Be Excellent To Each Other

So, Wednesday will see the biggest single day of strike action we've seen since the General Strikes of the 1970s.

Are folks here striking? Supporting the strikers/Hating on the strikers? Going to be disrupted by the loss of public services, or not at all considering it's just one day?

For me, I don't forsee that it'll have any impact on me personally, from a perspective of unavailable services, and in fact I think that's a little sad. Good luck to 'em, frankly.

I'll be striking. Picketting as well with hopefully a 'Down with this sort of thing' placard. I'm thinking of knocking up a Phoenix Wright one shouting "OBJECTION!"

May you suddenly discover an obscure reference book you desperately need on Wednesday morning, Craster.

I suspect the only impact it'll have on me is that my Twitter feed will be full of crap for a day.

Man, I remember books.

I will be striking, seeing as I am in Unison.

The fact that I am ineligible for the pensions that they're bleating about and disagree with the strike and the level of pensions quite strongly will not stand in the way of me having a jolly nice day off and visiting my brother and his family.

The metro, despite being a mire of terrible writing, did a fun illustration today to demonstrate how much private sector workers would have to contribute to private pensions to get the benefits afforded by public sector workers. IT WAS HIGHLY INTERESTING.

I work for a public sector organisation, and will not be striking. My pay has been frozen for the last two years too, without even cost of living increases. I could whinge, moan, and complain about this, but:

a) At least I have a job.
b) I appreciate the country is trying to recover from a motherfucking recession.

Clearly you should skive like the workshy bastard DavPaz.

Mrs. Rodders isn't striking because the Royal College of Nursing decided not to even call a ballot. Which seems odd to me given how thoroughly fucked they've been by the last couple of governments, but hey.

Being as i'm not working in london at the moment, don't have any kids, aren't planning to travel anywhere other than in my own car, and don't give a shit about anyone apart from myself, my thoughts on the whole things can be summed up thusly:

meh

Now he's given me access to Pazland I will instead spend the day in work building giant phallic effigies on top of his house.

I'd imagine it will be quite a nice day in the office, actually, if all your colleagues are outside shouting. You can get plenty (of cocks) done.

Dude, I can totally blacklist you from anywhere. I have the power.

Topical joke feex.

Splitter!

I finded it!

Books are deeply gorgeous. I still maintain you are Duke of Kindlebum, Wrongland.

Strikes are pretty useless at getting a government to decide not to do something, but they are useful at reminding governments what a pain in the arse it is to cut public services in future. Although reckoning pay freezes (which I've been on too for a couple of years) are fine given the current awful, we are still pissed off at the fact that our pension funds were spazzed away in high risk investments by the government, which is the main reason why they've got nothing for us in the kitty pensions wise.

Two hundred pound a month? I only have three hundred left a month for food and fun after bills and rent!

You're quite right, books are (or, at least, can be) beautiful things. I shall rephrase.

Man, I remember when books were useful.

Ooh, new aspirations to be a middle ranking civil servant incoming! (also achievable)

Sam has tomorrow off college.

Not a clue how this will effect the prison, will make enquires tomorrow, I'll still be in work though.

24 HOUR LOCKDOWN!

*Lights fade down, descending musical cue*

My sister-in-law (who works in a prison, with the "best job ever") also has to go into work.

Mrs Kov(primary school teacher) is not striking, but the school is closed to pupils. She will be going to do her planning as normal.

Can she get me a better one?

I was sort of offered another one today by my manager, but I'm waiting for DETAILS.

Because the other staff are striking, I presume?

Yes, school is shut to pupils because of the strike

Perhaps the pupils are striking in symbolic support of their teacher's pension rights....

Because the other staff are striking, I presume?

a lot of MrsKovs friends are teachers.. and working in the private sector.. Lets just say I disagree with them so much they have stopped bringing it up with me..

Yes...

They're going to feel proper silly if they all turn up anyway.

"I thought you were striking!"
"I thought you were!"

Er... Fuck.
Is the Grimlet's nursery likely to be shut?

Equally, you could put a slant on that graphic to say something more along the lines of:

"In order to provide properly for your retirement, you need to save. You may not want to think about that. That's your problem. You may not be able to do that. That's everyone's problem. Many many people are pumping so much money into their mortgages and other lines of credit that they don't have enough to invest, even if they knew they should. We 'know' cheap credit has been bad for us, we 'know' houses are overvalued according to any of the historically used measures. And yet we're encouraged to think the public sector is in some way lucky to have pension provision, rather than that the rest of us have been shafted by years of short-term economic policies which will only kick people in the teeth years and years down the line."

Unlikely, unless is a state funded one.

Not if it's private, I'd have thought.

I don't think there are any, any more.

There's one near us. The 5ive centre. LOL

Government : "Look at our lovely boat, isn't it nice. Now look at my lovely drill <drill drill drill> Oooh holes! <drill drill drill>"
Government: "Oh shit, the boat is sinking everybody take a bucket and bail!"
Private employee : "You utter fucking idiots, how the fuck could you fuck up this much? Give me the fucking bucket then."
Public employee : "You utter fucking idiots, how the fuck could you fuck up this much? Now, where is the drill?"

OMG THE WEBSITE IT BURNS

So, are they saying that the people in the examples don't have to put that (any?) money away a month? Is this based upon the current scheme, or the proposed* scheme?


*I assume there is a proposal, because why else are they striking?

My current pension scheme based upon another 40 years of payment, having already paid 6, so 11 years' more payment than those examples has me getting <5k a year.

Well, yes - but you need to consider that as part of the cost of employing you, your employer (the treasury, effectively) is in theory putting away a certain amount of money each month to pay for your pension. That's exactly the same as it would be in the private sector - so it's not like you'd be having to find that £200 a month out of your salary. In an equivalent private sector job, if there was such a thing, you might expect to have a contributory pension scheme as part of your salary. It might be more than that figure, it might be less. It would probably be quite a bit less, as £200 a month on £15K is 16%, which is very high.

I'd be interested to see their working - £200 a month over 40 years is 96K, and that's assuming no accrual of interest over that period - in actual fact even a careful, pessimistic pension fund should be expected to double that. 96K minus the lump sum of £19700 would pay for eleven and a half years at £6600, which is fairly reasonable if you pension out at 65.

I like the fact that they suggest that £6600 a year is some amazing sum that private workers couldn't hope to get because they're not money-grabbing public sector scum.

Well, in fairness they don't have to find that amount themselves - our contributions have gone up from 6.stg to 7.stg, but employers are paying 18% (up from 16%). You tell most private companies they should factor costs like that into the cost of staff, though, and they tell you to fuck off.

Or, rather, they used to do it, then they got lazy, then Lawson taught them that when times were good they didn't need to, and through all of that I'm sure salaries went up while benefits provided went down, all of which helped people with their disposable income whilst shifting the focus to nownownow.

They don't put any money away. The treasury puts money away on their behalf (in reality, doesn't). It's no different from a private sector contributory pension except it basically guarantees what you'll get on retirement, instead of it being subject to the vagiaries of how the investment fund performs.

I should probably understand more about pensions than I do.

Hopefully there'll be a cure for poorness by the time I've grown up.

You should probably get a pension...

I doubt it will involve blackmail, though.

[edit]Is striking blackmail? Essentially, I mean.

I got quite a good pack when I started work last year, all set out in laymans terms. It's a massive read though, by the time I got half way through I'd forgotten what I'd read at the start.

No, it is extortion.

Good question. I would say no, as an essential part of blackmail is revealing private information is it not?

I used to work in pensions, but I am fucked if I can remember anything about them.

So the current problems are all your fault, then?

Cunt.