Unions hit government on pension changes

toco

The strikes over pensions have already cost an estimated 50,000 jobs which is of course just the ticket for Red Ed and his trades union bruvvers.The more people out of work and reliant on benefits the more Labour voters.Fortunately there are sufficient hard working people around to make the trades union antics futile but nevertheless wholly irresponsible.

Daedalus

It's about time they really got tough about these pensions. They should be looking to reduce them to similar levels and commitments that we get in the private sector. The public sector already get a fantastic deal from us Tax Payers with better pay and conditions such as flexitime and sick leave. The comments some will make that those in the public sector are also tax payers is fallacious as that money comes from Tax Payers anyway. No final salary, just what they pay in with a bit from the employer and all on the markets just like ours is!!

Daedalus

Andrew

If the government adopted a total remuneration approach to pay comparators, the "pension" would cease to be such a major issue.

The technology and methodology exists to measure "total remuneration" - beats me why the government (and private employers) don't just do it.

Charlie the Chump

The current offer is still way too generous and unaffordable. If the Unions wish to negotiate further so be it but the coalition should toughen its stance in line with public opinion which is against the public sector unions

Mycroft

It would be utterly pathetic for the doctors to threaten 'industrial action' after the lucrative settlement that their union won for them; I cannot believe that they would have the nerve! Quite enough of the money that Labour poured into the health service has been expended in stuffing money into their mouths. (My brother who is a GP quite agrees with me on this, although he is of course very happy to have the money and advantageous terms!)

David L

The Government really can't give way on this one.

Andy

Christ Almighty.

Doctors might consider striking. Are they taking the piss after the deal they struck with the last Govt - salaries in excess of £100k and weekends off.

Whatever next?

WetherspoonThree

Its not very often that the forces of moderation in this country have any reason to pay tribute to the BBC.. But I feel I must pay tribute to Stephen Sucker of HARDtalk for his clinical demolition job on Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the PCS.

As savage as it was totally unexpected. All trade unionists involved in the current dispute ought to watch this episode but I should make it compulsory viweing for those foolish and misguided head teachers who recently decided it was appropriate to strike over their pensions.

disenfranchised

good old unions. so good to know the whole country is standing together, shoulder to shoulder, straining every fibre, united in it's determination to make sure it comes through this depression as unscathed as humanly possible. hmmm.
that is, of course, complete and utter crap.
the words delusional, selfish, dinosaurs, and many more, are what are actually running around in my befuddled bonce.
then again, buggering the country has always been a lamentable occupational hazard as far as regional warriors are concerned.
leopards and spots.....

Hippocrates

A ballot by Hospital Doctors, if separated out from GPs, would be easily in favour of action. The pension was already renegotiated downwards in 2008 cutting about 12%. The latest reiteration is a further double-digit haircut. Given that Junior Doctors earn approximately half a London Tube driver salary until they are in their mid 30's (and will have accrued 6 years of Student fees and maintenance for the privilege), any ballot is a foregone conclusion. As for £100K salaries - that is rare in hospitals and restricted to senior consultants with onerous on-call commitments.

Miss DePoint

So this nasty little Government rips up the pension it agreed with me 23 years ago in order to, inter alia:

- Pay child benefit to 28000 people in Poland.
- Medical tourists from the third world choking up every hospital in London - sit in a London hospital for an hour or two, it's very instructive.
- Pay for India's space programme and a fair few other things besides in far less reputable places on the spurious spin line that it will make the Conservatives seem less nasty, when it is obviously just graft, financial and political, for all concerned.
- Immigrants getting a council house and then subletting it; this is standard operating procedure, particularly among the Poles that I know and is of mammoth proportions - the Government will need more than a soundbite from Grant Shapps to deal with this one.
- Tens of thousands of non jobs generated for Labour's client state.
-Crazy eco schemes like wind farms.
- The EU. Saved the best for last. The root of all these problems.

I could go on and on. Yet most of you brainwashed so called conservatives keep wanting to kick the cat rather than shoot the elephant.

Man in a Shed

The coalition has already shown too much weakness, that is encouraging the greed from the Unions.

TrevorsDen

nasty little govt?

It was Brown who ruined pensions.

Your current contributions and pensions are guaranteed and not being ripped up.
Why should I and other poor people pay for your pension when you are not prepared to?

Sod off Miss DePoint

Philip Hamer

The NHS government offer on accrual rates was far too expensive, and should be withdrawn. Many in the NHS, and perhaps in government, do not understand the basic numbers. The scheme is unfunded and according to the ONS has a deficit of around a trillion pounds, or three time the NHS annual budget – almost real money! I have talked to senior NHS consultants who think the scheme is in surplus –because, as the BMA state on their website, the scheme currently provides an annual cash surplus. This is simply a result of the ratio between active and retired members.
This confusion is damaging –perhaps the time has come to move gradually to a funded basis. Hutton saw no need for this, but the present situation was not foreseen by by Hutton.

Philip Hamer

The NHS government offer on accrual rates was far too expensive, and should be withdrawn. Many in the NHS, and perhaps in government, do not understand the basic numbers. The scheme is unfunded and according to the ONS has a deficit of around a third of a trillion pounds, or three time the NHS annual budget – almost real money! I have talked to senior NHS consultants who think the scheme is in surplus –because, as the BMA state on their website, the scheme currently provides an annual cash surplus. This is simply a result of the ratio between active and retired members.
This confusion is damaging –perhaps the time has come to move gradually to a funded basis. Hutton saw no need for this, but the present situation was not foreseen by by Hutton.
(edited to correct nhs pension deficit stated as £329 billion for 2010 by the Office for national statistics)

Miss DePoint

TrevorsDen - if I had known that you were Danny Alexander's mum I wouldn't have called his government nasty. I just love tiger mums, bless.

fergus pickering

A tube driver's average pay appears to be £40,000. Does a hospital doctor get only £20,000 until his or her mid-thirties? Where?

REPay

The government should NOT be forcing the public sector workers to work longer. We have an unemployment crisis so getting them onto reduced (for the higher paid) pensions sooner makes sense. The pension is cheaper than the salary - and we could address overmanning simultaneously.

Sean Haffey

The public sector are paid better than the private sector. Now they want to keep their vastly better pensions.

I am sorry. As a member of the private sector I cannot afford it. I can't even afford to get my own pension to a reasonable level.

David L

Raading the thread, I couldn't resist a second bite. Let's bring some facts to the argument: if the BMA decides to strike, then let the Government publish data on the size of doctors' pensions - easily obtainable from NHS Pensions - including those of GPs, who, although technically self-employed, get a full pension, plus holiday and maternity rights. It's almost Greek!!!

ellis000

Are Miss DePoint and REPay joining Fatbloke and daniel maris as the thickest posters on CH? When did these blogs morph into Sky News? Can we have a minimum IQ requirement please - 2 dumb posts or 3 syntax errors and you're out?

CS

@Daedalus
"The comments some will make that those in the public sector are also tax payers is fallacious as that money comes from Tax Payers anyway."

Ooooh, we really are going for a full-on Socratic debate here, aren't we?

Public sector workers are paid by the taxpayer in return for labour provided to the taxpayer. That doesn't mean that those workers aren't taxpayers themselves. Do the employees of a company which supplies computers to the public sector also not count as taxpayers because they're paid by the taxpayer?

I'd be interested to know how many of those supposedly struggling against the harsh realities of the private sector are in fact working for companies which have fat privatised contracts for the public sector.

Miss DePoint

ellis000- is that all you've got? Hope you're not on performance related pay. This place is full of government stooges who pretend to be Conservatives.

Anyway, by your own rules you're on Strike 1.

CS

@TrevorsDen
"It was Brown who ruined pensions."

Wasn't it also Lawson who allowed companies to take pensions contributions holidays?

The sectional short-sightedness of comments on CoffeeHouse would be depressing were it not so tediously predictable. Let's face it, governments of both parties wrecked private sector pensions over the past couple of decades. But instead of arguing that the right thing to do would be to repair that wreckage, we're now being told that the right thing to do is to similarly wreck public sector pensions so that everyone is on the same level.

Thanks to the sort of useful idiots who allowed both parties to get away with this, we'll end up living in a country where every pensioner from both private and public sector employment is on benefits thanks to the wrecking of pensions across the board.

starfish

"we'll end up living in a country where every pensioner from both private and public sector employment is on benefits thanks to the wrecking of pensions across the board."

Given that anyone who actively plans for retirement through savings or pensions schemes is actively penalised while the profligate who did nothing get it all for free we might as well all give up anyway

Cynic

Starfish is right. There is no incentive to save for one's own pension or make provision for one's retirement because if you do you are penalised whereas those who haven't bothered are entitled to all sorts of benefits. Not to mention the dire effects of El Gordo's pensions raid. As for the unions, let's not forget that during WW2 when the Soviet Union was on Germany's side they felt more solidarity with their international "brothers" than with their own country. It was only after Operation Barbarossa that they changed their minds.

Philip Hamer

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