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

Sorry?

Even with the proposed changes the public sector pensions are still a FANTASTIC deal for the employee compared with all of the alternatives

Plinkerty - sorry, what is your point? That survey shows that the majority of people securing employment after qualification are medical or in a profession allied to medicine.

In your opinion

that was to talkingpeace

inhibernation
the site that plinkerty liked to shows nothing of the sort.

Chart 4 shows that a very high proportion of people studying medicine and related went in to full time work (and the pope wears a silly hat)
but
Chart 2 shows that plinkerty's point is utterly correct

She linked to chart 9

I will admit that graphs and the like are not my strong point but if it is yours, perhaps you could save my brain by showing me exactly where to look to see evidence that of the 70% of graduates earning less than £25k many are in non medical or allied professions and unlikely to overtake these professions salary wise.

there is no evidence of that in those charts and it was not what niceguy said.

what chart 9 show is that nearly half of graduates were earning under £20,000
which is less than a nurse's starting salary
so by definition, the nursers are paid above average at the start - even if they are not later.

I was talking about Plinkerty's link - not niceguys. I haven't read that one yet. Is that what you linked? If so, thanks

And on the subject of nurses starting salaries, it's all a bit arbitrary if they are overtaken later on (quite quickly too, I'd imagine). To concede that as a casual aside is rather patronising imho.

Right, off to read your link.

talkingpeace - whether or not Public Sector pensions will still be a 'fantastic deal' is 1) a matter of opinion and 2) a moot point. The issue is complex but basically the government is reneging on their contract with their employees and lying about the reasons for it.

Fraude sorry Maude & the rest of his cronies hate the Public Sector and this is about bringing down terms and conditions to a level that will allow them to cherry pick the parts that they want to privatise.

None of this is good news for anyone, public or private sector - as all it will mean is more minimum wage jobs with crap T&Cs.

Poverty in old age is not good news for individuals or the state. And whoever said it is good for health to continue to work is talking utter crap - it might be good to have a non essential part time job as a pensioner, but having to continue to work for a living will, in the majority of cases, just mean a shorter life span. It has been shown that those who retire earlier live longer.

Ok skim read it. No surprises there. So the average salary of a public sector worker is now higher - yes we knew that. But there are factors that have influenced that such as outsourcing the low skilled, low paid jobs to the private sector. Also, according to that article, public sector employees are more likely to be older, having maximised their earning potential and have more qualifications. Salary alone is looked at, not pensions, bonuses or other perks which may alter the gap. It still doesn't compare the wages of a teacher etc with comparable professions - I guess, because it can't.

Sorry, I wasn't clear. Chart 2 shows whether graduates ended up working and chart 9 shows salary band.

I've been following the discussion with interest but felt there were a few too many random figures being chucked around about graduate salaries. Just thought I'd put some facts up there to help clarify/dispel the random figures.

malaka - I guess it's win win for the government if we snuff it before we draw our pension, though the health bill could be hefty if its a long drawn out illness. Euthanasia could then become quite popular - state assisted suicide! More clinical and possibly more palatable than JC's shooting parade.

@InHibernation

TalkinPeace posted one from the BBC.

The link I posted was C4 FactCheck which quotes the ONS stats but also Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings. There was also a section talking about this on Newsnight the other day, I think it was Wednesday.

But it's not about bashing public sector workers. I'm sure nurses work hard, just like many private sector do. I hate all this public vs private fighting.

When you boil the problem down, it's basically comes down to the fact that the money has run out. Changes must be made and the public sector must be realistic which they are currently not.

It's not about fair because plainly it's not. You were promised £x and now you are told you must work longer, pay more and get less. That's not fair. It's not.

But hey, life isn't fair and going on strike doesn't change that.

Well thanks niceguy - I appreciate your acknowledgement of it being unfair. That's sincerely meant by the way.

Until the government are transparent and show a shred of integrity I remain unconvinced that the severity of these measures are necessary. I'll ask again, are they really trying to balance the books by the end of the five years? I'm prepared to compromise but can't afford the hike in contributions. Those who argue that the end pay out makes it worthwhile are spectularly missing the point that some will not be able to sustain their pension, not to mention the fact that there is a very high chance that the axe will come a choppin again.

But hey, it's been an interesting chat

They are 'trying' to balance the books in 5 years but anyone with a shred of common sense know they won't. I'm sure secretly they know that too but they can't publicly admit it because:

a) Labour would use that knowledge to beat them over the head.
b) Market's would start to wobble if 18 months into an austerity govt they are seen to fail already.

spectacularly

I reckon people would respect the government more if they admitted it's too tall an order to sort out in 5 years - and if the spending/borrowing/cuts were less dramatic. What's wrong with slow and steady? But admittedly I'm not an economist.......

slow and steadily : getting us even further into debt
like lobsters in a warming pot
no thankyou
there IS NO MONEY - Broon did not mend the roof while the sun was shining. He thought that a bubble was growth and the bubble burst
have you heard HIM apologise for his infamous Mansion House speech?

if the debts are not sorted out now, we are just condemning our children to live with no benefits at all for the high taxes they will pay to look after us and our wealthy parents.
I consider that to be morally wrong

there is a political agenda, but the unions have lost the long term moral agenda of ensuring a good future for the next generation

but in 5 years?! Come off it. An economist I ain't but I don't trust this government one iota. I'm waiting to see what happens to the welfare state now - particularly disability benefits.

inhibernation...I had said that I wouldn't post on this issue again but seeings as you have used my username to wrongly illustrate a point I made, here goes.
My point is not that I feel you should get a 's*it' pension because our own private pension has been eroded. My point is that, in this economic climate, my husband and I, working part time, in order to raise our disabled child, with a pension eroded to the point of almost non existence, ( I don't believe that you can claim the government will reduce your pension to a mere pittance as our's has been reduced to) CANNOT afford to pay out any more money to ensure that public sector workers maintain the same level of pension as they have now. In addition, I have huge respect for the people carrying out difficult and caring roles in the public sector. But I get mightly cheesed off when a few within those ranks proclaim the overall nobility of their professions and that somehow they are a special case when it comes to their pension arrangements in times of austerity. There are people carrying out noble and challenging jobs in the public AND private sectors! We live our lives in challenging economic times when my husband and I are able to get almost no support for our little boy. Agencies have few resources left to assist us in our area...no respite..few therapies...we are almost cut adrift to manage the situation on our own save for his special education, and even that has let him down badly this week. Two sudden changes in our son's routine this week leading up to the strike as the school kept changing plans, have led to sleepless nights, household damage and my husband and I sport bite marks and bruises. So you will forgive me if I sound 'hostile' as you put it, when I prefer to concentrate on getting through each daily struggle on a frighteningly low budget and put up a fight for my family's future. I am in no way jealous of the fact that you will get a pension at the end of you career and wish that we could ALL look forward to a comfortable future....unfortunately, as things stand, we would have to emigrate to cloud cuckoo land to achieve that.

inhibernation - careful Dave might be reading this and knit that into his NHS reforms!!

lol malaka

blossom - I have sympathy for your situation (genuine sympathy - as I too have a disabled child and have had to go part-time in order to meet her needs, take her to appts etc.) and I also know that financial hardship is that much more difficult when you have a disabled child because equipment and therapies etc can be very expensive.
I don't think I am a more worthy person because of the job I do. I signed up to terms and conditions that I broadly expected to remain the same. In my working life I've seen pay freezes and reduced or staggered pay rises. Never complained - I accepted it. But imo these radical changes to the pension scheme of some public sector workers have huge implications not just for me personally but the ability of the goverment to recruit and retain quality staff - and of course the knock on effect of that will be that everyone suffers.

Obviously we have very different perspectives and I'm trying to understand yours. But I still find it very strange that you think people like your child's teachers (sorry to keep using that as an example but obviously our children are hugely important to us so it demonstrates the point) should put up with this assault on their t+c. In using them as an example, I speak as a mother rather than a public sector worker because I know that regardless of where I worked I'd want to support them. And what are your views on them leaving the profession? Would that in your eyes be seen as unreasonable? Maybe I am the one who is strange in terms of the attitude I have toward those who care for and nurture my children.

There's a huge variation across the board wrt public sector pensions. Before these changes I'd stand to get approximately 6k a year. I'd be prepared, as I said, to make some concessions but I don't believe that the severity of the assault is warranted and on my part-time salary I can't afford to pay 50% more contributions. But I'm not in my own little bubble, I'm thinking about the implications for others, the provision of services, the implications for quality.

Inhibernation, you say you can't afford to pay 50% more contributions. The problem is neither can the govt.

Right now all the talk of the 'teachers pension fund' being balanced or whatever. They all assume that the govt keeps pumping in a much larger share than they can reasonably afford.

Of course 'afford' is relative. They (and you) can afford it as long as you are willing to spend less elsewhere. But therein lies the problem. Where else do you cut from? For you, do you cut back on food? Or perhaps move to a cheaper home? For the government there choices are cut back on education, benefits or defence or...whatever.

Another way of looking at it is this. There are roughly about 10m pensioners in the UK. In 2010-2011, the cost of state pensions was around £70 billion. More if you include pension credits, winter fuel, TV license, bus pass etc. etc. Anyway, that's £70 billion for 10m pensioners, roughly.

Just the four biggest public sector schemes cost over £22 billion and only paid to a fraction of workers. That's a heck of an imbalance.

By the time you add up all the pensions, other benefits etc. you are talking about £108 billion out of a total income of £500 billion. And of course an overspend of £150 billion this year alone.

So in short, we're spending a LOT of money on just pensions & benefits. And that's just this year! Don't forget people are living longer so the problem just gets worse each year and any changes made now won't be really felt for another ten years.

I just can't see how we can tame the deficit without cutting pensions.

Yeah but we're not just cutting pensions are we. I'm getting tired of this debate now tbh. What I've said is that the measures are too severe imo - not that there should be no change at all. No one has commented on the issue of recruitment and retention............so should I conclude that either you don't care (maybe you have private healthcare/private education for your kids) or you are of the opinion that these employees should stay in their respective professions because "it's a vocation". Alternatively, maybe you think "ten a penny"

niceguy - afford for me is not relative I assure you. Can't cut back much more unless I move away from London. We then lose all our support networks. Still, yes it's on option.