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Hundreds of thousands of council workers are striking over pay in the biggest bout of industrial unrest in years.
Members of Unite and Unison are protesting over deals to increase their pay by 2.45 per cent, which is below the rate of inflation and which they say means an effective pay cut.
How are you affected by the strike? Is the council workers’ action justified?
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67 comments so far
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Those of you who do not work in the public sector need to get your facts right. The old saying “A job at the council is a job for life” no longer applies.
For those wingeing about all the “supposed” benefits council workers are on, and people in the private sector don’t get those perks, then join the public sector!
Telling people to leave if they don’t like it, why not turn this around and you leave the private if YOU don’t like it? It works both ways.
- Posted by Lisa Lowej oldershaw and anyone else out there who fails to understand basic laws of supply and demand. Low skilled jobs attract low wages. Instead of bleating about striking spend some time developing better skills and you will then get better paid jobs. Nobody forced anyone to accept the current job that they have. And before you start crying about teachers assistants only getting £15k assistants in any industry public or private get paid peanuts because all they are is an assistant. Use your brain and you end up with your own assistant.
Most of us went to comprehensive school and the ones that didn’t do well because they made no effort deserve what they end up earning.
- Posted by Nick RileyThere is a justification on the basis that real incomes are not keeping a pace with inflation.
- Posted by charles conservatory turnerHowever, there is no justification from a monetary view point in awarding rises. The UK is suffering from too many people in the public sector which is having to be financed by the private sector. With the credit crunch, awarding any substantial increases for council workers will be counter productive for the economy as a whole
It’s amazing how much rage I’m seeing from the sales managers and the finance drones and all the other people in the polyester suits with their Chelsea tractors and their people carriers telling me their corporate world is the “real” one.
These are, by and large, people who sell other people stuff they don’t need in return for money they don’t have. People who don’t personally make, or produce, or do, anything at all (except send around reports and memos and write policies and sit around in meetings). People who might sometimes move from their desk to their car.
They’re people who can’t strike for better conditions themselves because they chose to take a job where they don’t do anything the general public even notices.
And they have a sense of entitlement that comes from their useless 2/2 degree in Media Studies.
– Oh, wait, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there’s more to the private sector world than stereotypes?
Do you think it could be the same in the public sector?
- Posted by StuartTrying to enlighten PHM64 appears to be a waste of time. His level of ignorance is too high. He relies on the media and lacks the capacity to see through what is presented! If you go through all he has written, you just know how empty he is.
like Terry said, “he who knows not and knows not that he knows not is a ….” I do not think I will want to waste any of my time on him. I recommend he goes for elementary course in Economics.
My sympathy go to the serious minded council workers short changed in a time like this. For those who say sack them all, I say go apply for the jobs and see if you have the right attitude to support the system as they do. Not only that, if you are mentally and physically fit for the job.
If it is what would put food on your table you think of, you don’t need to look further to see the reason for Bank failures and collapse of the private firms and why the insolvency rate is high. The mentality of the likes of PMH64 speak volumes for the sector.
Apologies to the serious minds in the sector. I doubt if he is in the sector. He strikes me as a dependant of some sort.
Save your breath.
- Posted by OboLooks as though Astrid stirred the pot with this one!!
- Posted by AndrewThe problem for local government workers is that they are inextricably linked in the minds of private sector workers to the Labour government. Labour squanders billions of pounds of taxpeyers’ hard-earned money on buying votes from minority groups and packing the public payroll with people that it hopes will vote Labour. It is seen as a byword for corruption and waste and unfortunately anyone associated with government at whatever level is tarred with the same brush. It’s tough on the genuine hard workers in public services, but they have to live with it.
PMH64, I don’t think it is obo that needs to pull his head out. You criticise based on fiction with out being aware of the full facts. My commendation was based on my hard work as a local goverment employee. No, it does not put food on the table, but I can walk away at the end of the day knowing that I have given 110%.
As a LG employee I and others like me have been slated in these posts for being lazy, greedy and selfish. Now you are telling me that I get nothing for being conscientious. Make up your mind. What do you do for a living, seeing as you think you views are so justified?
It was interesting to note that my anti spam word was LIFE and I think you need to get one!
- Posted by D Brogan