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

Absolutely do not support.

The public sector needs a reality check.

Having done a half marathon with a lady in her 80s I do not see why people cannot work to a later age if they are healthy.

Teddyandsheep - I agree. Investment values have fallen because of the financial and euro crisis. Tesco are now borrowing money more cheaply than Italy...the world is going mad.

I have sympathy with the strikers. It's not nice having the goalposts moved, but I blame the Labour Party who didn't save our money for a rainy day, went on a massive spending spree and loosened regulation on the City, allowing the bankers to precipitate the crisis back in 2008. I think the Labour party are in denial and until they acknowledge the role they played in this mess they have no credibility.

I feel like George Osbourne is trying to sort out the mess, but I think he needs to be more even handed. Why can foreigners come to our country and buy up houses without paying stamp duty or CGT when they sell? Why aren't they closing more tax loopholes? The super rich are not stepping up to the plate and taking the pain.

However, I do not support the strike. Public sector pensions remain generous, and the lowest paid (

I support it!

milkshake if the govt imposed more taxes etc on the super rich they simply would not come here. They would go to New York or Dubai or Switzerland or Singapore (etc) instead. And that would hit all sorts of sectors that are currently quite successful in the UK eg fashion/restaurants/financial advisory/property services which get a lot of business from the super rich.

I know it is galling to see the international rich having homes and spending time here and not being taxed but realistically they will simply not come if they are taxed higher - and then we wouldn't get their taxes or their business.

Please read these reports:

This is the interim report that collects the data it is probably the most useful for assessing the true financial state of publi sector pensions, In particular it mentions on page 34-35 the problems with assessing how underfunded they are:
www.public-sector-pensions-commission.org.uk/wp-content/themes/pspc/images/Public-Sector-Pensions-Commission-Report.pdf

This is about possible changes to pensions recommended due to the findings of the above report combined with a few other reports .
cdn.hm-treasury.gov.uk/hutton_final_100311.pdf

Opps . So many typos .

"This is the interim report that collects the data. It is probably the most useful report for assessing the true financial state of public sector pensions. In particular it mentions on page 34-35 the problems with assessing how underfunded they are:"

"My understanding from reading the facts is that public sector pensions are actually very similar on average to private sector pensions, with private sector pensions being very marginally higher."

Rock - I think this refers to current recipients of pensions and is a historical fact based on the widespread use of final year salary schemes in the private sector up to about 10 years ago, when most were closed.

Public sector workers now have access to pension schemes which are nolonger available to private sector workers.

"I agree people should have a better grip of economics. I think people should pay for education and health more than they do and certainly it wouldn't kill people to buy some health insurance and contribute to their own care instead of bleating on about how horrific the NHS is but not wanting to pay anything into it other than a paltry amount of taxes for the service that they expect, while then saying that public services are a drain on the economy! Seriously??"

I think that is a very valid point of view.

Teachers pensions are made up of 6.4% employee pension contribution and 14.1% employer contribution (ie contribution by the school on teachers behalf but ultimately from the state IYSWIM). The employee and employer amount combined is seen as in profit (but only due to the substantial employer/state contribution). This "inprofit" also refers purely to the current outgoings of the scheme (those payments to teacher currently retired). In the private sector the average employer contribution is only 6%. The NHS scheme also loves to refer to a "surplus" but this takes in 5-8% employee and 14% employer. So still actually big net cost to taxpayer.

In total for year 1010-2011: £18 billion is projected to come from taxpayers (£13.5 billion of employer contributions and £4.5 billion from the Treasury) and £7.5 billion from employees in these schemes.

Even worse the report in summary also shows that the employee contribution and the employer contribution quoted above actually covers less than half the pension scheme cost . We are all living longer. As more retire there will be more pensioners compared to workers. As a result the pensions are very underfunded (most actuaries and the Public-Sector-Pensions-Commission-Report value the public sector pension schemes as £770-£1,176 billion underfunded on page 8 of report ).

The problem now is as we need other countries to invest in us (eg India, China, Russia, Japan....) to cover both the yearly deficit and the total debt by purchasing government gilts etc. We need to show we can deal with our finances (eg this unfunded pension scheme). We need to look a sound investment as we are in risk of being like Greece, Italy, Spain...

Losingtrust, The average public sector pension that is currently being paid out to a pensioner, is worth £5,600 a year which compares with £5,860 in the private sector, according to the National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF). However, not enough people in the private sector have a pension which complicates things. The average care cost is predicted to be in the region of 8-11K though I can't remember where I saw that figure...

Pensions are a ticking timebomb for everyone in an ageing population. Public sector pensions require a massive and radical overhaul but so too does the fact that private sector workers are not making sufficient provisions for a future in which an ageing population will have greater long term health conditions than ever before and the young will not generate sufficient income to meet their care needs.

I am striking today and in no way do I believe that I should maintain a final-salary pension and I am happy for reform and would welcome it. However, I think more negotiation is needed and something needs to be done to ensure that everyone is contributing to developing a decent pension for their old age. Mind you, really I am striking because I am sick to my back teeth of how public services are being spoken about and devalued and set against private sector work as second-best when people really need our services. I am no purist, I would be happy to see people pay for some of those services if that is what is required but I cannot stand to see how our work is written off and done down by people who have this assumption it is all about tea and biscuits and clocking off at four.

"covers less than half the pension scheme cost " please look at pages 34-35 of report as there are difficulties in truly evaluating how much an actually invested amount of money would be worth. If invested wisely then of course payments in to such an investment may do better in covering pension costs.

Sorry that is the interim report:
www.public-sector-pensions-commission.org.uk/wp-content/themes/pspc/images/Public-Sector-Pensions-Commission-Report.pdf

Dora'sbackpack pretty much summed up my view.

No I do not support the strike.

I think the public sector do a great job. I have never complained. I support a right to strike for working conditions and changes in the work place. I just do not support one on the grounds of pension changes that I genuinely feel are needed.

Agree, rocks. Most of us work in the service industry in the uk, so no wealth generation at all, whether private or public sector.

As a country, in order to increase the country's wealth, we would need to be exporting a lot of services. That is only generating wealth domestically though by channelling money from abroad to here. This includes importing billionaires who then theoretically pay uk taxes (hollow laugh).

There are a few categories of wealth creators in this country, none of them especially productive in terms of money. We no longer have an industry base or produce primary materials- fir these things we have to go shopping on the global Market, leaving us open to the vagaries of the commodities markets.

Of course we must all work longer- we are all living longer and in better health. In the early 20th c, people lived only very few years after retirement- that was sustainable. Maybe we are all in mourning for what we expected, but it's inevitable alas.

What is nit right is for solvent schemes to be effectively raided by the government just to prove cash flow. They don't give a shit because they'll all be dead by the proverbial turd hits the fan, having themselves received perfectly decent pensions.

Btw if you save into a pension scheme, whether private or state, you are not saving for you own retirement!!! You are marking your place in the queue for x years hence. If there's nothing in the scheme by the time you retire,you will get nothing out. Your pension contributions are just like other schemes paying for current retirees. So there really is no need to be smug about being in s private scheme.

I've just had a cheerful thought!

Perhaps the strike will stimulate the economy. The public-sector strikers will have time to SHOP on their day off from work! They can buy things from those who DO work! At a minimum, they'll buy take-away coffees and teas and snacks, but they might even get a head start on their holiday shopping (very well-timed this strike is...!). Parents with children at home might take THEM shopping or to the cinema... Hooray! Thank you very much! Enjoy your shopping! Try to buy things made in the UK -- it would help us even more! I hope someone is tracking retail sales figures today. It could be a very interesting analysis.

In certain areas eg technology we are great at bringing in the money. Apparently in all mobiles there is a chip designed in the UK and that brings in a fortune. .

Yes people will have to get their heads round the idea that we are going to in the future have to contribute personally to public services. Longer lives with chronic illnesses requiring medication that previous generations would have died from.

That doesn't detract from the fact that public services need to be within a sustainable limit for future generations.

Trouble is I think if you went out and spoke to the average picket today they'd balk at the idea of contributing to any public services. They really don't seem to have a grasp of economics at all.

Having recently required several operations via my private healthcare I have witnessed first hand the cost these would have been on the health service. The real cost would be unsustainable on my yearly salary. If the NHS were honest and said we can't fund everything here's your op but you're going to have to look at how much it costs and possible contribute something etc.

I am on lifelong medication also - again this is a constant drain I don't think for a second it's possible to sustain the current situation of everything being free.

However I don't think that changes the fact that public services have to be tackled and pension expectations getting real.

Also doing down the bankers as to blame again where do you think the pension pot is coming from. People making money on stocks etc. If you would prefer to put £200 into a savings account for your pension on a monthly basis and look at the value of that at retirement. A healthy banking system is very much required also.

The last government were in awe of the city and left them to their own devices. Was even bailing all of the banks the right thing to do? Natural selection would say that some of them should have gone under and we wouldn't be servicing quite so much debt?

Iceland bank going under there were systems in place for certain amount of money to be guarnteed to people within the system. Some money would be lost. However investing is a risk and people have to face the fact that risks come with consequences. Was Gordon right to bail out to the degree he did?

Yes, but iggly I have met almost nobody who is striking who has said that have an issue with reform of the final-salary pension as it stands. Not one person I work with has said to me that they don't believe reform - and serious reform - is needed. I have met a lot of people who feel that public sector employees are perpetually presented as a drain on the economy and I have had a huge amount of people say really derogotary and untrue things about the NHS/Education etc. I think the majority of public sector workers feel that enough is enough, that the rhetoric of how much we cost needs to be balanced with an appreciation of what we offer and how it is not the case that we are a drain while the private sector holds the answer to our current economic woes.

It made my blood boil to see Dora say "I am doing literacy and numeracy with my children as a protest against the strike" as if doing some worksheets replaces the work our teachers do (I am not a teacher, by the way). The professionalism of public sector workers in general is continually undermined by comments like this. MN often has threads that show that a lot of people think they know how to do public sector jobs (teachers, doctors, midwives, nurses, breastfeeding councillors, others) without needing to do any training or have any experience. They reduce these jobs to superficialities and then wonder why public sector workers feel undervalued.

The public/private sector divide on pensions and employment is ridiculous. We are all screwed. The government rhetoric is to make people believe that everyone in the public sector just wants to keep things as they are for their own ends when the reality on the ground doesn't reflect this at all. We just want a bit of respect in negotiating this new way forward.

no FB.

Don't support - they need to get real!

Rocks it is interesting that you criticise Dora for 'thinking she can do a professional's job' but you ignore the information provided in this thread by professionals who actually know about pensions.

The teachers' scheme is very likely not 'in the black' (not a term that could be applied to an unfunded scheme anyway) since the assumptions in the last valuation in 2007 will have been sadly wildly optimistic.

But having seen all the Union posters at DHs work (he is NHS) the publicity was very much highlighting pension changes above all else.

The strikers have my total support.

Previous valuations were on a 3.5% discount rate above inflation. This implies that the employee and (very generous at circa 14%) employer contributions could be safely placed in a bank account and gain a very high rate of interest. Right now that would be the equivalent of a bank giving 8.7% interest!

Rock why don't you speak to other sectors and find out how hard done by they feel on public perception of the job they do? I think you'll find it's universal and perhaps you're taking it a bit too personally.

Let's try estate agents? the evil bankers, the journalists the "Poles" stealing all our jobs, the lazy builders always have a tea break, the "dim" beauticians, the politicians get rather a hard time too don't they publically? Apparently secretaries are all after their bosses, a nurse only only the look out for a surgeon to marry etc. etc. !

Really do you think anyone get's a glowing reputation for anything they do in the private sector?

Public sector workers are doing a job they're not saints. They're as exposed to the stereotyping as the rest of us.