So is anyone here on strike?

[Peteinblack]

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

The banks pay their taxes? Get real - tax evasion is rife in the City. £ billions are lost every year through banks and companies dodging taxation - far, far more than is lost through social security fraud. But of course, banks and big business fund the Tories through donations, so of course the Tories turn a blind eye to this white collar crime by their corporate chums!

 

[Hatterlovesbrighton]

Current one. That's for 25 years service in the public sector. I have no issue with paying more money into the scheme, but the average public sector pension is

I took a £10k pay cut to move into teaching, it's something I have always wanted to do, as I believe in the importance of education.

The Hutton report shows the following average pensions in the public sector

The Hutton report found the average pension payments - including workers and dependents - in 2009-10 were as follows:

Local government worker: £4,052
NHS worker: £7,234
Civil servant: £6,199
Teacher: £9,806
Member of armed forces: £7,722

Those numbers are a bit distorted as they relate to the average pension paid out and so take into account people that have worked in those professions for a relatively short amount of time. Would be interesting to show what the average pension is of someone that has spent say 35 years working in the job.

 

[Uncle C]

What are the bankers' sacrificing?

This is about as relevant as saying why is Wayne Roonie earning in excess of 12m a year.

 

[xenophon]

The Tories are a party of the rich for the rich, always were always will be. Divide and conquer, from useful idiots who sing the praises of 'cuts' while the Tories drip just enough to the right people, to the rest of the great unwashed. This is the last hurrah for the neutered unions, it started with Thatcher, carried on disgracefully with New Labour. The working people of the UK will always be expected to pay for the crimes of the ruling elite. They came for the private pensions, now they're after the public sector. Gideon and Dave and the rest of their old public schoolboy network are ok, they were millionaires before the 2008 collapse.

Remember we're all middle-class now

 

[Peteinblack]

What are the bankers' sacrificing?

This!

 

[mikeyjh]

Oh incidentally, public sector workers are also taxpayers.

Exactly - This govt greatest achievement is to exacerbate this artificial Public v Private sector divide, and the masses blindly accept it and follow it. In it together? My arse.

 

[Uncle C]

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.

The difference of course is that Joe Public is financing the public sector.

 

[Common as Mook]

This!

Define a "banker" for me then.

Your average Joe bank employee faces:

Freezes in pay
No job security
Lack of opportunity for progression
Redundencies

 

[Peteinblack]

The Tories are a party of the rich for the rich, always were always will be. Divide and conquer, from useful idiots who sing the praises of 'cuts' while the Tories drip just enough to the right people, to the rest of the great unwashed. This is the last hurrah for the neutered unions, it started with Thatcher, carried on disgracefully with New Labour. The working people of the UK will always be expected to pay for the crimes of the ruling elite. They came for the private pensions, now they're after the public sector. Gideon and Dave and the rest of their old public schoolboy network are ok, they were millionaires before the 2008 collapse.

Remember we're all middle-class now

Splendid critique, and brilliantly expressed. Agree 100%.

 

[El Presidente]

Hardly spunking is it. The banking sectorcontribute massively thru corporation tax.

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

Barclays paid £113m tax on £11,600m profit, a rate of 1%. I have no complaints if that is an equitable tax rate and I pay the same, do you?

 

[Common as Mook]

Splendid critique, and brilliantly expressed. Agree 100%.

 

[xenophon]

"Bankers" doesn't mean Tracy from Hassocks - straw man argument - the economic mess that "we're all in together" was started by the top boys (and it's always 'old boys') of the banking world. The low paid are now being cajoled to bail "us" out, even the 'Labour' leader doesn't want to see the public sector defend itself by striking.

But don't worry, the government will win this one too, I'm 100% sure of that

 

[sten_super]

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'.

The difference is that those people in the 'boardroom' are answerable to the shareholders; if the shareholders don't like their behaviour they can do something about it. The public sector is effectively funded by all of us (at least a significant part is); as such we all have strong opinions on what should be done and what constitutes 'waste' or 'overpayment'.

My personal view is that problems with pensions are largely to do with a lack of transparency; because pension systems are so different across companies/schemes people are unclear what is being given to whom. The introduction of a 'standard' scheme (say 5% contribution on an 'opt out' basis which is matched by 5% from the employer) across both the public and private sectors would make it clear that jobs could then be directly compared on a wage basis; this may mean that wage disparities between the public and private sector become more obvious and should 'compete' them away.

 

[Peteinblack]

Define a "banker" for me then.

Your average Joe bank employee faces:

Freezes in pay
No job security
Lack of opportunity for progression
Redundencies

Nice try, but you know very well I'm not talking about your local cashier in your high street bank, but the senior bankers in the City who are still paying themselves £millions.

This is from Monday's Daily Telegraph - or is that just Left-wing public sector propaganda too?
Sir Victor Blank rails against bankers' pay - Telegraph

 

[beorhthelm]

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

Balanced? its a site focusing on cuts, so has a strong agenda. this pension issue is f*** all to do with cuts, its a long term issue thats been knocked in to the long grass for too long.

As I understand it, the govt want to:
* Up personal contributions and reduce employer contributions
* Enforce a later retirement age.
* Change from a final to average salary final payout.

And they want to impose ALL of this on public sector workers immediately, no staggering, no gradual amendments to the contracts of new workers to reflect the new pension reality.

my understanding is the only part that is immediate is the increase of Teachers pension contributions. the changes from final to average salary and contributions will be for new employees in some areas, phased in for others (different areas of public sector have different arrangements). Enforement of later retirement age is not until 2018 and was already going to happen, the Tories have brought it back a year or two from the original plans. Teachers might be different on this point, dont know when the new retirement age will take effect, which highlights that the Teachers and publci sector unions actually have quite different issues at hand.

 

[adrian29uk]

The Tories are a party of the rich for the rich, always were always will be. Divide and conquer, from useful idiots who sing the praises of 'cuts' while the Tories drip just enough to the right people, to the rest of the great unwashed. This is the last hurrah for the neutered unions, it started with Thatcher, carried on disgracefully with New Labour. The working people of the UK will always be expected to pay for the crimes of the ruling elite. They came for the private pensions, now they're after the public sector. Gideon and Dave and the rest of their old public schoolboy network are ok, they were millionaires before the 2008 collapse.

Remember we're all middle-class now

Agreed, and the easiest way to make a change is to vote for someone else. I will never ever vote Labour again. I hate the other two worse than I hate palace. I want a government to penalise the people who have done wrong, not the people who are working hard, paying their taxes and doing the right thing and not using the public sector as a scapegoat.

I am afraid this is what the tories are all about. They screwed up in the 90's with their stupid poll tax and caused a riot, and they are slowly screwing up again. This time things are even worse.

 

[Peteinblack]

The difference of course is that Joe Public is financing the public sector.

And every time I buy something - I go into my local Tesco or pub - I am financing the private sector! Almost every penny I earn ends up back in the private sector (which I don't have a problem with)!!

Public sector organisations also spend a lot of their funds these days on buying in services from the private sector.

So if you keep attacking the public sector, you'll also damage the private sector at the same time!

 

[sten_super]

And every time I buy something - I go into my local Tesco or pub - I am financing the private sector! Almost every penny I earn ends up back in the private sector (which I don't have a problem with)!!

The difference, as I suspect you well know, is that you have a choice about who you fund in the private sector. But you (or I) have no choice when it comes to paying taxes, and you can't decide whether your taxes should be given to teachers, or to hard-working NHS midwives, or to a 'fat cat' local government boss.

 

[MikeySmall]

Dam teachers on strike......

Get in the real world you lazy scroats! Not only do you work a 6 hour day, 5 days a week, you get 12 weeks PAID holiday. You also get a pension - nice one!

Just compare this to the real world..... 40+ hour week and often a commute as well. Pension, only if we pay for it ourselves, and then we will get back what we have invested, rather than the future workforce guaranteeing what you get!

Moaning your low paid too? Does that include the tax credits Im sure most teachers are getting and in many cases some housing benefit too.

Oh and look now. You aint at work. I have to either pay for childcare or not work myself. Thats even less money in the coffers.

This coutry should kill tax credits at once. Kill housing beneit and scrap all public sector final salary pensions with immediate effect.

Then maybe we can afford to reduce VAT and income tax to 10% and give everyone a real incentive to work and save for their retirement, coz I will be dammed if I pay 40% tax for someone who works for 1200 hours a year to get paid for another 40 years after they stop working those 1200 hours a year!

Do you know any teachers? My partner who is a teacher leaves the house before 7 and gets back around 6:30pm and then normally does a couple of hours work each night. Id say at present she is more like doing a 60 hour week.

And she isn't on strike today.

 

[Twinkle Toes]

The Tories are a party of the rich for the rich, always were always will be. Divide and conquer, from useful idiots who sing the praises of 'cuts' while the Tories drip just enough to the right people, to the rest of the great unwashed. This is the last hurrah for the neutered unions, it started with Thatcher, carried on disgracefully with New Labour. The working people of the UK will always be expected to pay for the crimes of the ruling elite. They came for the private pensions, now they're after the public sector. Gideon and Dave and the rest of their old public schoolboy network are ok, they were millionaires before the 2008 collapse.

Remember we're all middle-class now

Top observations xen: I couldn't - & indeed didn't - put it better myself. Still, I'm sure the greedy apologists will carry on smuggly gaffawing into their Fonseca while the rest of us go to Aldi in a handcart.

This divide & rule lark seems to be working a treat doesn't it? What a surprise...