Biggest Strike For 100 Years – Union Chief

[DTMark]

I don't think it is about them and us, (private v public) more that it is not affordable long term and as it is almost certain the private sector isn't going to grow anytime soon to fill this gap then something needs to be done.

When you add the extra longevity we now have the pension systems' problems are compounded further

In other words something in this area (just like many others) needs to be done)

ALSO I'd still like to hear a really good post demonstrating why this shouldn't happen, not just talking about entitlement, the smaller picture or banker bashing

I don't think it's about public vs private. However, that's the line I suspect the Government are going to try and spin to set half the country against the other "they can't have it, so why should you be able to".

I see plenty of public sector bashing on this site and others. To me, that's a bit like people assaulting immigrants because of their frustration over uncontrolled immigration. Wrong target. The immigrants haven't done anything wrong.

I see some truly ludicrous salaries being paid, e.g. to council leaders, but I don't honestly imagine that nurses and the Police to name two are on some sort of gravy train. Let's not forget they have something called a "contract" which is about to be torn up.

The public sector whould never have grown to this size; it was and is unsustainable. It needs to be cut back. That's one thing that just about everyone seems to agree on, though of course Ed Balls can't quite say that publicly, can he.

The Government - Danny Alexander in particular - have pre-empted what's coming and immediately adopted a confrontational stance. To me that shows how serious this is going to get. And they know this.

While I fully support the Government taking the needed measures to limit the size of the State, there's one bit of me that thinks that if the Unions are seen to win, that won't do anyone any good in the medium to longer term since there's just not the money.

But there's also a part of me - probably the bigger part - which places some store in contracts of employment and thinks that if the Government wins and the private sector has a giggle at the unions' expense, that's going to hurt everyone in the end directly or indirectly and I'm very much enjoying watching the Greek people sticking two fingers up at their so-called Government, who, to me, are the front line in the battle not about public versus private, or about debt levels per se, but about the ongoing raping of peoples' pensions and rights while the Applegarths, Goodwins, Blairs and Browns of this world do rather well out of what they created.

I'll stop now before I start to sound like some raging communist who votes Conservative.

[aa3]

The public chose to move to a 'green', 'sustainable' economy by shutting down and chasing out a lot of industry and stopping nearly all development. And now the economy is much smaller than otherwise. Support for these ideas was especially strong in the public sector.

So one result of that is tax revenues are a lot lower. So there is less money to go around for the public sector workforce. Therefore they can choose between job cuts and pay cuts.

Decisions have consequences. The boomers have thus far made it through life without feeling the consequences for any of their utopian ideological beliefs.

[tahoma]

I don't think it's about public vs private. However, that's the line I suspect the Government are going to try and spin to set half the country against the other "they can't have it, so why should you be able to".

Um, yeah, but remember that one half pays all the bills of the other half. We are not talking about an even relationship here.

Traditionally the public sector was for people who accepted they would not get a stellar wage, but compensated by job security and being of service to the public.

Since about, ooh, 1997 the public sector has morphed into something that wants to match/exceed every perk of the private sector, without the risks, while treating those that pay for it all with contempt.

If someone was willing to be my bitch to the extent that the private sector has to the public in the last decade, I would probably feel contempt for them too, so fairs fair.

[robo1968]

I don't think it's about public vs private. However, that's the line I suspect the Government are going to try and spin to set half the country against the other "they can't have it, so why should you be able to".

I see plenty of public sector bashing on this site and others. To me, that's a bit like people assaulting immigrants because of their frustration over uncontrolled immigration. Wrong target. The immigrants haven't done anything wrong.

I see some truly ludicrous salaries being paid, e.g. to council leaders, but I don't honestly imagine that nurses and the Police to name two are on some sort of gravy train. Let's not forget they have something called a "contract" which is about to be torn up.

The public sector whould never have grown to this size; it was and is unsustainable. It needs to be cut back. That's one thing that just about everyone seems to agree on, though of course Ed Balls can't quite say that publicly, can he.

The Government - Danny Alexander in particular - have pre-empted what's coming and immediately adopted a confrontational stance. To me that shows how serious this is going to get. And they know this.

While I fully support the Government taking the needed measures to limit the size of the State, there's one bit of me that thinks that if the Unions are seen to win, that won't do anyone any good in the medium to longer term since there's just not the money.

But there's also a part of me - probably the bigger part - which places some store in contracts of employment and thinks that if the Government wins and the private sector has a giggle at the unions' expense, that's going to hurt everyone in the end directly or indirectly and I'm very much enjoying watching the Greek people sticking two fingers up at their so-called Government, who, to me, are the front line in the battle not about public versus private, or about debt levels per se, but about the ongoing raping of peoples' pensions and rights while the Applegarths, Goodwins, Blairs and Browns of this world do rather well out of what they created.

I'll stop now before I start to sound like some raging communist who votes Conservative.

I don't really get annoyed about have/have nots, I get by.

The part that frustrates me is what seems to be a lack of understanding of true cost, deficit and what needs to happen, it's not that anyone is good bad or indifferent, just that things need to be done a different way

I run a company, if it was in deficit I would need to shave of the dead wood, I guess that's simplistic but the longer we leave it as a nation the worse it will be

[DTMark]

I don't really get annoyed about have/have nots, I get by.

The part that frustrates me is what seems to be a lack of understanding of true cost, deficit and what needs to happen, it's not that anyone is good bad or indifferent, just that things need to be done a different way

I run a company, if it was in deficit I would need to shave of the dead wood, I guess that's simplistic but the longer we leave it as a nation the worse it will be

Quite so. No company (apart from some with unique access to the money supply, like banks) could actually have got to this position (deficit) in the first place. We completely agree. I was addressing the more narrow aspects of the strike itself e.g. where we are now.

coriolis expressed my thoughts above rather better than I did, here ("it's wider than just the civil service")

http://www.telegraph...-pay-bills.html

This is easy.

It was once preferred that you use debt instead of capital to pay for things like new motor cars (many will know this to be true), because incentives like free servicing would be offered.

As the Rothschilds turn the screw even more, it is NOW preferred that you rely on debt in the form of store cards to buy even essential shopping such as food and water, not just your luxuries.

You're being pushed under the cosh of debt, quite deliberately. Notice please, how lately, if you're lucky, you've received only a modest drop in salary/pensions etc.

Those doubting we are in the final lock-down period had better wake up and be prepared for rebellion against the Rothschild family. By that, I mean their Monarcy, government, judiciary, police and armed forces. Such is the scale of the amount of sleepwalking that's been done over the last 200 years on this evil family. There are more of us than them.

[Doctor Gloom]

Biggest strike for 100 years ? What on earth happened in 1911 then ?

I retired from the public sector in 1992. 19 years later my post is now done by three highly paid men (£80k each) and four support staff. I pop in and see them on occasions. There has never been an increase in the workload since I left. That is how the public sector has grown in the last 19 years. I am all for giving people employment in the public sector but we just need a correction back to affordable and realistic levels.

The winter of discontent proved that there is no such thing as an essential worker. These strikes will go nowhere.

The waste in local councils is immense, I fully support cutbacks in these sectors.

As an example the top 33 Isle of Wight Council workers cost us £3 million before huge management consultancy fees.

[oracle]

I don't think it's about public vs private. However, that's the line I suspect the Government are going to try and spin to set half the country against the other "they can't have it, so why should you be able to".

except it's not really our government doing it.

it is the faction of communist/leninist/marxist sleeper cells WITHIN various areas of government/council/strategic infrastructure that will be doing it...and they are being paid to act by proxy(primarily sponsored by vatican and russia)...and to cause maximum civil disruption before the military phase kicks in.

that,in effect,is called treason.(seeing as judiciary can also be counted in with some of the subversives..I should imagine that when the countermeasures come,there will be no need for the legal niceties,and punishment will be meted out to these guys in a rather more direct fashion).

This will certainly also be the case in the US,where a good number of these cronies will be getting an appointment to see old sparky.

...aiding and abetting hostile foreign power.And our politicians are up to their necks in it.

Edited June 25, 2011 by oracle

[right_freds_dead]

PENSIONS REVOLT ?

there was no housing revolt. why would anyone under 40 give a rats ass about some knobends pensions woes.

let them burn.

[Riedquat]

The public chose to move to a 'green', 'sustainable' economy by shutting down and chasing out a lot of industry and stopping nearly all development. And now the economy is much smaller than otherwise. Support for these ideas was especially strong in the public sector.

That's not necessarily a bad thing though. Even putting aside debates about sustainability wanting to cut back on all of that is fine - if you're prepared to adjust your lifestyle to suit. Even not going that far I feel that there's a lot of ultimately industry and development that doesn't really add anything to quality of life, but does detract from it and exists merely to keep the wheels turning. A system that results in it making sense to build something that needs replacing every couple of years instead of something that lasts decades is fundamentally flawed. It boils down to a lot of work existing simply to keep people busy. The public sector gets (justly) accused of this rather often, but it's merely less obvious in the private sector.