On 31 Dec 2013 at 8:52am Rosiecheeks wrote:
While I was Xmas food shopping in Asda there was a welcoming party of firemen dressed for work holding collecting buckets, but collecting for themselves, and now they are on strike tonight. Who do they think they are. They are no more deserving than all the nurses that work long hours, they don't strike. They are going well down in my estimations.
On 31 Dec 2013 at 9:03am bastian wrote:
I fear you may be one of the many people who just don't understand what is going on in this country at the moment. The fire fighters collecting buckets are for the widows of fire fighters killed during duty and the strike action is because they are being asked to pay more into their pension (out of a wage that hasn't risen in years) to recieve less on retirement. They do a dangerous and vital job, dealing with things you cannot imagine. You cannot equate their job with nursing, it isn't the same but never the less important, and if you still don't understand, there used to be a time when your house could burn down because you had no fire insurnace (see sun alliance). People only strike when they are not being listened to and are being ridden rough shod over.
On 31 Dec 2013 at 9:21am Annette Curtin-Twitcher wrote:
Firefighters go to work every day knowing they may be required to risk their lives to save others. Their job is difficult, dangerous, physically very demanding, and involves dealing with horrors most on here would struggle to imagine.
They deserve every penny they earn and much more besides, and the high level of physical strength and fitness required means they can't reasonably be expected to work until their late 60's like a desk jockey can.
I'd happily pay another 1% in tax to maintain their pension rights. They're worth it.
On 31 Dec 2013 at 9:30am Rosiecheeks wrote:
They are not the only workers that do a dangerous job. Not many workers have had a pay rise in ages. Teresa May messed about with the police wages and pensions, they didn't put people in danger by striking at known busy times.
On 31 Dec 2013 at 9:58am Country Boy wrote:
Agreed, when they are called into action they earn their money. However, many have enough spare time to hold down a second job - window cleaning, taxi driving etc. Privately they are quite happy with their lot
On 31 Dec 2013 at 11:08am p.c wrote:
Lots of us will have to work longer now . They will not get my support . Look at the n h s people there work bloody hard
On 31 Dec 2013 at 12:15pm Michelle wrote:
I feel that people should educate themselves,with clear factual information before withdrawing their support for the work we carry out on a daily/nightly basis.
This is whats happening to your firefighters..
Increased costs up to £4,000 a year for most.
Pension agreements have been ripped up.
Firefighters in their 50's are facing dismissal simply for getting older.
Our government is refusing to negotiate.
On 31 Dec 2013 at 12:23pm Firefighter wrote:
Thank you to those that have supported us. Most people do not want to see 60 year old firefighters trying to save them.
We are being asked to pay 3% on top of the old 11% pension payment. I will have to work 5 more years and if I am unable to continue till 60. I will face the sack and for each year I go before 60, I lose 5% more of my pension. We do not take striking lightly. For the last 2 years we have been trying to get the government to listen to the facts. Also in the next 2-3 years you will see the Service decimated by cuts. Station closing and firefighters losing their jobs. Good luck
On 31 Dec 2013 at 1:18pm bastian wrote:
Thank you, does that answer your question Rosiecheeks. It isn't a very rosie world at the moment.
On 31 Dec 2013 at 2:50pm p.c wrote:
Well if i and other like me may do not work till 68 we will not get a full pension . So you firefighters are not so bad off .
On 31 Dec 2013 at 4:26pm bastian wrote:
I think you don't know how it works p.c; no one can claim state pension until 68, but an LGPS pension can be claimed if you retire when unable to safely do your job, ie police fire and nurses. For instance, these jobs are very physical, they take a toll on the workers and those key workers are supposed to be able to run, lift and take action fast, is that going to be possible at 68? unlikely, so they can draw from their top up pension that they pay into all their working years,BUT, this is under attack by a government that cannot see that the peopel who work in these jobs are not the same as pen pushers (or key board pushers as they are now). These peopel are not known as KEY workers for nothing.
On 31 Dec 2013 at 4:51pm skeptical green wrote:
With increasing life expectancy the problem of how to retire emergency service workers is going to gwt worse. There will never be enough desk jobs for all the bobbies paramedics and firefighters who hit say 55 and are no longer fit enough for the physical demands of frontline work. The FBU recognises this and wants to negotiate long term plans the Government just wants to impose their solution which treats older workers as expended commodities. I've just come back from Germany where both the CDU and the SPD agree to inclusive discussions with trade unions on this stuff to find a socially acceptable solution. One idea under discussion is for a part pension to be paid together with sponsored retraining and then an escalation in the pension when the key worker gets to normal retirement age. I do not see why we cannot have grown up discussions of the same sort in this country as the FBU wants. There again this is the same neo con government which tried to make lots of soldiers 72 hours before their pension entitlements kicked in. People should recognise that the Tories are doing what Milton Friedman advised which is to use the excuse of coping with any disaster either natural or economic as an excuse for dismantling the structures of post war welfare state moderation of capitalism.
On 31 Dec 2013 at 4:53pm skeptical green wrote:
Last post Should have said tried to sack soldiers
On 31 Dec 2013 at 6:28pm what ever! wrote:
I can tell you I do a very physical job, I work in ALL weathers, DO NOT get sick pay, DO NOT get holiday pay, if I want a good pension, it comes out of my own pocket. I may not put my life in danger, but if you compared my work rate to a fire person, I can assure you the fire person would NOT stack up. most of them are part time and even the full time ones most of the time are in the gym or playing table tennis. STOP WINGING! if you don't like your deal, change your career.
On 31 Dec 2013 at 6:32pm Clifford wrote:
You forgot to tell you what it is you do what ever.
On 31 Dec 2013 at 6:42pm what ever wrote:
I,m a landscaper, self employed, so if I don't work I don't earn. and I pride myself on working bloody hard, as any of my clients would tell you. but I am fed up with hearing fire fighter, teachers, nurses, police, and any other public sector workers whinging on about their deals. after I have payed out my over heads, I am lucky to clear £8ph. then if I want a week off I have to save the money to be able to loose a weeks pay, if I am sick.... hard luck I don't earn, pension.... yeah I wish
On 1 Jan 2014 at 12:04pm bastian wrote:
what ever I would like to inform you, and all the other winging self employed people who post this same set of comments on this forum, that MOST poeple are not self employed, there for have NO freedoms and have to live woithin the company rules and pay. All public sector employees pay into their pension schemes, they are not free. Sick pay and holiday pay for the employed (within a company or organisation) was fought for by our working ancestors and they went to prison for our rights which we are now glibly allowing this government to axe and worse still, they have made us divided so we fight over petty things rather than fight together so everyone can have a fair deal.
On 1 Jan 2014 at 12:08pm bastian wrote:
and may I add that if the public sector don't stand up for the rights of everyone, then thses b*s*ards have won, the race to the bottom has made the fight more inperitive,as what was once a low wage with the added bonus of a pension is now considered to be lush compared to the private sector NOT because the public sector has been driven up, but because the private sector has been driven DOWN.
On 1 Jan 2014 at 4:43pm Rosiecheeks wrote:
Well done all you self employed, those who have the gumption to not to rely on the private sector for jobs. If you self employed you have to get up and work your balls off so you can pay bills and eat. And bet you have pay to go to the gym as you won't have one provided for you. And you can't strike. They think they so macho!
On 1 Jan 2014 at 5:24pm what ever wrote:
bastian, please get your facts right. ALL public sector people DO NOT pay their own money into pensions, I have teachers and fire persons and police within my family, they may top them up with their own money, but they get one anyway. you mention freedoms enlighten me what they are. half of my hours are Unpaid. I live within the rules of my clients, ie when to be there, how long it takes ect ect ect. public sector people get a bloody good deal. they should suck it up and get on with it like the rest of us have to.
On 1 Jan 2014 at 5:31pm The Old Mayor wrote:
Self Employed or Employed you must have learned by now that we must each take responsibility for our own old age. Successive Governments have changed the goal posts and rules within all types of pension schemes, making them completely unreliable. Politicians come and go, with alarming regularity (which is really a good thing) however, they leave us to pick up the pieces and a pension pot is with us for a lifetime, probably why actual bricks and mortar stand the test of time, although that's not even guaranteed. The banks aren't completely safe either, cash is virtually worthless as an investment. There isn't an easy answer anymore. But we are all in the same boat.
On 1 Jan 2014 at 5:39pm what ever wrote:
how right you are "old mayor. if I ever earn enough (I this day and age, the margins are very tight) I will invest it wisely. :-)
On 2 Jan 2014 at 3:30pm bastian wrote:
old mayor, most people would love to have a pension when they get old, but they spend alot of time on here berrating people who are actually fighting to pay their pension,( and at the rate they were employed on, rather than having their contracts mucked about with by successive governments.) The problem is that governments have sold private employees short by not making law the provision of an equal pension right like the public sector LGPS scheme (which actually works), instead all they have done is make a divide in the populus so they will fight over it rather than teach themselves to demand what is their right, and the unions would protect it for them as well but the government (including the Labour party) despise unions, they don't want the populous to have employment rights, (that would get in the way of capital). If you are self employed you put yourself outside the employment laws, but there is still a union for you which would give you access to legal help for those nasty clients who don't pay up. I think many people are now confused as to what is legally their rights in the workplace (mostly because they don't have a union), they now dispise people who are in unions who want the employment rights to remain set in stone.
Whatever; Not all public sector workers are on anything as well paid as teachers or firemen. The reason most companies won't set up pension schemes is because they are supposed to be arranged as the LGPS is, wheer the company pays the higher contribution, that's how it used to work in the old days, but now it cuts into the profits so they jsut don't offer it any more. Years ago it could be expected from a job, not any more.
On 2 Jan 2014 at 4:10pm bastian wrote:
If you are employed on a contract to work certain hours, at a certain pay and with defined conditions layed out in the contract, and you work for ten years on that contract, it is not OK for your employer to just move the goal posts when they feel like it without your consent, or without the discussion with the body who defends your employment rights having their input.
If you want to know why fire men are striking, that is why.
If you find yourself in that same situation and you just let it all happen to you, then you are part of the problem whe it comes to retaining the employment rights your working ancestors faught for. You will be one of the many soon to be forced to work with out any job security, without pay rights, sick pay, holiday entitlement or the right to strike if your employer dismisses you.
On 2 Jan 2014 at 5:20pm Local wrote:
I think someone would have been very fortunate to work on an unchanged contract for ten years. The world is a changing place - not necessarily for the better, i agree - and so everyone has to accept change. Or make their own change and do a different job. Ahh, of course, by doing that some may find that they are already very fortunate to be in a job that they previously thought to be unfair and poorly rewarded.
On 2 Jan 2014 at 7:25pm what ever wrote:
I worked for a company for over 15 years doing shift work, during that time our hours and pay changed on many occasions. some people tried to get us to join unions,(I refused along with many others). "fat cat" union bosses will gladly take your subs but cannot do anything that you cannot do yourself. if you are employed by ANYONE they can change ANY part of your contract giving 3 months notice, if you refuse to sign the new term you effectively make yourself unemployable within that Co. if you are a skilled person, your best defence is to give someone else the benefit of your skills and "walk". give them to someone who appreciates you. if every body done this the firms that "abuse their staff" would have a very weak skill base. you are in charge of your own destiny.
On 3 Jan 2014 at 12:26pm bastian wrote:
I'm sorry you don't seem to understand that you have been fooled into thinking that way -whatever, you could have joined, had your pay kept as it was and kept your hours, but you chose not to on the basis that "fat cats union bosses" are paid to much, rather than you [benevolent] employer, who was taking home far more than you and to incresae their own pay pulled yours down. Can you see a difference between those two comparrisons?
I have worked in the same job for over 20 years, it is low paid public sector and I have see hundreds of changes imposed on our conditions and work practices, all the while with a whip on our *rses and the national papers berrating us as poor quality. Not to mention, someone said on here, poeple should leave their jobs and seek higher paid work else where if they don't like changes-Has it ever occurre to you that if all the disgruntled public sector workers pulled out and let in easier to fool employees (those who don't care if they get mucked about), Britains infastructure would collapse-because we are your infastructure. Highly qualified and capable people (that's nurses,firemen, police, coroners, technicians, army, ambulence drivers, administrators of local government etc) deserve to be treated properly, or your safety is at stake.
On 3 Jan 2014 at 1:36pm what ever wrote:
bastian, you say I have been "fooled" then go on to say you have worked in the same job for over 20 years with hundreds of changes "imposed" on you. and you have done nothing about it. mmm who is the fool?. I understand the importance of the firemen, police, nurses, ect ect. but when the people go into these jobs, they go in with their eyes wide open, not for the pay or conditions but as a vocation. but it seems that once they are in the job all they do is whinge. a nurse does not become a nurse for the pay and conditions, a soldier does not join the army for the pension scheme and working conditions. every person has the choice in their hands. and the easier fooled employees you mention probably wouldn't be fool enough to take a job they didn't want anyway. nobody is a fool here. some take a job for money, some for the conditions, and some because they want to do the job. again if they don't like it. move on, as the reasons they joined the job in the first place have gone. let someone who wants the job do it. I for one would not want be treated by a nurse who's heart is not true to the job, or have a fireman who was more interested in his pay packet than his "choice" of vocation.
On 3 Jan 2014 at 2:05pm bastian wrote:
people work in the public sector because they believe in looking after the wellfare of other people. They do that job very well. Originally, they joined the public sector to work on a lower wage than that of the private sector but with the bonus that they would have a pension. Now over time, and successive governments, the pay has stood still or dropped, and the pension is now under attack. Private pay and conditions have lowered because of an attack on the unions, and now those people who work in private employment are attcking public sector workers for having [or trying to retain] the pension they had as part of their employment package. It is important that you can see that if you want to retain good staff, you need to look after your employees, that is what the public sector used to do, but the race to the bottom has truely shot that to hell. As you say, you do not want to be helped by someone who treats his job as just that, a job, well firemen and nurses also need to live on what they earn, and it isn't a huge amount. If evreyone was paid minimum wage you would get a crap service for evrything in the public sector, as it is you get a brilliant deal, and you are missing the real problem which is that the bankers are still raking in your cash and handing it out to unsafe investments all over the country, backed by your government. We will have another economic crash in the next few years if we allow the really rich to continue running things the way they are-meanwhile we argue about whether the firemen should put up with being jerked around.
I work in my low paid job because I believe in it, I strike when I have had enough.
On 4 Jan 2014 at 12:30am Local wrote:
Public sector pay soared under Labour, and in many cases overtook the private sector.
And as for your sweeping statement that "people work in the public sector because they believe in looking after the wellfare of other people. They do that job very well." is as non-sensical as me saying that "every self-employed builder is an angel".
Good God.
On 4 Jan 2014 at 11:21am bastian wrote:
I'm sorry, that is just a blatant lie, public sector pay did not go up under labour, mostly because new labour are tory.
On 4 Jan 2014 at 1:36pm bastian wrote:
I am so sorry you see people standing up for working rights as winging, it is indicative of a populus that has been encouraged to see the unions as medalling rather than there to support workers and the daily mail headline rubbish that is spewed by the very people that the unions were set up to help in the first place. I don't think any of you will be happy until full servitude is back in place, slavery perhaps.
On 4 Jan 2014 at 1:46pm RosiecheeksRosiecheeks wrote:
The fire fighters are very lucky. They go to work their shift. When there are no call outs they have a gym, play table tennis, play cards and even have a superb kitchen to cook in. When they have finished their shift, they have time to have another job, ie window cleaning. Seems like a good little number to me!
On 4 Jan 2014 at 3:56pm what ever wrote:
unions solve nothing, they are there for the militant mind people who are unwilling to move with the times, and are in fear of change. what has a strike ever achieved? if people go on strike the Co that they work for become unable to compete in a competitive market. their clients will take there custom elsewhere, eventually rendering that Co redundant along with the work force. the "fat cat" union boss wont be out of a job. he will still be paying his mortgage while the person called out on strike is not being paid and then loses his job because the Co is forced to close. "yeah come on bros lets strike". it didn't work in the 60s and it certainly wont work in 2014.
On 4 Jan 2014 at 5:29pm Southover Queen wrote:
All of which merely goes to show that you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about, "what ever". A strike is the ultimate sanction of a workforce and is the very last thing they want to do. A good union boss values a constructive relationship with the company boss and vice versa. In fact, the most successful manufacturing economy in Europe - Germany - is heavily unionised, but without this silly "them and us" attitude fostered by a right wing press.
On 4 Jan 2014 at 8:27pm what ever wrote:
well southover queen, it might be the "last thing they want to do",that is not in question. the result of a strike however is. a strike is very damaging on both sides and there are no winners. they don't work. and I do have an idea, as I have been there and seen a multi national Co that was trading for over 100 years brought to its knees and eventually take the whole lot to india. you cannot compare our economy to that of Germany. it may work over there, it will never work in Britain. again may I remind you of the scenes in the 60s, what has it achieved in the last 40 years. we used to be one the major manufacturing economies in the world, now we are a mere shadow. and people think striking is a way to get their point across. may I remind you that a strike by our steel manufacturing only last year very nearly took it to the point of shut down, 100s of people would have been directly affected and 1000s indirectly. I think it is you that knows not what they are on about. history shows it does not work.
On 4 Jan 2014 at 10:01pm Southover Queen wrote:
History shows that we have an appalling history of poor management and awful relations with our workforces, I would suggest. Why are you so quick to assume that the failure of British industry is down to union activity? Isn't there a faint possibility that the decline is at least in part to do with poor management practices? That, I'm afraid, is why the German example is one which is well worth studying: they are employers who respect their workforce and wish to communicate with them rather than engage in games of brinkmanship.
There are alternative points of view to yours, you know, and that's all I'm doing: offering an alternative. Companies with good relations with their workers (and that often means some kind of union, because that's a far more efficient way of doing it) do much better than those who treat their workforce as pawns to be moved around at will and pay them a pittance.
If I challenge you it's because everything you say suggests very strongly to me that you've never been a union member or part of a unionised workforce. You're just trotting out the hoary old excuses which end up polarising the argument, and which betray no interest in listening to and learning from the people who actually do the work.