They are bang right to strike. I want to know why that **** David Cameron bleats on about needing to make cutbacks, yet is focusing all of these cutbacks on the poorest people in the country. As someone said earlier in the thread, the wealth of the countries top 10% is continuing to go up exponentially. SOLUTION: Put the top tax bracket up by 10%, anyone who is affected by this is still going to be a rich **** anyway so they can whinge all they like about "working hard for money to be taken away from me" blah blah blah. You're still rich as **** so get over it. This extra BILLIONS would allow those earning 40k and below to actually get pay rises in line with inflation, and largely solve our economic crisis. Will never happen though, as labour are too incompetent to see it through and the Tories wouldn't be the Tories if they weren't trying to steal from the poor to give to the rich.
I am 43 now and was 33 before I worked for a company which paid sickness, for the first 8-9 years I was in jobs that paid less then a fiver an hour and I changed jobs and bettered myself to improve my lot. I now live as an expat in a foreign company which I had to to secure a contract for my employer. Where is the incentive for anybody to improve if all they have to do is strike for a better deal and hold the rest of the population to ransom every so often? If I were to strike the company wouldn't make money and eventually i will lose my job, the lucky few dummy-spitting marxists don't have to face this fact like we do in the real world. You hit the nail right on the head there. You, in the private sector, can take your skills and negotiate a pay rise from a different employer as that is business. I can't leave for another fire & rescue service, the pay is what it is for all firefighters. I accept that I'm stuck on this rate of pay, I sacrifice weekends, bank holidays and Christmas to do my job because at the end of it the pension is good. You can earn more by selling your skills to highest bidder, I have job security its swings and roundabouts. This gold plated pension isn't just a freebie, I pay roughly £4k into my pension every year, over 40yrs that's £160k that I've had to contribute but do so with the thought of having a good pension. Are you aware that firefighters are not striking for more money? Some people signed up to do 30yrs, that was the contract they entered into. Government has now said "go til your 60" they've also increased our contribution rate and we get less at the end of it. Work longer, pay more get less.... doesn't seem to fair does it? Imagine if that happened on a loan you'd entered into. People are living longer and as such 50 MAY be too early to retire, I don't know as I'm a long way off that but let the people that signed that contract to see out that contract. The newer breed, myself included, have agreed to work to 60. The reason I agreed to strike is because when the government increased it to 60 they had a report that suggested 2 thirds of firefighters wouldn't be able to make it to 60. Their own report said that but they chose to ignore it. No its got nothing to do with being lazy, working backwards to maintain required fitness at 60 then they should of been recruiting Olympic standard athletes at 20. With the best will in the world I'm not an Olympian. What happens if you don't make fitness in late 50's? You get dismissed on capability grounds and lose half your pension just for having the cheek to age. Forgetting us for a while, who actually wants an appliance full of duffers turning up to save them? Still, I expect I'm just being a greedy fireman that wants more money and better working conditions?
Good sentiments, but sadly it wouldn't work as the rich always have ways of avoiding paying their fair share of tax anyway...
And has the employer and Government not got a duty to honour that contract? They've moved the goal posts, we've objected, they haven't listened, we've had to strike
Look mate. I don't disagree that you do a hard job.. but the ability to retire after 30 years is just a pipe dream to the vast majority of hard working private sector workers. Unlike you and your workmates I'll work until i'm 65 (or later) without a pot to piss in. What the government is doing is needed to stop the country going bust. Like it or not. The Labour government decimated the private pensions years ago in order to fund public workers pensions. Labours (Browns) scapping of tax relief on pensions took 118 billion (that's right 118 billion) out of the hands of hard working private workers but the public sector didn't give a **** about it. Labour saw the robbing of private pension funds as an easy target. It's taken 17 years since for the public sector to get a taste of what the rest of us have so please don't expect massive sympathy from the private sector.
The rich and the self employed mate. I love the pontificating on here about people who don't pay tax, whilst every one of my mates who are self employed do cash only jobs and use the services of accountants to pay as little tax as possible. Might be nice if we could do that on PAYE, then we could really demonstrate our social conscience
Oh dearie me. Is that your logic? So Nissan don't earn a single penny for the country because they rely on us buying their cars. We pay their tax because they use our money "So like it or not we actually pay them and pay thier tax aswell on top of that they don't earn a single penny for the country they just live of what everyone else works bloody hard for." What's the difference between a public school, Free School and state school? They all have teachers, but Free and Public schools are businesses and entitled to make a profit. Which ones are of more benefit to society? Which one is paid for with your taxes? In reality, a teacher will contribute more to the economy than you and I imagine we do. Think of all the life long knowledge, skills and abilities they will instill and nurture into our kids, day after day, throughout a career. I reckon you need to sit down have a think and to re-assess your position and the contribution of others to our lives.
Public sector is there to serve the public and assist the private sector to earn wealth for the country. Therefore, they do indirectly, through assistance help the economy. By the way, Nissan employee countless UK staff and pay a tax contribution to the exchequer. The Nissan employees (and also employees in companies who supply nissan) also pay taxes (both imcome related and profit related) and are thus not a burden to the governments finances. Unlike other car manufacturers who produce overseas and basically sell to the uk, Nissan, Toyota and Mazda do contribute.
Look mate i'm neither to the left or to the right in politics. I'm mature enough to make up my own mind and have been **** upon by countless governments to know that they all are as bad as each other. But the countless mind numblingly boring and uneducated 'blame the tories and the banks' excuse for the woes of the nation only papers over the hideous mess that Labour party keeps leaving the country in. I seem to remember the letter left by a Labour boffin in Whitehall on his departure after the 2010 elections which basically said that the coffers where empty. Socialist are good at spending other peoples money badly and the other side are good at pampering for the top 1%. problem with NewLiebour is that they pamper to both camps. Unfortunately, communism doesn't work.. democracy isn't ideal but it is better the Socialist nightmare that Red Ken, Labour and the Unions lot would let us believe is utopia. Trust me mate, i live in Poland and have heard first hand recollections of how great socialism can be.
A couple of points to add : Do public sector workers create wealth? Yes. While they may not made the actual goods or services the y provide the education, health care, roads and infrastructure, police services to keep the streets safe and the armed services.. With out these being provided by the state you would have to pay for those services and a lot of people would not be able to afford to educate their children or to have adequate health care or to drive on the roads or to pay for private guards to protect their property from the dispossessed who are thrown onto the scrape heap because their parents could not provide the education they need in the modern day and as a consequence there will not be enough trained and educated professional to allow the economy to create the wealth. The lack of a universal health care service will result in the lives if the poorest being cut short from preventable illness which they can not afford to pay to obtain treatment, when this effects expectant mothers or young children it will cause life long damage to the children of the poorest in society resulting condemning a whole group in the population to a cycle of life long unproductive poverty, just because they were born into the poorest part of society. Is there a difference between private sector and public sector terms and conditions? Yes? but the real issue is why, the answer is that traditionally we have had to be pulled kicking and screaming in the UK to give employee the rights they have elsewhere, if it were not for trade unions we would not have the rights which we do in both the private and public sectors. The fact that reasonable terms and conditions still apply in the state sector mean that there is a floor put under private employers who at times of low unemployment have to compete to get the labour they need so have to improve the benefits to their staff to attract them or to keep them, however for most of the time you do not have low unemployment, instead you have a large pool of un or under employed people who will take any thing they can to put food on the table, resulting in a race to the bottom. The only solution to this is the unionisation of all work places to allow for collective bargaining. Lets not forget the employers have their own organisations such as the CBI etc so if capital can organise, labour, that's you and me, must be able to organise if there is to be an even playing field in contract negotiations. Having said that I would also accept that employees also need to take responsibility for their actions and to achieve this we need to look at the German model of works councils and employee seats on the boards of all companies, to allow an honest and open discussion of what is affordable. So in short is the public sector productive? Yes. do we need trade unions and the right to with draw labour collectively? Yes. Do public sector unions help the private sector employees? Yes by setting a standard that good employers will try to match. Rant over!
If you read my point about Gordon Brown robbing private sector funds you'll see a massive argument as to how the public sector unions don't give a stuff about the private sector. Without continued Union support the Liebour party wouldn't have been in a situation to do this.
First you pillory Brown for wasting money then you pillory him for saving it. Your argument is as spurious as the headline politics that you purport to understand. It’s not worth responding to someone who constantly misspells a name in order to make a futile point; you don’t need any help to demonstrate your ignorance and bigotry you are doing a fine job on your own so I will leave you to it.
Do you think he saved it? Please stop using the word bigot. The Mere fact that you are using it makes you more of a bigot then me! Idiot! FYI Monty... big·ot noun \ˈbi-gət\ : a person who strongly and unfairly dislikes other people, ideas, etc. : a bigoted person; especially : a person who hates or refuses to accept the members of a particular group (such as a racial or religious group) Understand? If you don't like my ideas then you are a Bigot! Touche!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-28250963 s**t there's another cut to my super gold plated pension - still I work in the public sector so it must be my fault
