There really are some people who confirm their idiocy by spouting forth

Times have changed, the present position is unsustainable and contracts need rewriting.

Many businesses have had to renegotiate staff contracts or make redundancies. The public sector is no different.

In the good times do people get to renegotiate their contracts again? When the recession is over will these conditions be giving back?

Or is this temporary blip in the economic cycle (its like people think this is the first recession ever) being used to take from the majority and give back to the minority?

Claims like this make me wonder whether the person writing them is either exceedingly greedy as to not care about everybody else whilst they live a life of luxury or so stupid as to support those living high on the hog to their detriment.

That particular untruth has been dealt with numerous times on this thread. If you're going to keep blithely repeating it, you need to back it up with evidence - or at least an argument.

And as a public sector worker can I just say we've been renogotiating certain aspects of our contracts over many years!

As examples, for my LA, these include:
mileage payments
payments for essential car users allowance
hours of work
general pay and grading
agreeing to take unpaid leave
pensions
etc

I'm a public sector worker who due to re organisation is about to see his income reduced by 15%.

I actually think I'm one of those staff more prepared to take industrial action...over the last 20 years I've been on strike for 3 days so hardly the actions of some left wing revolutionary!

Finally, maybe it's about time we stopped the race to the bottom of the pensions barrel and started supporting each other to ensure we all have decent pensions along with decent pay and conditions!

At some point in the next 20 or so years some government of whatever colour has to address the state pension issue and not just tinker around with it at its current level.

Current thinking (for the last ten or so years) has been that eventually there will be no state pension, my own daughters are not expecting there to be such a thing when they retire - this is not a workable scenario for as anyone who has tried to invest in a genuinely "private" pension (ie its not partly funded by your employer but only by yourself and a bank or similar pretend to "invest" it for you) will know, this type of "investment" is like throwing confetti in the air on a blustery day, you haven't a clue where it will land and if, for example, you are 65 today and your private pension scheme was required right now, then frankly you'd be fooked.

Its never going to work until we get back to the understanding that pensions should be at a level where a retirement lifestyle is possible and they should be provided as a state benefit/entitlement and not an investment.

Damned right.

McLaren_Field wrote:At some point in the next 20 or so years some government of whatever colour has to address the state pension issue and not just tinker around with it at its current level. Current thinking (for the last ten or so years) has been that eventually there will be no state pension, my own daughters are not expecting there to be such a thing when they retire - this is not a workable scenario for as anyone who has tried to invest in a genuinely "private" pension (ie its not partly funded by your employer but only by yourself and a bank or similar pretend to "invest" it for you) will know, this type of "investment" is like throwing confetti in the air on a blustery day, you haven't a clue where it will land and if, for example, you are 65 today and your private pension scheme was required right now, then frankly you'd be fooked. Its never going to work until we get back to the understanding that pensions should be at a level where a retirement lifestyle is possible and they should be provided as a state benefit/entitlement and not an investment. Interesting EU comparison at http://eoin-clarke.blogspot.com/2011/11 ... ne-of.html

McLaren_Field wrote:At some point in the next 20 or so years some government of whatever colour has to address the state pension issue and not just tinker around with it at its current level. Current thinking (for the last ten or so years) has been that eventually there will be no state pension, my own daughters are not expecting there to be such a thing when they retire - this is not a workable scenario for as anyone who has tried to invest in a genuinely "private" pension (ie its not partly funded by your employer but only by yourself and a bank or similar pretend to "invest" it for you) will know, this type of "investment" is like throwing confetti in the air on a blustery day, you haven't a clue where it will land and if, for example, you are 65 today and your private pension scheme was required right now, then frankly you'd be fooked. Its never going to work until we get back to the understanding that pensions should be at a level where a retirement lifestyle is possible and they should be provided as a state benefit/entitlement and not an investment. Interesting EU comparison at http://eoin-clarke.blogspot.com/2011/11 ... ne-of.html