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

Right, so you're saying that public servant defence professionals, research scientists, Whitehall mandarins, hospital doctors, physiotherapists, judges, social workers, special needs teachers, soldiers etc.. all have an equivalent in the private sector earning less?

Basically, with 2 years left on the clock, the coalition government probably doesn't give a shit if it shuts down the whole civil service on ideological grounds as they won't be around to witness the ensuing debacle. They can sit back and blame it all on the next incumbents.

Onceinawhile, so do you think that everybody should be treated as badly as your company appears to treat its employees? It is not a 'race to the bottom' as Rocks said up(or down) thread (quoted from the Hutton report).

I too have worked in IT in the private sector for a large multinational and in IT for the public sector - on the whole there are big differences in pay between the two and the pension does not make up for this.

Duchess - I doubt that was the ONS methodology . But yes kinda, I guess.

A 5.8% difference is pretty significant, anyway.

If it is so bad working in the public sector, why don't people leave?

They do - 50% of teachers leave the profession within 5 years of qualifying. And that was before the pensions debacle.

I am a midwife & some midwives/nursing friends are striking as with Unison. Fully support this. Would you want a 70 year old midwife (who didn't want to be there) looking after you in your labour?? In an emergency trying to resuscitate you or your baby??? Been in that situation and takes it toll on a healthy 30 year old!!!!! Crazy..... They say midwifery services are on trouble now...... This is a nightmare in the making

Belgianbun there is NO POT! It's an unfunded scheme.

Can I ask all those striking to do the next one on a Friday? Because there is something the dc and I want to do that we probably wouldn't get permission to take them out of school for,and we can only go on Fridays.

chickin This is part of the problem in this country, people think old. WTF wants to retire when they are still young? To do what, wait to die?

Not on FB, having listened to teachers on different threads I think the cuts should have offered in different way. Many teachers have said that they are willing to look at some change, such as the employer contributing less. On balance I don't support the strike. I do however think if we as a society are looking at teachers pay and working conditions then we also have a duty to look at other cuts such as the Winter fuel allowance and the shocking waste that seems to occur in the public sector (NHS IT system, Fire Brigade Control Centre - shall I go on?)

Belgianbun is right - but she means scheme, not pot. The Hutton report and the National Audit Office found the changes made to payments in 2007 make it sustainable.

An agreement is in place to keep this in check - if an actuarial valuation finds that teachers' payment increases are necessary, then there is an agreement in place to up contributions.

The government have failed to carry out this valuation (due in 2010), but want to increase payments anyway, without the evidence.

No support for the strikes whatsover. Due to recession I've had to take a drop in pay back to what I was on 15 years ago. Just getting on with it. DH has dropped about 20% pay too. There's a global recession people. Duh.

It's just difficult to sympathise when the cuts some people are facing are nothing to what others are experiencing. Eg, either out of work completely or back to the bottom of a career ladder.

What I really resent is teachers telling my DCs as part of the lesson that they are striking because the govt does not want to pay their pension. This happened in a lesson to my DS last week. I told him that the teacher had no right to pass his views on to the DCs that will be paying his pension in the future. Keep your views to yourselves teachers. I do not want my DCs to be told union propoganda. I have given them a balanced view as a pension manager in the private sector who has battled to try and provide employees with as much as we possibly can. Any shares benefits that pass on go straight back into pension scheme coffers for all pensions including the USS and other public sector funds that have funds which is not the case for the TPS which does not.

Most public sector pensions will benefit private sector companies doing well. Most private sector companies are really struggling at the moment and since the 1970s final salary schemes have become 40% more expensive to run. A valuation in 2007 would nowhere meet a valuation in 2010 although 2011 has been dismal and if it were done today, teachers pension contributions would need to go through the roof. I do think the Govt could have played it better by just sticking to career average and keeping the contributions the same until the next valuation which should have happened in 2010 for transparency purposes but one day only striking please. The point has been made and if it continues the pension and tax coffers will get smaller and smaller as the private sector will feel the cost. This will make the cost of public sector pensions even harder to find. It is a vicious circle.

Feenie Belgianbun As I have said several times in many threads I support the strike, one of the reasons I do is because the contractually guaranteed valuation for 2010 has not been performed. However I think you both fail to understand that the reports done in 2007 came to their conclusions based on actuarial projections. We don't know if the scheme is still on track now, because those projections will have included in their basic assumptions economic expectations which seemed reasonable in 2007 but which turned out to be wildly optimistic. :( But you should definitely strike because of the lack of a new valuation, the move to average earnings and the change from RPI to CPI.

losingtrust, you are right - that teacher had no business sharing their personal and political views with pupils.

Feenie My DCs go to 3 different schools and None of them have had a whisper of indoctrination about the strike. Just a general sense of sadness the schools are closed today. I think our teachers have behaved very professionally about it all (including staging a big end of term concert last night when technically maybe they could have said 'sorry we are out now,since 3pm'. )

I don't fail to understand that, thetasigmamum - getting very tired of being told what I don't understand, btw - but that's the latest 'evidence' available. Of course I'm going to go with the latest findings, whatever they may be based on, because the government is failing to provide anything more recent, despite there being an obligation to do so in 2010.

But thank you for your support.