So is anyone here on strike?

[Simster]

Scab - no
Mind of my own and not willing to follow blindly like sheep - yes

It depends whether you're a member of a union that voted to go on strike really.

 

[Gazwag]

You'd think from listening to the parents it was the greatest inconvenience known to man. One day, with plenty of notice? How are you all going to cope with the imminent six weeks off?

Maybe losing a days wages is an inconvenience for those parents who's holiday entitlement is already used up covering school holidays, many of whom have aleady had to cover an inset day this week.

 

[El Presidente]

Maybe losing a days wages is an inconvenience for those parents who's holiday entitlement is already used up covering school holidays, many of whom have aleady had to cover an inset day this week.

Is this the inset day they've known about for at least 9 months?

 

[Uncle C]

The public sector pension pot will be short of several billion in a few years.

I have just one question. Where do the strikers expect the shortfall to come from?

 

[Gazwag]

Lovely day for it. Do you have to be in a union?

I think you actually need to have a job to strike.

Much better to strike on a day like today, with the ladies semi's this afternoo,n after a morning getting the tan started for the holidays.

 

[Hotchilidog]

Good luck to the strikers. Reading this article really puts into perspective to me.

 

[xenophon]

Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number -
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many - they are few.

 

[The Antikythera Mechanism]

Some background to the strike for those that aren't Tories and are well balanced enough to look at the whole picture:

This is not a pension reform – it is simply a pay cut | Blog | False Economy

That website's header is "Why cuts are the wrong cure"

If you use your credit card to pay day to day bills and only ever pay the minimum amount each month, you will eventually reach your credit limit, and find that the interest charges each month exceed your payments. You will then have to accept that you will need to make larger payments as part of a plan to pay off the bill. To do this you will need to find money from elsewhere by cutting back on non essential expenditure.

The state that the country is in now is because of a similar scenario on a national scale. Cuts are the only answer, it's just where the cuts are made that is open to debate.

 

[Giraffe]

My sons' school is closed apart from one or two classes in exam mode. The ridiculous thing is they have an inset day tomorrow. Nice long weekend then for the kids and staff alike.

Meanwhile my youngest has trudged off to school because "her stupid teachers" are turning up.

Frankly I think the whole thing is a farce. They need to get a reality check and realise they are lucky to be in work. Private sector workers had their pay frozen and benefits cut a long long time ago.

I really still don't understand what their problem is?

 

[xenophon]

Who's cutting the bankers' pensions mmmm?

 

[Gazwag]

Is this the inset day they've known about for at least 9 months?

I not saying it was a surprise, I'm saying its two days off work unpaid which, for low income families, is a lot suddenly losing 2/5ths of their income this week.

And also people saying the strike was known about for a long time, a lot of people didn't know if their kids would be at school or at home before today. My daughter has had to go to college this morning and when she got there she found out her lessons were cancelled.

 

[public school boy]

Lazy bastards. We all have to make sacrifices or do you want us to go the same way as Greece? Don't blame DC and this hard working honest Government, blame Blair, Brown and the population for overspending and building up debt.

 

[Peteinblack]

The Tory propaganda and the party line faithfully adopted by the Tory press is that because private sector workers are treated like sh*t by their employers, public sector workers must also be treated like sh*t in the name of fairness - and yet the Tories accuse the Left of promoting 'the politics of envy' and wanting to 'level down' in the name of equality.
Their philisophy is 'if private sector workers can't have decent pensions, then neither should public sector workers' - great, we should all live in poverty in old age! This is classic Tory divide-and-rule; turn one section of society against another, while those at the top, in the banks and the company boardroom continue paying themselves millions!! We are told that the private sector can't afford to pay its staff decent pensions well just look at the generous pensions of those at the top in the private sector; there seems to be plenty for them! Lets improve private sector pension provision, not have a race to the bottom.
Yes, there are fat cats in the public sector - and workers in the public sector despise these parasites, believe me - NHS Trust chiefs, chief exectives of local authorities, university vice chancellors, but please stop assuming that their obscene salaries and pensions are also paid to care home assisitants, nurses, lollipop ladies, road sweepers, etc.! Again, you're just falling for the old Tory trick of turning workers against each other, while the rich just get even richer. Making public sector workers poorer won't make private sector workers any richer.
As a fat, bloated, lazy, useless, good-for-nothing public sector parasite (© any Tory), if I have to pay an extra £150-200 per month towards my pension, fine; I don't object - but that will be £150-200 less I spend on private sector goods and services, so local shops, restaurants and pubs will receive less revenue from people like me, and go out of business.
Oh incidentally, public sector workers are also taxpayers. I also - quite happily - pay 15% of my salary towards my pension.
The Tories and their friends in the press really are pouring out a load of lies about the public sector, yet sadly, a lot of people are dumb enough to believe them - or choose to believe this crap because it suits their own ideological agendas.

 

[Common as Mook]

That website's header is "Why cuts are the wrong cure"

If you use your credit card to pay day to day bills and only ever pay the minimum amount each month, you will eventually reach your credit limit, and find that the interest charges each month exceed your payments. You will then have to accept that you will need to make larger payments as part of a plan to pay off the bill. To do this you will need to find money from elsewhere by cutting back on non essential expenditure.

The state that the country is in now is because of a similar scenario on a national scale. Cuts are the only answer, it's just where the cuts are made that is open to debate.

A million times this. It STAGGERS me that some people can't seem to grasp this. Some people will suffer, some won't. Pull your socks up and get on with it.

 

[xenophon]

What are the bankers' sacrificing?

 

[kingcole]

Is this the inset day they've known about for at least 9 months?

Could have known about it for 9 years. I would still have to use one of my 20 days holiday or pay to get it covered

 

[kingcole]

.....but it's fine to spunk billions and billions bailing out banks eh? Why can't the teachers have their pensions sured up in a similar way? There are far better economists than you and I who suggest there is an alternative way...so spare me your back-o-the-fag-packet sums.

Hardly spunking is it. The banking sector employs thousands in this country and these people contribute massively thru taxes, both in employees income tax and banks corporation tax.

And as it happens, it looks like the treasury will be able re-privatise the banks at a decent profit

 

[Peteinblack]

My sons' school is closed apart from one or two classes in exam mode. The ridiculous thing is they have an inset day tomorrow. Nice long weekend then for the kids and staff alike.

Meanwhile my youngest has trudged off to school because "her stupid teachers" are turning up.

Frankly I think the whole thing is a farce. They need to get a reality check and realise they are lucky to be in work. Private sector workers had their pay frozen and benefits cut a long long time ago.

I really still don't understand what their problem is?

So because private sector workers have had their pay and benefits cut, everyone else should too?! Everyone should be dragged down to the same level, in the name of fairness - yuk, sounds like Communism. No thanks! I think if you look at pay, perks and pensions in the boardroom in the private sector, you'll fine that the 'cuts' you refer to are non-existent - they are only imposed on ordinary employees; those at the top in the private sector will do very well, even while cutting pay and pensions of the rest of their staff on the grounds of 'unaffordability'.

 

[Common as Mook]

What are the bankers' sacrificing?

I love all this 'bankers' bollocks. Are you saying that Tracey LeVelle who works in the Hassocks branch of Barclays should be taxed through the roof or is this just yet another lazy generalisation?

 

[Common as Mook]

Hardly spunking is it. The banking sector employs thousands in this country and these people contribute massively thru taxes, both in employees income tax and banks corporation tax.

And as it happens, it looks like the treasury will be able re-privatise the banks at a decent profit

Absolutely.