) then the %contribution has to go up to make up the shortfall, if the govt aren't prepared to pay any more themselves (and they aren't, it would seem, whether you agree with their reasons or not. Me, I'd get rid of trident, I'd raise taxes, I'd take charity status away from private schools, I'd re-write the pension conditions of people like university VCs rather than re-write those of the people towards the bottom of the scale, etc etc).

Sad but true.

One of the saddest things is that the top echelon of civil servants, uni VCs, etc are sending out the workers with decent but not great pensions to lose a day's pay to fight for the ridiculously fabulous pensions of those at the top.

^"I fail to understand why people say things like 'well my pension has dropped therefore so should theirs' 'I had a payrise once so I think they should too'

Do you apply this across your lives? - if something bad happens to you or you are wronged in some way - do you think the resolution is for the same bad/wrong thing to happen to others?

This is about principles and truth and the facts are very hard to deny. The government is tearing up its contract with its employees - once you have a supposedly democratic first world governments behaving in this way then, to me, the future looks very bleak."^

I have to cut and paste and effectively bump this because to me, it is central. Why do people keep talking about reality checks and making statements like "try being unemployed" etc? Of course it is terrible when you are unemployed and of course it is awful that private sector pensions were dismantled. But how does that happening in the public sector make anything better?

As for "try being unemployed", well, that's what a lot of us in the public sector will be doing too. My job will go at the end of this year or next, we've been told it's guaranteed.

Why do people not support the right of other people to, for one day, say that they are unhappy about what is going on and about the devaluation of public services? Do you like having free medical care at the point of service? Isn't it good you don't have to pay to send your kids to school, that you have the choice of freely available education? Cheap sanitation?

The pensions are what they have come for first, but make no mistake, this government has no love of public services and would much rather you paid out of your private sector pockets for absolutely everything you currently get for free and/or for people with skills to provide these for nothing (aka Big Society). Is this the world you want? Really?

I support the strike but I don't use facebook.

Above I read that public sector workers are paying taxes as well as everyone else.

They are paying tax contributions out of money they've earned being paid by wealth creators. The wealth "pot" is only created by taxes against private companies/individuals and so on. Not by public sector workers.

Public sector workers are paying taxes back into the system "to contribute". However if public sector workers were paid a salary less their tax contributions then it would be the same thing. They are not actually paying the taxes. We are. They are only contributing tax they've been given by the benefit of the wealth "pot".

Money for the "wealth pot" to distribute amongst public sector workers doesn't appear out of thin air it has to be "created". Public sector workers are not "creating money".

Hear hear rocksandhardplaces.

I support each worker's right to Strike. HOwever, I do also think there needs be changes in public sector pension schemes. We simply cannot afford to continue as we are, and each one of us, public and private sector, will feel the pain in some way.

The Government has handled this badly, and the changes should be gradual, but changes are needed.

As a private sector worker who works for a large multinational company, I have been hit very hard over the last 5 years. I have been unable to strike, as there is no union. Also, I fear I will lost my job to a lower cost Country. Therefore, I'm forced to accept a host of contractual changes. If the private sector firms take the jobs elsewhere, who will pay the taxes to fund the Government?

It's a terrible situation we all find ourselves in, and I don't know any answers.

Public sector workers do not create money because they are providing a service. Schools, hospitals etc are public services and are not meant to generate money. They are a service. One that should be run efficiently and cost effectively but not as slaves to share holders.

All workers should have these rights the strikers are fighting for. A gold standard of workers' rights.

All workers should have these rights. Yes and then take away all investment from overseas in UK employees and businesses. Why did the Chinese not buy MG Rover?

"What i can;t help feeling when i read the arguments about teachers, nurses, fire, etc being underpaid, is that no they arent underpaid. The UK has unfeasibly high living expenses, this is what needs to be addresses rather than keep arguing for increased pay."

I think this will depend on where you live, to some extent. Public sector pay doesn't have anything like the regional variation of private sector pay. If you live in the London or the SE, it can be extremely tough on a public sector salary. There was a announcement yesterday, I believe, saying the government wants to address this problem.

"One of the saddest things is that the top echelon of civil servants, uni VCs, etc are sending out the workers with decent but not great pensions to lose a day's pay to fight for the ridiculously fabulous pensions of those at the top."

Quite! I also found the spector of highly paid head-teachers claiming this was all about fairness to their young junior staff, quite nauseating too! It's the highest paid with the most to lose in this.

sigma- College seems partly on strike, partly not. DD1 has gone in today as her teachers are all in, au pair does not have classes later. DD2's school definitely open. It's not public sector so would be a bit churlish of them! DH is on strike as his union balloted to strike. Currently marching through central city.

Jacstarb completely agree with you and the union leaders who will also benefit although I did read that one union was cutting pensions for their own employees due to lack of affordibility.

Kettlecrisps, re: how public sectors don't pay taxes, "public sector workers are paying taxes back into the system "to contribute". However if public sector workers were paid a salary less their tax contributions then it would be the same thing. They are not actually paying the taxes. We are. They are only contributing tax they've been given by the benefit of the wealth "pot"."

Similarly, if everyone in the private sector was willing to pay for education, healthcare, emergency services, proper rates for sanitation, the full rate for infrastructure (no grants or incentives) etc, they wouldn't need to pay tax and there would be no need for a public service. However, it would cost a hell of a lot

There would also be the small problem that in a country that has no oil or gas or other finite resource to export, limited manufacturing and, well, very little to offer that is not in the way of people-based services there would be mass unemployment. There wouldn't be moaning about university costs of £9K a year as the true cost would be closer to tens of thousands. This would be true of non-state subsidised healthcare too.

Is this what you want?

kettlecrisps- do you seriously believe that the "wealth creators" you refer to pay the taxes they should. Ahahahahahahahhahahaha! Most people paying the tax they should are middle to higher earners with no recourse to tax wheezes.

And if you're going to start getting technical about wealth creatrion, the only people who actually create wealth are those who add value to something. Ie Farmers, industrialists, craftspeople- people who take a thing, do something tangible to it and then resell it of the cost of the materials + the cost of the work. That's wealth creation.

People working in the financial markets who earn the most money do not "create wealth"- they merely pass money around from one place to another in a kind of huge musical chairs. When the music stops, you're either left holding money or you're not. It's opportunism, not wealth creation.

Yes I support it.

This current crisis wasn't created by ordinary working people it was created by some (quite a lot of) extraordinarily greedy people in the financial world.

I'm sorry, Kettle but public sector works do create wealth. The single most wealth creating thing there is, is education. Also, we need fit healthy people, to go out and do work. so that's education and the NHS. We need a stable society to create wealth. So that's the police. etc etc.

We all like to moan about civil servants and red tape. But the vast majority of them provide services which are vital to an ordered, compassionate society that can enable the creation of wealth by those of us lucky enough to have jobs.

Duchesse How is it king with DD1's course? Did she decide to do the Bacc in the end? I lost the thread this was being discussed in.....but I'm v interested in the outcome as DS will likely go to the college in a few years.

going. Can't even blame autocorrect this time since am now on the lappy. :( Am just a terrible typer.

I am still reeling from hearing that 3% of the increase in contributions ostensibly towards pensions aren't going into the pension fund because the pension funds are inthe black and self sustaining (as agreed by the OBR) and the money is going directly into deficit reduction. This was on Woman's Hour this morning.

If we're all in it together why isn't everyone paing 3% towards the deficit? Or am I missing something?

I wholeheartedly support the strike.

Not going to link on FB )don't want to 'out' Myself.

But I do NOT support the strike.

It isn't a recession, it isn't 'the banks' fault. We have a massive debt burden. I would rather see it cut now than make it worse for our children.

It's time we faced up to a new economic reality - we HAVE to make cuts or we'll be in a situation like Italy paying nearly 8% on loans.

Sadly the last govt spent far to much and we've all got used to it - been spoilt, in fact (culture of entitlement etc) and got used to having and spending what we want.

No, I don't support it.