News Strikes

[Himse]

Just because we work in the public sector, doesn't give George Osbourne and his millionaire colleagues the right to use us as mobile piggy banks when they could quite easily raise taxes on those on the higher incomes and raise the money just as easily and not make those on lower wages feel the hurt even more than we are already.

I work long and hard for the money I get, and just because my wages come from Government doesn't mean I won't find it that much harder to pay for the likes of my mortgage, and provide for my wife and child. I pay more for my pension that someone in the private sector on a similar pension scheme and receive lower wages, so any comparison to private sector is a moot point. Private sector companies employees go on strike as well you know, not just the public sector workers.

Typical Labour view, not being funny but if someone was to tax say 50% of your wage you'd whine and strike until the cows come home.

My old man is in the higher tax bracket, 40% iirc, that's disgusting, why bother to work hard just to have EVEN MORE tax placed upon you.

Any big businesses and people on high wages will just move their business abroad, thus crushing our economy basically, so yeah, raise the taxes on the rich.

Surely it'd make sense to raise the tax to say 21% rather than 20% or whatever it is for the lower income earners, since there are more of them thus potentially raising more revenue? Than going from 40% to 41% for a small percentage of high earners?

 

[Chilly]

Typical Labour view, not being funny but if someone was to tax say 50% of your wage you'd whine and strike until the cows come home.

My old man is in the higher tax bracket, 40% iirc, that's disgusting, why bother to work hard just to have EVEN MORE tax placed upon you.

Any big businesses and people on high wages will just move their business abroad, thus crushing our economy basically, so yeah, raise the taxes on the rich.

Surely it'd make sense to raise the tax to say 21% rather than 20% or whatever it is for the lower income earners, since there are more of them thus potentially raising more revenue? Than going from 40% to 41% for a small percentage of high earners?

Everything is paid for by the top earners tbh. The 20%-ers probably don't even break even.

 

[Wazzerphuk]

Wazz: Join a union you fucking layabout

The point of that would be? Considering a large number of private sector companies don't recognise unions and state so explicitly in their contracts.

 

[Himse]

Everything is paid for by the top earners tbh. The 20%-ers probably don't even break even.

But it doesn't make sense to tax them more, they'll just move out of the country.

 

[Sar]

Typical Labour view, not being funny but if someone was to tax say 50% of your wage you'd whine and strike until the cows come home.

Well, dur... of course, because then I'd be left with absolutely fuck all to live on.

My old man is in the higher tax bracket, 40% iirc, that's disgusting, why bother to work hard just to have EVEN MORE tax placed upon you.

Effort in work != reward through wages. If that was the case I'd easily be the highest paid person in my office. I'm the lowest paid.

Why bother to work hard to just have EVEN LESS pay placed upon you?
Why bother to work hard to just have EVEN MORE pension contributions placed upon you?
Why bother to work hard just to have EVEN LESS pension upon retirement?

Any big businesses and people on high wages will just move their business abroad, thus crushing our economy basically, so yeah, raise the taxes on the rich.

Is that any different a form of blackmail than public sector workers striking in protest?

Surely it'd make sense to raise the tax to say 21% rather than 20% or whatever it is for the lower income earners, since there are more of them thus potentially raising more revenue? Than going from 40% to 41% for a small percentage of high earners?

Typical Tory view. Make the poor poorer, the rich richer. Throw another peasant on the fire, it's getting chilly in here Jenkins.

 

[Chilly]

But it doesn't make sense to tax them more, they'll just move out of the country.

I dont buy that for a moment. They make their money just like all rich people: being at the top of a pyramid. If the current crop of top boys fuck off, another set will move up and make the money.

 

[Himse]

Well, dur... of course, because then I'd be left with absolutely fuck all to live on.



Effort in work != reward through wages. If that was the case I'd easily be the highest paid person in my office. I'm the lowest paid.

Why bother to work hard to just have EVEN LESS pay placed upon you?
Why bother to work hard to just have EVEN MORE pension contributions placed upon you?
Why bother to work hard just to have EVEN LESS pension upon retirement?



Is that any different a form of blackmail than public sector workers striking in protest?



Typical Tory view. Make the poor poorer, the rich richer. Throw another peasant on the fire, it's getting chilly in here Jenkins.

Public sector workers get a far more substantial pension in the first place? Why even complain about it.

Also, favouring the rich can lead to creating jobs for the joe public. We've already seen Labour drive this country into the ground with an 'it's all good' attitude.

Yes, it is completely different, because when you find a huge majority of big business will just leave because the top dogs are sick of ridiculous tax, when they can go back to for example, HSBC to Hong Kong and not be ripped.

As Chilly said earlier, if he's right, alot of things are paid for by the rich, so why not favour them? Surely it makes sense, not make the poor poorer obviously, but you see my point surely.

 

[Himse]

I dont buy that for a moment. They make their money just like all rich people: being at the top of a pyramid. If the current crop of top boys fuck off, another set will move up and make the money.

It's not moving the company, they'll still obviously operate here, but they'll just do a huge tax evasion jobby.

Like im sure alot of the Investment Banks already do, have a HQ in Switerzland to avoid taxes..

 

[Chilly]

Yes, it is completely different, because when you find a huge majority of big business will just leave because the top dogs are sick of ridiculous tax, when they can go back to for example, HSBC to Hong Kong and not be ripped.

It's a race to the bottom pandering to giant corps like that. Once countries start competing on tax things get silly.

 

[Himse]

It's a race to the bottom pandering to giant corps like that. Once countries start competing on tax things get silly.

It makes sense though, why give a country £1billion a year or something when you can give another £500million for example and still operate in country 1.

I wouldn't blame them really.

 

[Tom]

Typical Tory view. Make the poor poorer, the rich richer. Throw another peasant on the fire, it's getting chilly in here Jenkins.

Actually the traditional Tory view is to try and reduce the size of the state thereby allowing business to flourish. As business pays for everything, everyone gets wealthier.

 

[Sar]

Actually the traditional Tory view is to try and reduce the size of the state thereby allowing business to flourish. As business pays for everything, everyone gets wealthier.

Yep, the Credit Crunch and the resultant recessions are a great example

 

[Wij]

Pay rises in much of the private sector have been poor since long before 2008. The pay pot model large corporations adopted ensured that the average pay rise was below inflation. To get more your manager had to give someone else less. Unless you were good at moving jobs, particularly in and out of the company, you were seen as a mug who could be given a token pay rise or told that you were already on enough. During this time public sectors were getting reasonable rises for the most part.

 

[Kryten]

Gah. I work in the public sector, to start with. However I should point out some things:
1. There's no blackmail involved as blackmail involves a walking threat. There is no threat. "Give us what we want or..." or what?
2. Striking is a juvenile attempt at an answer to an adult problem caused by juvenile people. And none of the juveniles are pupils.
3. Most unions are as bent as the government themselves.

 

[Raven]

Yep, the Credit Crunch and the resultant recessions are a great example

Err. That was labour. The country ran out of money because they used it all to buy votes though public sector non-jobs.

Also, don't get bad banking regulation confused with having a large, tax generating private sector, the two are not related.

 

[Sar]

Err. That was labour. The country ran out of money because they used it all to buy votes though public sector non-jobs.

Actually, it started in America, under Bushes reign as Republican president, and spread to the rest of the world. It began because greedy American banks (private sector) began throwing sub-prime mortgages at people who had no hope of affording them. Loads of bad, ill-thought out and unrecoverable debt resulted, banks had to be bailed out by the governments, job losses and private debt spiralled out of control and the massive decline in personal wealth plunged America into a recession. And because the US is such a major financial player on the global market, it spread to everyone else, and hit the fledgling "euro-zone" badly. The likes of Greece may now take decades to recover financially.

Also, don't get bad banking regulation confused with having a large, tax generating private sector, the two are not related.

The public sector is a very large tax generating sector too, but my point was more about "As business pays for everything, everyone gets wealthier" - not the case over the past 3/4 years. As demonstrated above, the majority of people have become anything BUT wealthier over the past few years.

 

[Sar]

Pay rises in much of the private sector have been poor since long before 2008. The pay pot model large corporations adopted ensured that the average pay rise was below inflation. To get more your manager had to give someone else less. Unless you were good at moving jobs, particularly in and out of the company, you were seen as a mug who could be given a token pay rise or told that you were already on enough. During this time public sectors were getting reasonable rises for the most part.

I would disagree Wij. Private sector companies were throwing around, IIRC, pay rises around 4-6% pre-credit crunch. At best I last received a 3% pay rise about 4 years ago. Since then I've dropped, in real-terms, by about 12% in purchasing ability (IE pay cut through inflation).

 

[Embattle]

Public sector tax is a more direct take back, not generation.

 

[Embattle]

I personally don't favour beating people to death with tax, I also get the feeling the 50% tax rate would stay even if the government knew it was actually generating less revenue due to the PR involved in lowering it. The main issue for most people is the unfair nature of rewards for failure etc, the feeling that only the people down the bottom take the pain of tough times where as the richer just move away.

 

[Tom]

The public sector is a very large tax generating sector too, but my point was more about "As business pays for everything, everyone gets wealthier" - not the case over the past 3/4 years. As demonstrated above, the majority of people have become anything BUT wealthier over the past few years.

The public sector doesn't generate any tax. Your job is paid for by the private sector.

 

[Sar]

The public sector doesn't generate any tax. Your job is paid for by the private sector.

Could've sworn I paid tax on my last payslip....

 

[Hawkwind]

It was the same graph as this one in this article - http://citywire.co.uk/money/stop-lying-about-public-sector-pensions-say-striking-teachers/a505061:

The report states they make several assumptions and could be widely inaccurate.

Never fully trust statistics, they will only show what the publisher wanted to show. First thing you should look at is who the report was generated by and for what reason. Statistical data can be easily manipulated to suit most cases. Just look at the tobaco industry reports for the last 50 years! they weren't generally lies just cleverly manipulated data. Agree with Winston Churchill when it comes to statistics!

The UK is hurting and the message I see from public sector is that it shouldn't affect them. Well as hard as they claim to work I don't have much sympathy. Private sector is a much tougher environment with longer average working hours and much less secure. They campaigned for years to get better benefits in line with private sector but when they get them they don't want to pay for pensions like the private sector.

 

[Chilly]

Could've sworn I paid tax on my last payslip....

Yes, but the direct source of your pay in the public sector is the tax private companies and individuals pay. The tax public sector workers pay is just a reach around - you might as well pay no tax and take a pay cut so your take home pay is the same - it would have no affect (except to reduce the size of HMRC).

 

[Sar]

I know that Chilly, I was being facetious.

People bang on about how public sector wages are funded by the public. So are the vast majority of private sector wages. Everyone's job is funded in some form or another by the public, either through taxes (public sector) or purchases of goods and services (private sector).

Believe it or not, my attitude is largely the same as private sector, because that's where I came from originally (I'm merely defending attacks on my already meagre pay & pension here). I've been in the Council now 8 years, and to this day some of the attitudes of the longer-term workers I see there is flabbergasting. There would really need to be a paradigm shift in attitudes because some of them really do conform to the stereotypes where local govt is an endless pit of money and they can do what they like because they think they'll never get the sack.

A lot of them need a good kick up the arse and told to get on with their work. I know there are loads of people out there that would kill for a job with some level of security, and I am under no illusions as to how secure my job is in comparison to private sector work. But public sector workers aren't immune to downsizing and redundancy completely. I have an old school friend who worked for the Royal Mail for 15 years, and he was made redundant July past because they were downsizing. Getting a job these days is tough, very tough, which is why people stating here "just go and get another job if you don't like your pay" display a complete ignorance of what sort of shape the job market is currently in. I'd be a gibbering idiot if I was to leave the job I'm in ATM. I do like the job, it's just the pay is baseline, and going to be even less so if these pension changes go through.

 

[Himse]

I know that Chilly, I was being facetious.

People bang on about how public sector wages are funded by the public. So are the vast majority of private sector wages. Everyone's job is funded in some form or another by the public, either through taxes (public sector) or purchases of goods and services (private sector).

Believe it or not, my attitude is largely the same as private sector, because that's where I came from originally (I'm merely defending attacks on my already meagre pay & pension here). I've been in the Council now 8 years, and to this day some of the attitudes of the longer-term workers I see there is flabbergasting. There would really need to be a paradigm shift in attitudes because some of them really do conform to the stereotypes where local govt is an endless pit of money and they can do what they like because they think they'll never get the sack.

A lot of them need a good kick up the arse and told to get on with their work. I know there are loads of people out there that would kill for a job with some level of security, and I am under no illusions as to how secure my job is in comparison to private sector work. But public sector workers aren't immune to downsizing and redundancy completely. I have an old school friend who worked for the Royal Mail for 15 years, and he was made redundant July past because they were downsizing. Getting a job these days is tough, very tough, which is why people stating here "just go and get another job if you don't like your pay" display a complete ignorance of what sort of shape the job market is currently in. I'd be a gibbering idiot if I was to leave the job I'm in ATM. I do like the job, it's just the pay is baseline, and going to be even less so if these pension changes go through.

I think it's the reason people go on at public sector workers, because as you just described, some are absolute slackers! Not saying people in the private sector aren't, but whenever i've called up the council offices for some information, it's like banging my head against a brick wall. 4 different people to find out a simple piece of information about business rates.

I don't doubt you work hard yourself, it's the others who spoil it for you and give you a bad reputation.

 

[Job]

All this talk of pensions, in 10 years time the stock market wlil be back on a high, and you'll be getting loan junk mail through the post again.
Funnily enough they won't put the pensions back up though.

 

[old.Tohtori]

The moment i see a chart or a graph or a zzzzz.z......

 

[Scouse]

But it doesn't make sense to tax them more, they'll just move out of the country.

That argument has been proven time and again to be fallacious.

 

[Wij]

That argument has been proven time and again to be fallacious.

Not really. When the highest tax rates were taken in the 60s and 70s very little tax was actually collected from the rich.

 

[Wij]

I would disagree Wij. Private sector companies were throwing around, IIRC, pay rises around 4-6% pre-credit crunch. At best I last received a 3% pay rise about 4 years ago. Since then I've dropped, in real-terms, by about 12% in purchasing ability (IE pay cut through inflation).

There was a telly programme on tonight on Beeb 2 which specifically stated that for most people employed by corporations only the better-off have had real-term pay rises for decades.

This did not apply to public sector workers under New Labour. Not saying that they were splashed with vast amounts of cash obviously, that would be stupid, but they were given enough to keep them voting