Post by Banshee on Sept 18, 2011 12:37:42 GMT 1
Ministers want you to pay more if you earn over £15,000 a year, to work much longer and at the end of your working life, to receive a worse pension.
They have stopped using the Retail Price Index which has been used for decades and, from this year, pensions will only increase in line with the Consumer Price Index - a much worse index. This change alone has reduced the overall value of the pensions by over 10%.
Now, they want to increase your pension contributions by an average of over 50% if you earn above £15,000. It's the equivalent on average of a 3% pay cut.
Not a penny of this major increase in your contributions will go towards improving your pension schemes. Instead it will go to the Treasury. This is an additional unfair tax on public sector workers and is deliberately disguised as money for the pension schemes, which they falsely claim to be unaffordable. The truth is public sector pension funds are cash rich and affordable.
On top of this, they want you to work longer before you can take your pension in full. Even if you have a protected pensionable retirement age of 65, this will be torn up. You will be expected to work until 66, then to 67 and 68 as the state retirement age increases.
We are all already on pay freezes. Strike is always a last resort, but in this case I think we need to strike. We need to stand up for ourselves. Don't believe the government who say that we will all be leaving vulnerable people without support. Last time we had a one day strike we all worked well over time the day before and after, in order to put in support for people we would normally be supporting. We put in extra hours to cover all the work we would normally have done on the strike day. We made sure vulnerable people were protected. Only after doing that did we then go on strike in order to have our views heard.
The only people losing out will be the workers themselves as they Will lose a day's pay. Thats money that a lot of people can not afford to lose. In the short term many people cant afford to strike, but in the long term, we cant afford not to.
Thats my view. What are other people's opinions?
They have stopped using the Retail Price Index which has been used for decades and, from this year, pensions will only increase in line with the Consumer Price Index - a much worse index. This change alone has reduced the overall value of the pensions by over 10%.
Now, they want to increase your pension contributions by an average of over 50% if you earn above £15,000. It's the equivalent on average of a 3% pay cut.
Not a penny of this major increase in your contributions will go towards improving your pension schemes. Instead it will go to the Treasury. This is an additional unfair tax on public sector workers and is deliberately disguised as money for the pension schemes, which they falsely claim to be unaffordable. The truth is public sector pension funds are cash rich and affordable.
On top of this, they want you to work longer before you can take your pension in full. Even if you have a protected pensionable retirement age of 65, this will be torn up. You will be expected to work until 66, then to 67 and 68 as the state retirement age increases.
We are all already on pay freezes. Strike is always a last resort, but in this case I think we need to strike. We need to stand up for ourselves. Don't believe the government who say that we will all be leaving vulnerable people without support. Last time we had a one day strike we all worked well over time the day before and after, in order to put in support for people we would normally be supporting. We put in extra hours to cover all the work we would normally have done on the strike day. We made sure vulnerable people were protected. Only after doing that did we then go on strike in order to have our views heard.
The only people losing out will be the workers themselves as they Will lose a day's pay. Thats money that a lot of people can not afford to lose. In the short term many people cant afford to strike, but in the long term, we cant afford not to.
Thats my view. What are other people's opinions?
If you are going to strike, then go on strike properly!! I know that people like nurses etc cannot strike, but I'm sure there are enough public sector workers that could cause maximum problems, without those who work with vulnerable/sick people, coming out as well.I am sick to death of this soddin' government, cutting things for everyone but their rich cronies! Instead of hitting the worst off, why not close the tax loopholes, that allows the likes of Phillip Green to get away with paying a lot less than he should do! 
It's about time they kicked these"creative accountants" into touch!! But will they? Will they hell. Anyway I'm all for the strikes, and if I was still working I'd join you all ;D But have a bloody good strike, not these useless day ones!!!
