strike

[????]

"been there, done that" New York...you couldn't make it up CM.

[Chippy Minton]

public sector workers of my acquaintance work laughably short hours, and seem to have extraordinary flexibility in terms of time off while being reasonably well paid today, enjoying a level of job security that does not exist elsewhere in the UK

Last year, the coalition government laid out its plans to cut public services, benefits, pay and jobs by ?145bn over the next 6 years - that's about 10% of our GDP. At the time, The Treasury predicted these cuts will lead to at least 500,000 public sector jobs and 600,000-700,000 jobs in the private sector being lost by the end of this parliament. However, the Charted Institute of Personnel and Development estimated that government spending cuts could lead to up to 750,000 public sector workers losing their jobs.

That was then, this is now. Six weeks ago, because things have gone from bad to worse, the Office of Budget Responsibility stated that the public sector has actually shed twice as many jobs as it first predicted - 240,000 people have lost their jobs in the public sector in the first year of the coalition. It remains to be seen how many now stand to lose their jobs over the next five years.

There are plenty of people on this thread and this forum that I disagree with regarding this and other issues, but at least I can comprehend their arguments. You on the other hand....

Finally, I'd love to see you have the guts to say to one of the teachers, nurses, doctors, ambulance staff etc that were on strike on Wednesday they work "laughably short hours" to their face.

[Chippy Minton]

???? - yeah, perhaps I gilded the lily a bit there :-$ But I was trying to get at your point that as a significant number aren't British, a good chunk of the American amongst them have actually moved to London to get way from NYC.

[????]

Finally, I'd love to see you have the guts to say to one of the teachers, nurses, doctors, ambulance staff etc that were on strike on Wednesday they work "laughably short hours" to their face.

....the normal list and the normal heartstring stuff

Actually, with the exception of ambulance staff, I think most of these groups do work reasonably short hours, have long holidays (teachers) or with raesonable overtime payments (nurses) for pretty decent wages. I think the good ones all do very important jobs but they aren't badly rewarded at all.

And, doctors on the list you are having a laugh, clearly they work impossible hours during training but after that are prerty well set up pension wise and salary.

Sacred cows.

[ontheedge]

May I ask what extra long hours ambulance crews work, as for nurses the days of overtime went out the window at least 6 years ago, now you work bank at 40% tax which I'm not moaning about but means you actually get paid less for any hours you work outside your contracted hours!

[Pugwash]

As a Public Sector worker - I work from 10 - 6 (offical hours) but the past few weeks have rarely left the office before 7.30/8 pm. Although based in Camberwell, one morning I could be in Croydon, the afternoon in Bermondsey, eating a sandwich if I am lucky whilst driving between various bases.Lunch breaks tend to be 30 mins long as too much work to be completed by a 4 pm deadline. Our team work a 7 day week rota - weekend duty is from 8 am - 4 pm in contrast to the 9 - 5 weekday - you get one day off during the week in lieu

Since earlier in the year we have lost 4 workers - 2 were paid for by Kings College Hospital as Specialist Workers, but Kings decided they could not afford to continue funding, we have a vacancy which we have been trying to fill for several months but very few applicants as the position is very demanding. Our support worker who dealt with practical things such as sorting out people's finances, purchasing clothes, closing down properties etc went on holiday in FEbruary and not seen since but will not be replaced, plus an admin worker was centralised at head office.

Our IT system frequently freezes and breaks down - so many of us do our report writing at home in the evenings and weekends - we average 50 hours plus each week in a job that is supposed to be 37 hours. OK holidays are 5 weeks a year. I pay around ?2000 a year into my pension scheme and it is anticipated that I will pay another ?1000, I would not mind this if I could maintain or increase my projected pension but new proposals will see my pension decrease.

I also to supplement my savings and weekly pension in retirement - have been paying into endownment insurances at around ?100 per month to boost up my savings in my mid/late 60s.

I was on strike and what surprised me was the number of people in the shopping centres - workers like me who did not join the picket lines or marches, decide to do some early Xmas shopping (despite losing a day's pay) The mini boom for the retail industry on 30th was due to the strike. I hear Southwark Council is donating the pay deducted from striking staff's wages to various Youth Projects - what are the Tory Council's doing with strikers pay?

[Huguenot]

Pugwash, I really don't want you to be offended, but your post is the clearest evidence yet that public sector workers are on another fucking planet.

"I get up late and stay late, and IT doesn't always work and there are too few people so I am a public sector martyr". WTF?

I mean, really, what do you imagine the real world is really like?

Absolutely deluded.

Just so you know, I do 80 plus hours a week and haven't had a salary since fucking July because I can't afford to pay both me and my workers.

As Chippy pointed out, 59.5% of workers are in companies like mine. You want to retire 7 years early and take money from people like me for your pension because your IT doesn't work and you sometimes stay late?

[StraferJack]

Huguenot you SO wanted to offend. I'm actually starting to worry about you now

Several posts have accused public sector workers of working cushy hours. I read pugwash post not as "I'm a martyr" but just calmly countering by giving an example familiar to many people, wherever they work

You want to hear a martyr? You should hear several hundred bankers in a hall after they have been til they have to move to a new office a couple of miles away.

But outbursts like yours are increasingly out of order

[Huguenot]

No StraferJack, posts like mine reflect the frustrations of dealing with self righteous public sector workers who are increasingly out of touch with reality and grossly insult the average working man by pretending they're victims whilst stealing from their wallet.

As usual you start carping on about bankers. Do you not realise that this is not a war on the bankers, or a war on the government? This is a gross deception, the public sector are involved in a war on the working man.

If you misread the tone that's up to you, but it was said in a sense of resigned despair.

Starting to 'worry about' me? You jumped up prig. I don't think you'll misunderstand the tone on that.

Your claim of 'out of order' is predominantly based upon a changing strategy from claiming money grows on trees to silencing dissenters.

[Annette Curtain]

This thread is starting to sound a litte bit Monty Python

( in a good way:) )

The four Yorkshiremen sketch

I'm self-employed, ergo I live in a bubble all of my own creation but i've definitely given up counting hours worked.

Anyway must go, work to do.

* chooses job of the day hat *

And remember, Martyrs are y'know "dead people"

Love & Peace

NETTE:))

[Huguenot]

Metaphor

;-)

[taper]

War on the working man! shark well and truly jumped.

But i admire your Stakhanovite tendencies Huguenot. 80 plus hours work and 60 plus posts on EDF this week. Show me a public sector slacker who can live with that.

[Huguenot]

Silly billy Taper - your working day is my evening ;-)

When I'm watching 4od the EDF is in the next tab...

[taper]

of course! Do you pay UK taxes?

[Huguenot]

I'm not suggesting that anyone follow Stakhanov.

The public sector need to be clear that it isn't bankers or the government or Unilever that they're fleecing, it's the tax payer. In simple terms they are simply transferring money from private sector workers to themselves.

Fine - go ahead and mug them - but to get all sanctiomnious and self-righteous about it is outrageous. To claim that they need to retire 8 years earlier because either they just don't fancy it or they think they work harder and are more put-upon than private sector workers is insulting.

In the real world people are paid because they provide goods and service that other people want, in a highly competitive marketplace. They can't just demand that they get higher salaries or bigger pensions - they have to work for it.

[Huguenot]

Yay hay!

Now taper's going to run with that 'you can't habe an oipinion because you're overseas at the moment' bullshit.

Way to go taper - I've never heard that one before!!

[taper]

You misunderstand: i am dumbstruck at your ability to generate such sympathy for uk tax payers given that you aren't one and the people fleecing them are.

[Senor Chevalier]

Now I like a good pissing contest as much as the next man, but putting that to one side for a moment...

Pugwash - Clearly I don't know the full detail of your pension arrangements, but what would you say to the Private Sector worker that works your hours and has a similar lunchtime routine with no final salary pension to look forward to. They only have a contributory pension (if at all) which like your additional contributions have been decimated by the fall in the value of their invested pension pot.

What's your message to them? Should they support you in your strike? Should they work the extra years at the end of their working life to support your earlier (than them) retirement? Do you really expect sympathy from them? Honestly?

If so, on what basis? Are Public Sector jobs more important so you deserve a better deal?

Looks like we are back to the same old problem that things always boil down to. People get habituated to a certain arrangement and then feel a sense of entitlemment. Less of a good thing is perceived as a bad thing. It's 9dare I say it) mother and baby parking spaces in Sainsburys all over again.

[Huguenot]

Heh heh - I can see what you're doing there taper. If you can't win the argument attack the man eh?

Believe it or not taper I'm fiercely proud of Britain, its essential fairness achievements and its society. I'm not the kind of bloke who watches a mugging but say nothing because it doesn't affect me. Are you?

What's more, as d_c has pointed out, this is about long term decisions, and what takes place now will be affecting me very personally in the future.

[Marmora Man]

As a Public Sector worker - I work from 10 - 6 (offical hours) but the past few weeks have rarely left the office before 7.30/8 pm. Although based in Camberwell, one morning I could be in Croydon, the afternoon in Bermondsey, eating a sandwich if I am lucky whilst driving between various bases.Lunch breaks tend to be 30 mins long as too much work to be completed by a 4 pm deadline. Our team work a 7 day week rota - weekend duty is from 8 am - 4 pm in contrast to the 9 - 5 weekday - you get one day off during the week in lieu

PW - have you ever worked in the private sector? I have worked in both. You'll find many if the same frustrations, extended hours and foreshortened lunch breaks and less than perfect IT that you appear to believe are unique to the noble public sector worker. What you would also find is an understanding that the private enterprise depends upon satisfying the customer / client, a fierce concentration on value for money. You will also find less time devoted to committee meetings, less stultifying paperwork & bureaucracy (except that generated for government agencies), short and effective appraisals and swift decision making. If just some of these attributes could be grafted onto public sector management thinking and style - your life could become a lot better and taxpayers saved a lot of money.

[katie1997]

I think some of the decisions that have to be taken in the public sector, by their very nature, are not going to be quick ones no matter how much we'd like them to be.

[taper]

'you jumped up prig' was part of your well polished argument was it ?

Anyway, since when was a bit of hook, bait, reel and cheap shot not allowed on the interweb. I make no apology. And nor should you.

Look, some arguments on here appear to boil down to a requirement that because private pensions have gone down the toilet ( the real scandal here) public sector workers should roll over, full of guilt and self loathing, and let the government do what it wants. Life isn't like that. It's about balance and negotiation. And that's what will happen here: a settlement following the strike that will represent less of a call on the public purse (which is relatively small anyway) but which quite properly protects a decent level of pension for people working in the public service. We'll all shake on it, as we have did a year ago on redundancy payments.

And yet this poxy issue inspires such ludicrously disprortionate levels of bile, bluster and blowhardery on all sides. I ask you. My life already. Sheesh. And so on.

[Huguenot]

I haven't seen a single person claim that public sector pensions should be reduced because private sector ones aren't very good. That's a straw man.

People are living longer and there isn't enough in the pot for public sector workers to continue to retire at 60 receive the pensions they do. Full stop. That's it.

If they want to receive these unusally substantial benefits they need to increase their payments and retire later, and it's not fair that private sector workers should pay for this through taxation when public sector workers are the benficiary.

All the emotional blackmail stuff about how important they are and how difficult their jobs ar is insulting chaff.

[Chippy Minton]

80 plus hours work and 60 plus posts on EDF this week.

>:D<

80 hours a week = 16 hour working days without lunch, based on a five day week.

No doubt he'll say he doesn't do a five day week, but even based on a seven day week it is nearly a 12 hour day without lunch everyday.

What with all the 4od and physical demands such as taking on food and water, then sleeping, I'm sure he must have to sacrifice taking a dump so he can fit in his 60+ posts on the EDF ;-)

[Marmora Man]

katie1997 Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I think some of the decisions that have to be

> taken in the public sector, by their very nature,

> are not going to be quick ones no matter how much

> we'd like them to be.

I don't think so - my experience is that they are simply culturally unable to make decisions without endless delay and, usually, delegation upwards to the most senior person available. I'll illustrate my view with a tale of a current deal I'm working on.

5 weeks ago on a Monday the hospital I am temporarily running was asked to quote, as a matter or urgency, to carry out 100 "neuro spine" procedures to be carried asap for the local NHS Trust that was approaching the 18 week waiting time limit for these 100 patients. This work was a follow on from very similar neuro procedures carried out satisfactorily earlier in the year, so there was no question about quality or performance.

I gathered the theatre manager, finance manager and operations manager together that afternoon. In the course of 45 minutes we reviewed pricing, theatre & bed capacity, process and identified five surgeons that might work with us to undertake the procedures. By 8.00am the next day we had agreed internally that we could undertake the work, that the surgeons would work with us and fixed on a price - somewhat less than the going NHS Tariff rate.

We accordingly informed the local Trust by midday - approximately 26 hours after the initial enquiry, and about 9 working hours after the initial enquiry.

Yesterday - 5 weeks and 4 days after the initial enquiry, 5 weeks and 3 days after the Trust received confirmation of capacity, readiness and a competitive quote from us the Trust has asked to meet next week to discuss how we might quote "proceed with the work". As Hugenot might say "WTF" - we've been waiting nearly 6 weeks to start, they want to delay another week to discuss it. Another four letter acronym is "JFDI" and I wish the NHS had that capability and I'm sure the 100 patients who have been waiting for an unnecessary 6 weeks would agree.