Gets even harder when you factor in the "term time staff lose 1/190th of their annual salary" or 1/290th for full-time support staff, especially compared to teachers who only lose 1/365th for each day of a strike. Second class citizens ahoy!Originally Posted by j17sparky
You rang?
From the Audit commission's report, last year on the LGPS:
Report has a lot more info on it, some of which might be out of date with all the benefits changes made by the gov over the last 15 months as well.Affordability to taxpayers
16
Cuts in employer pensions, whether the employer is public sector or private sector, will reduce people's independant income in retirement, and result in a burden on the state in the long run, if more people become eligible for means-tested benefits. For private sector schemes, this is an externality. For the LGPS, it is the same taxpayer who funds both occupational pensions and the alternative state benefits. Since most LGPS pensions in payment are quite small, there is a degree of substitution with means-tested benefits for current pensions in payment (Figure 3). Some individuals are not financially much better off with an occupational pension than they would have been if they had opted for the state pension. Means-tested benefits start to taper off as income increases (above £5,100 for a single person). People with higher pensions are less likely to be eligible for state benefits, and some pay tax. Cutting public service pension benefits might save local taxpayers money in the short term, but this could be eroded in the longer term by increased public expenditure on means-tested benefits. State benefits are funded from national taxation but may be administered by local councils and other agencies.
As to fatcat pensions, to recieve a pension fo £50,000 PA, you need a final salary of £75,000 AND 40 years pensionable service under the old scheme. Under the new scheme, if that person was only on £75,000 PA for 5 years and the other 35 was 20-40,000, then it will be a much lower pension already, and TBH, I agree with this change; if you were able to earn £75,000 PA to start with, you don't need a pension. Thos who worked in jobs with stable salaries, that stay 20-40,000 for 40 years won't be too badly affected; they will earn similar to what they would have anyway.
With a pension that large, they are also paying tax on that income as well, so a chunk of that goes back to the taxpayer anyway!
http://www.audit-commission.gov.uk/S...ntpensions.pdf
Also to note, there is this line:
Further on, it is pointed out that mass redundancies and freezes on recruitment will result in a reduction in active payments into the pension scheme, which can cause further problems. With a 15-20% decline in workforce, this could cause pensions payments to exceed income as early as within 5 years.31
The LGPS does not face an immediate crisis. The scheme has a positive cashflow: it can continue to pay pensions and funds can be invested in growth-seeking assets to reduce costs.*
And the footnote: A positive cashflow means that pensions can be paid without cashing-in investments, which makes it possible to invest more in long-term growth assets. Positive cashflow does not indicate whether the amount invested is sufficient to meet liabilities in the long term
It's not really irrelevant. Would you stick with a Union that doesn't get any results? If union members got differing pay agreements down to the bargains sorted by their unions or collectives of unions would you still be in Voice if they accepted the first offer or accepted what they could get without action? You can decide not to strike because you have the knowledge that you won't loose out or be penalised for it. It's win/win, don't loose money during a strike, get any benefits won due to a strike. If everyone went that route we would all be in a worse situation.
As I've said numerous times. I don't like striking, I think it should be a last option, but sometimes you have to have short time pain to stop long term problems. The government options are long term pain with long term problems.
I don't get this place.
People get moaned at for not being in a union, due to the risks that occur with working with children.
People get moaned at for being in a union that strikes, when they don't wish to strike. Instead being content with paying their membership fees for the services that provides in return.
People get moaned at for being in a union that doesn't strike, as they benefit from those that do?
How exactly do you win here?
JoeBloggs (7th November 2011), sonofsanta (7th November 2011)
Um...that would be never! We are all individuals with our own opinions - the best you can hope for is that sometimes something someone says makes someone else think
No, if everyone kept striking, we'd be in a mess. Like BA is. Like Royal Mail is. Like all our car manufacturers are, oh wait, they were 'striked' into oblivion.
No, I don't see the point of unions acting in the way they do now. Unions should be negotiating, not jumping on their high horses and threatening strikes. Strikes are supposed to be a last resort, yet they are wheeled out almost instantly as soon as the government (or other employers) make an announcement.
Basically, unions have turned into self obsessed groups of individuals who don't give a damn about the bigger picture, focusing on their own selfish wants instead of thinking about the company or country as a whole. The strike actions against BA could very easily have ended up bankrupting the company, over something changes which were completely reasonable. The strikes at Royal Mail have caused serious and lasting damage to the business and their image, meaning more people will look elsewhere as they don't trust Royal Mail to do their job on time etc...
Strikes have a massive negative effect on everyone, including the people striking as it more often than not simply costs people jobs.
I'm still of the mind - if you don't like the employment conditions in your job, leave. No-one is forcing you to work there.
Pyroman (7th November 2011)
As we all know, these strikes are wrong at a time when negotiations are still going on. These strikes are wrong at a time when negotiations are still going on. These strikes are wrong at a time when negotiations are still going on.
haha, I remember watching that a few months ago. The man is a joke.
Problem is you don't get to hear about the negotiations until they stall and striking comes up, which is often first broached by the government or the media condemning it. Unions do negotiate, they are there almost constantly at it but it only makes the headlines when something like this happens.
Sorry you obviously missed the bit where I say I don't like striking and that it is a last option for me. It wouldn't have to be striking all the time & I don't think the unions have always got it right. You have completely ignored the point. If a non striking union did not get the benefits from other unions taking action would you still be apart of them.
IMO the BA strikes were silly, the Royal Mail strikes were justified.
Also do you really think the company or the country will take care of you & always look out for your best interests? Do you think without unions that everything would be sweetness and light, we'd all be skipping through the glades holding hands singing the Coca Cola song? It seems more self obsessed to hunker down with fingers in ears while people all around you are being shafted with your ultimate option being to abandon ship.
I must be off my food, this week, I actually agree with you on something, the bit about not being forced to work somewhere you don't like. In a Perfect World, of course.
But....... 'negotiation' is a two-way thing, both sides have to negotiate and if the management classes/boardroom classes/government paymasters had shown a capacity to negotiate, then we wouldn't have trade unions now, there would never have been a need for them.
I still remember the 80's, before the National Minimum Wage, when some workers were paid £1.50 an hour and less.
Just like unions, given the opportunity, boardoom/paymasters/management will jump on their own high horses and feather their own nests.
'Scuse the mixed metaphors.....I was inspired by @MK-2's signature.
Aren't unions supposed to act in the best interest of their members, rather than the best interests of the whole country?
Really? So with 2.5 million people unemployed across the country, the extra few million people who are NOT HAPPY with every aspect of their current remuneration packages should just simply go find another job outside of the public sector with same or better prospects?
Because it's oh so simple to do that, I think I might just go pickup a new job next week. Hell, I might get myself a new one for xmas too....
The unions have been trying to negotiate for months now. Up until last week, the government has not budged one inch on what they would offer, otherwise half these unions would not be striking.
What they offered last week, as others have pointed out does not help the majority of union members, it helps a minority who mostly earn more and are close to retirement anyway.
And do you really think the government would have even offered that if not threatened with this level of strike action?
When the government listens to the people that work for them and they supposedly work for, and lay down an offer that does not destroy peoples livelyhood, either now or the future prospects, THEN I have no doubt that the unions will start to reconsider strikes. If the unions continue to strike after these offers are made, the members will not back them at any percentage.
Negotiations work both ways. The people don't want to strike, and the government doesn't want us to strike, but they hold the cards to stop the strikes, and so far have shown no willingness to do anything with them.
I don't get to hear about the stalled negotiations? Why don't I? Surely it is the duty of both the government and the union to inform people of negotiations. As it stands it usually goes like this - government announces that they're going to be introducing changes to something, later that day the head of a union says they're looking at it but they don't like it and threaten industrial action. Its the same every time!
Yes, I would be a part of a non-striking union if they didn't get the same results - it is a moral stance, rather than a cop-out saying 'i don't like striking'. Let's extend that stance to other parts of life. I don't like stealing, but I do it anyway. I don't like eating meat, but I do it anyway.
However, as I said, the question is irrelevant - that is not how government salaries work, so hypothetical questions are pointless.
Do I expect the country to look out for my best interests? No, I expect to work to get what I want. I expect the government to govern. I expect my employer to provide me with a safe environment where I can do my clearly defined job. You make out that unions have achieved so much, yet I've seen very little evidence of this.
People around me ARE being shafted! That's the problem. It isn't just people in my school, or my job. Its the taxpayer as a whole who are ending up fronting the bill to support an unsustainable system. THAT is shafting people.
Then thank previous generations of trade union members and activists for this expectation being met, and take a closer, less-blinkered look around you at present day T&C's in most jobs of work, then compare them to those of 100 - 150 years ago.
Oh that's right.....there weren't any......you did what you were told or got sacked.
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