Today many teachers and other public servants are striking. But this time it is not about wages or indeed redundancy threats, but about pensions. Personally I would have more sympathy if these strikes were about potential loss of jobs, but they are not. They are about pensions and about how the public sector wishes to maintain their own lucrative arrangements at a time when the private sector has had to agree to abandon such schemes- called final salary schemes- in favour of contributory only pensions.
Final salary schemes are not sustainable and will end up leading to state bankruptcy as the population is living longer- hence why the retirement age is being lifted for the state pension, but unfortunately such basic mathematics is beyond the comprehension people striking today. Furthermore, the new arrangement for the public sector (written by a former Labour Cabinet member) are actually still quite generous and still more generous that private sector offerings. I would also like to add that these strikers should be grateful that they still have a job given that there are many,many millions unemployed and who are desperate just to earn a basic living and will find the sight of well paid middle class teachers striking over not being able to retire in their 50s to be a bad joke. So public sector, stop moaning and get on with the job, go back and continue the negotiations with the government and be thankful that tomorrow you will still have a job to go to.
0 comments:
Post a Comment