[tb]

Re: Strikes Revisited : Tue Nov 15, 2011 12:26 pm  

ah

Re: Strikes Revisited : Tue Nov 15, 2011 4:17 pm  

Big Graeme wrote:

Sorry I was using his methods of understanding a post.
For a year maybe not a 40 hour week.

That 40 hour week will include Sunday working and unsocial hours. My wage is a good one but sometimes I feel I am never at home( 13 continuous shifts), it doesn't fall into my lap.

Re: Strikes Revisited : Tue Nov 15, 2011 4:46 pm  

Mintball wrote:

I'm curious: should ordinary working people simple accept what's thrown at them and be prepared to suffer?

It's a fact that the income gap in the UK over the last 30 years has widened. Is this good? Is this acceptable? Do working people have to take something that those at the top don't have to?

We're all in this together, right?

Even the CBI, or some organisation like that says the pay gap is too large. I reckon people would be more inclined to lose some of their work benefits, if we really were all in it together. The fact is that MP's, Royal family, big company execs are still creaming it in and to carry on doing this, they need wage slaves to take less. If I were a public sector worker, I'd agree to the cuts just as long as the fat cats had the same percentage of their income taken off them.

Re: Strikes Revisited : Tue Nov 15, 2011 7:57 pm  

hopps wrote:

That 40 hour week will include Sunday working and unsocial hours. My wage is a good one but sometimes I feel I am never at home( 13 continuous shifts), it doesn't fall into my lap.

Oh aye I know that, every day but Xmas day on LU, stupid o'clock till well gone 1am too, the risk of a man under . And of course they walk into the job, do the training and just drive, no working your way up or anything.

Imagine anyone wanting a decent rate for Boxing Day! After all they can enjoy their (teetotal) Xmas day. I can remember when the tube didn't run on Boxing Day, we coped.

People bandy about headline wages and don't even think what goes in to making it up, and I still don't think £31k basic is a fantastic wage for a senior position in London.

Re: Strikes Revisited : Tue Nov 15, 2011 8:54 pm  

Big Graeme wrote:

People bandy about headline wages and don't even think what goes in to making it up, and I still don't think £31k basic is a fantastic wage for a senior position in London.

As a comparison, the Bank of England are advertising a starting salary of £31k for their graduate scheme, thats for graduates with no experience.

Re: Strikes Revisited : Tue Nov 15, 2011 9:11 pm  

sally cinnamon wrote:

As a comparison, the Bank of England are advertising a starting salary of £31k for their graduate scheme, thats for graduates with no experience.

But you need more than £31k just to live in London, that's why there's all them fat-cat cleaners in hospitals, living it large at taxpayers' expense

Re: Strikes Revisited : Tue Nov 15, 2011 10:54 pm  

cod'ead wrote:

But you need more than £31k just to live in London, that's why there's all them fat-cat cleaners in hospitals, living it large at taxpayers' expense

I did see on a graduate jobs forum somebody asking the question about that Bank of England scheme, saying "I like the scheme but the starting pay looks surprisingly low for London, does anybody know how quickly the increases are and what you could be earning in 5 years". I think some grads don't understand the current market.

Re: Strikes Revisited : Wed Nov 16, 2011 7:24 am  

sally cinnamon wrote:

I did see on a graduate jobs forum somebody asking the question about that Bank of England scheme, saying "I like the scheme but the starting pay looks surprisingly low for London, does anybody know how quickly the increases are and what you could be earning in 5 years". I think some grads don't understand the current market.

That's the "real word" for ya

Re: Strikes Revisited : Wed Nov 16, 2011 9:39 am  

tb wrote:

The funding for all pension schemes, including the final salary schemes of, say FTSE100 directors which deliver real gold plated plated pensions with accrual rates of around 1/20ths (ie work for 10 years to earn a pension of half your final salry) comes from the people who pay for the good or services being produced. Whenever you buy anything, from the private sector or from the public sector, though taxation, part of what you're paying for is the labour cost of producing those goods or services, and that includes pensions.

And, to reiterate, public service workers are taxpayers too.


The 2007 reforms addressed this.

In the NHSPS through a 'cap and share' arrangement setting a fixed limit on employers' contributions and ensuring that any future increase in costs through longevity would be met by increases in employees' contributions. The current government has abolished this.

In the LGPS, the mechanism is the three-yearly valuation of the scheme, exactly the same as in the private sector.

Yes it can. It chooses not to.

instead it would rather tax public service workers for paying into a pension scheme while talking about a 10% tax cut for those wtih an income greater than £150k a year

It's worth noting that the approx £4bn the government wants to raise from the tax on pensions contributions - and that's all it is – is equal to the amount cut from the tax receipts by reducing the top rate of corporation tax. And it pales into insignificance compared to the £20bn lost to the exchequer through tax evasion and avoidance.

As I pointed out earlier, the costs of public service pensions are falling - down 10% as a result of the 2007/8 reforms, down another 15% as a result of Gideon's unlilateral switch from RPI to CPI for annual increases of pensions in payment.

As Hutton said: public sector pensions are sustainable - 'affordability' is a political choice. Have a listen to Maude floundering on this very question in the R4 interview I linked to.

The companies that took contributions holidays when funds were in surplus do have the profitability to support defined benefit schemes - and indeed maintain truly cushy final salary schemes for their executives. They simply chose not to pay more when the consequences of their contributions holidays helped produce deficits (and like surpluses, deficits are cyclical and depend on the state of the stock market - and only need addressing over 20 years, in law), instead shifting the burden onto the taxpayer, who will have to pick up the cost of post-retirement benefits for workers denied a decent pension by their employers.

Out of curiosity, do you have any idea what a pensions fund deficit actually is?

In simplistic terms you take a scheme - look at its potential liabilities based on earnings growth and life expectancy of its participents comparae that to its current assets and the potential growth of those assets from its various income streams - the difference is the surplus/deficit of the scheme. This is what actuaries earn their money for.


Maybe you could provide evidence of all these companies that have taken an extended pension holiday - we are not talking about paying in for 20 years and having a year off we are talking about extended pension holidays - Royal Mail apart I doubt you will be able produce a handful out of all the companies that have pension schemes.

You are the only person I know that think final salary schemes are affordable - maybe you could share your knowledge with the wider world because you are in a minority of one. To maintain these schemes companies are having to top up the deficit - the company I work for put £20m yes £20m into the pension scheme this year. To do that you need to have that amount of surplus cash - in these times of working capital squeeze that is not something most companies have. In doing that it means you have less funds to invest in capital projects that - if you believe Keynes - is what drives growth. In fact what you are doing is sacrificing the future to cover the costs of the past.

Re: Strikes Revisited : Wed Nov 16, 2011 9:46 am  

Big Graeme wrote:

31k for a 40 hour week? Sign me up...

Also a 12 hour shift for a tube driver? What planet are you on?

Maybe you should re-train - currently a tube driver earns £46k a year that is £22/hour so for an 8 hour shift that is £176, at quadruple time that is £707.

As I said simple maths