J30 strike: NUT, PCS, UCU, ATL call for a general strike on June 30th

[BigTom]

I agree. The increase in retirement age would be considerable though. Just amending the age alone would be politically difficult, not sure what the figure would need to be but it would easily be 70+. Anyone fancy telling the country they need to work till they're, say 75? Anyone fancy working till they're 75? Would you vote for a party that did that?

If there's been no acturial review of teachers' pensions, how can you state those numbers? I think people are more or less accepting 68, I reckon 70 would be ok. I have no idea what would need to happen to balance it within itself. If the numbers are not acceptable then the balance needs to come from elsewhere, and that means talking about a huge redistribution of income levels imo.

 

[BigTom]

Well don't forget the employer at the end is the Government, which means the employers money solely obtained from the taxpayers.
But you're right the subject is more nuanced than my short post. The vast bulk of the cost is borne by the taxpayer. A good article can be found at http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/stephanieflanders/2010/06/some_of_the_truth_about_public.html

Yeah conceded, didn't think that one through fully. I might come back and comment on the article but she mentioned some figures about the total cost of pensions as a % of gdp frising from 1.7% now to 1.9% towards the end of the decade and back to 1.7% by 2050 or so.. I wish they would source these things, I'd love to know more about this figure - is this from the hutton review?

 

[London_Calling]

Lets not forget part of the context for this is on going commitments to Trident and overseas wars. - the UK is not so pushed into a corner, there are still choices here.

Also, just to make the simple point, civil servants are cheap employees for 30-40 years (the Gov takes back a chunk in tax from that which it pays (wages) in the first place from taxation).

 

[Henno]

Can you respond to the part of my post you ignored please Henno? The part about there not having been an actuarial review of teachers' pensions? If it's all about protecting them and making them sustainable this is absolutely essential.

Why haven't they done it? Come on, let's hear your justification. If this is really a technocratic consideration that would have been the first thing they would have done. Which suggests their motivations are very different from those you are ascribing to them.

An actuarial review of what exactly? The contributions are used to pay today's payments, they are not invested. They aren't used to buy annuities.

And don't you think it might be a good idea for those at the very top, those who earn obscene amounts and either do nothing at all or play a destructive role in the real economy, to contribute? And not just to public sector pensions either.

Yes

 

[ymu]

I don't think this is true. I've been in the public sector for the last couple of years and I definitely pay into a pension, as does my employer - I assumed that any pension I get will come out of the pot created by everyone paying into the pension scheme. Backed and guaranteed by taxpayers yes, but not directly funded by.. State pensions are funded by taxpayers of course, but are public sector pensions?
If it was just about age of retirement, I don't think there'd be an argument about it, but the combination of changes in increasing payments, switching from RPI to CPI and changing from a final salary to career average along with raising the age of retirement is about much more than the ageing population - which is indeed a problem that needs to be resolved.



Just as a matter of pedantry this really isn't true. In the case of pensions, public sector workers and employees pay into pension schemes. More broadly, governments have lots of investments and often own companies (eg: Royal Mail) which generate revenue for the government. This is most visible in countries like Norway or Qatar, who have used oil to create sovereign investment funds rather than spunking it up the wall.

Employee and employer contributions account for all but £4bn, which is PAYG, and less than the amount lost to error by DWP and HMRC.

Propaganda-swallowing mugs don't know this.

 

[SpineyNorman]

An actuarial review of what exactly? The contributions are used to pay today's payments, they are not invested. They aren't used to buy annuities.

So what? No final salary pension scheme uses a set cash fund to purchase an annuity. Just one example of one of the reasons why a review is essential: An actuarial review would project the costs of maintaining the existing scheme for both current claimants and those not yet retired. Without this there is no way of knowing whether the existing system is in fact unsustainable. And, as has been mentioned before, some of the other funds in fact contain a surplus.

Yes

So why argue for the race to the bottom then? You may not be openly arguing for this but it's implicit in everything you type.

 

[BigTom]

Employee and employer contributions account for all but £4bn, which is PAYG, and less than the amount lost to error by DWP and HMRC.

Propaganda-swallowing mugs don't know this.

So the contributions me and my employer pay, do these go into a pension fund, which is held separately to the pot of tax revenue, and that fund may be used to make investments, the return on which is used to pay current pensions and (in all) is coming up around £4bn short (although some funds, like the NHS one, is actually running at a surplus at this point in time)?
I don't know a lot about the actual setup of public sector pensions.

 

[ymu]

Yeah, basically. Richard Murphy has some useful blog articles on this. www.taxresearch.org.uk

 

[Guineveretoo]

Just to complicate matters, some public sector pensions are "funded" schemes (so, could be actuarially reviewed) and some are "unfunded" (so there is nothing to review).

The Local Government Pension Scheme and the Universities Pension Scheme are both FUNDED. So, individuals and employers both pay an amount of money each payday, which goes into a fund which is carefully managed and which pays out according to its rules.

The civil service, the teachers, firefighters, police and health workers are all in UNFUNDED schemes. So, the contributions which workers pay just go straight back to the Government, who then directly pay the pensions.

This document might help inform - http://www.tuc.org.uk/extras/publicsectorpensions.pdf - although it looks like it may be a little bit out of date now.

 

[ymu]

The PAYG element is expected to fall to £2.5bn over the next few years too, as the baby boomers pass on and fewer lifetime p/s workers become eligible.

If they wanna give us back pay on the shit wages we accepted in return, that'd be OK.

 

[Henno]

So what? No final salary pension scheme uses a set cash fund to purchase an annuity. Just one example of one of the reasons why a review is essential: An actuarial review would project the costs of maintaining the existing scheme for both current claimants and those not yet retired. Without this there is no way of knowing whether the existing system is in fact unsustainable. And, as has been mentioned before, some of the other funds in fact contain a surplus.

Reviews of the system, the future sustainability are done. If you haven't already done so, then the link I posted earlier contains a good summary of the situation. I'll re-post the link here
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/stephanieflanders/2010/06/some_of_the_truth_about_public.html

So why argue for the race to the bottom then? You may not be openly arguing for this but it's implicit in everything you type.

Given a free choice I'd raise the retirement age for everyone i.e. return to the kind of situation we had when state pensions were first created; decent pensions for those near the end of their lives. However I also recognise that that would be deeply unpopular and no party is likely to suggest such a rise in retirement age.
Politically then, it has to be a combination of raising the retirement age, raising contributions and lowering pension payments. Unless your arguing for no change at all (which is blinkered to reality) then all were discussing is the relative mix of those three parameters. Its not a race to the bottom, just a pragmatic reaction to the reality of longer life expectancies.

 

[_angel_]

Given a free choice I'd raise the retirement age for everyone i.e. return to the kind of situation we had when state pensions were first created; decent pensions for those near the end of their lives. However I also recognise that that would be deeply unpopular and no party is likely to suggest such a rise in retirement age.
Politically then, it has to be a combination of raising the retirement age, raising contributions and lowering pension payments. Unless your arguing for no change at all (which is blinkered to reality) then all were discussing is the relative mix of those three parameters. Its not a race to the bottom, just a pragmatic reaction to the reality of longer life expectancies.

I'm sure it will get raised and raised. The problem is it is going to contribute to youth unemployment everytime you do this, and it's already a problem. The second thing is the people championing the rise in pensionable age are those in relatively comfy jobs, who get to arrange their own working environment to some extent. If you've been doing a manual job for 40 years, the chances are your body is just knackered. Also, not everyone will live as long as others, something else that is hard to predict!

 

[stethoscope]

Ed Balls can fuck the fuck off too.

 

[ymu]

Manual workers also have lower life expectancies, so less time getting paid, or to enjoy it. Work them 'til they drop, eh?

 

[stethoscope]

If you've been doing a manual job for 40 years, the chances are your body is just knackered. Also, not everyone will live as long as others, something else that is hard to predict!

Quite. My father has been in engineering since he left school at 15. He can just about cope with 4 day weeks now and despite not really having enough money to retire particularly comfortably, he's going to at 65 anyway because otherwise he'll end up in his grave before being able to enjoy at least some hard earned retirement.

 

[stethoscope]

And not helped by either government, or the banking and 'investment' industry over the years - opt in, opt out, opt back in again - take out private pension schemes because of fears that the old age pension would cease to be by the time he retired that promised everything and failed to deliver, etc.

 

[SpineyNorman]

Reviews of the system, the future sustainability are done. If you haven't already done so, then the link I posted earlier contains a good summary of the situation. I'll re-post the link here
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/stephanieflanders/2010/06/some_of_the_truth_about_public.html

I'm talking specifically about the university schemes, and for the national schemes there has been no actuarial review since 2007. This is fact. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the irrelevant link you just posted. These schemes have managed fund, and so if it was all about making the pensions sustainable they'd need to conduct a review. I find the fact that they haven't highly suspicious, since if they did a review and found that they really were unsustainable there could be no argument.

Given a free choice I'd raise the retirement age for everyone i.e. return to the kind of situation we had when state pensions were first created; decent pensions for those near the end of their lives. However I also recognise that that would be deeply unpopular and no party is likely to suggest such a rise in retirement age.
Politically then, it has to be a combination of raising the retirement age, raising contributions and lowering pension payments. Unless your arguing for no change at all (which is blinkered to reality) then all were discussing is the relative mix of those three parameters. Its not a race to the bottom, just a pragmatic reaction to the reality of longer life expectancies.

Given a free choice I'd abolish capitalism and have society run on the basis of mutual aid, where the elderly are looked after in recognition of the contribution they made to society when they were younger. However, I realise this is simply not possible right now.

Politically then, I would have a decent state pension for all funded by a genuinely progressive tax system.

Advocates of the race to the bottom always couch their arguments in terms of realism. You're not alone there.

 

[SpineyNorman]

I don't know about what's happening at universities elsewhere but at Sheffield the vice chancellor and others at that level (sorry, don't know the titles) have kept their final salary schemes. Those on the higher teaching grades are being moved to a career average scheme, which isn't anywhere near as good as what they signed up for but at least there are guaranteed benefits.

The lower grade staff are being moved to a money purchase scheme and are set to lose in the region of 2/3 of their pension.

Which doesn't really fit with this part of Danny Alexander's statement:

Between these two, I believe there is an indisputable case for reforming public sector pensions. They must be affordable, not just now but in the decades to come; and reform must be sustainable and correct the huge unfairness on the taxpayer and on low-earning public sector workers that exists under the current arrangements; reform must ensure that those in the public sector continue to receive among the best, if not the best, pensions available.

 

[Hocus Eye.]

Ed Balls is no friend of the unions. Nor is the Labour Party, although some top union bureaucrats like to think so. These industrial disputes are the last chance to fight neo-liberal economic policies. Sadly it is not a just case of union members and supporters being opposed to Tory policies, but also of those of the so-called opposition. Ed Balls might as well be in the coalition as take his current line about the unions. Labour set up the current set of policies which the Tories are developing further - including attacking pensions, so finds it hard to argue against them.

 

[BigTom]

Don't think I posted this, UNISON council workers in Birmingham voted yes and will strike on the 30th, over pay and conditions.. there will now be 10 demos from 10am-11am around Birmingham, all feeding to the main strike rally at 12noon
http://birminghamagainstthecuts.wordpress.com/upcoming-actions/june-30th-strike-day-activity/

There is a public meeting called by the unions on tuesday 28th at the council house at 7:30pm (one of the "unite the resistance" series being held around the country)

 

[trevhagl]

what would fuck them up more than anything is a work to rule and strict overtime ban - i know a teacher who does about 10 hours unpaid overtime every week

 

[trevhagl]

Quite. My father has been in engineering since he left school at 15. He can just about cope with 4 day weeks now and despite not really having enough money to retire particularly comfortably, he's going to at 65 anyway because otherwise he'll end up in his grave before being able to enjoy at least some hard earned retirement.

this is one of the worst things the 3 Tory parties have came out with, absolutely disgusting

 

[grogwilton]

what would fuck them up more than anything is a work to rule and strict overtime ban - i know a teacher who does about 10 hours unpaid overtime every week

That would have no economic impact and little media impact, and it would be very hard for unions to monitor who was actually taking part in the action. It would also have a very detrimental effect on kids' education. Worst of all options IMO.

 

[_angel_]

That would have no economic impact and little media impact, and it would be very hard for unions to monitor who was actually taking part in the action. It would also have a very detrimental effect on kids' education. Worst of all options IMO.

Yep. No one would notice but the kids would suffer.

 

[trevhagl]

it's a very awkward situation because the govt just don't care whether oik's kids get educated or not....just like they don't care if someone gets their dole payments or not

 

[dylans]

it's a very awkward situation because the govt just don't care whether oik's kids get educated or not....just like they don't care if someone gets their dole payments or not

They should just go on strike and stay on strike indefinitely until they win. It doesn't have to affect kids education either. Any good parent knows that home life should be stimulating and educational anyway, so all it takes is for parents to ensure their kids play and home life is structured around educational activities. I do this anyway. I estimate that my kid learns at least as much at home as he does at school. If there were an indefinate teachers strike I would just structure it more to take up the slack.

 

[treelover]

'Trade unions and anti-cuts campaigners plan summer of protest

Activists meet days before strike over public sector pensions to plan concerted response to government's austerity programme'

'Trade union leaders and anti-cuts campaigners are to hold talks on Tuesday to hammer out plans for a summer of industrial action and protest against the government's austerity programme.

Members of the direct action group UK Uncut and campaigners from the Coalition of Resistance are among those who have been invited to the TUC headquarters in London to meet the deputy general secretary, Frances O'Grady.'



Pretty amazing really, can't think of any other time in history, where 'activists' have been invited by the TUC to discuss tactics..





http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/jun/27/trade-unions-anti-cuts-protest

 

[treelover]

Guardian strike blog here

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/jun/27/teachers-strike-public-sector-pensions-live

 

[_angel_]

They should just go on strike and stay on strike indefinitely until they win. It doesn't have to affect kids education either. Any good parent knows that home life should be stimulating and educational anyway, so all it takes is for parents to ensure their kids play and home life is structured around educational activities. I do this anyway. I estimate that my kid learns at least as much at home as he does at school. If there were an indefinate teachers strike I would just structure it more to take up the slack.

You're lucky. My kids would suffer because taking 2 x autistic kids out isn't really possible, that's why the summer hols are such a pain for them (I think summer hols start to drag for most kids, in the end). Not that I don't support a strike. An indefinite one would quickly work against them, tho, I think.

 

[treelover]

Inspiring Uk Uncut video. the kids are alright...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ucQ48ScFH1E#at=193