Soap Box...
As I've long stated and held dear, I'm a full blown lefty socialist.
That being said, I don't support the public sector workers strike tomorrow. Protesting because you're being asked to pay a reasonable increase into your ridiculously generous, tax payer subsidised, final salary pension is way out of step with what's happening to the rest of us in the private sector.
The majority of workers in the private sector - from shop assistants to builders to secretaries etc. - are lucky if they get 5% of salary paid into a defined contribution pension (based on iffy investment in the stock market, NOT final salary) and usually have to match that amount from their own salary. Public sector workers get more than 15% paid into a final salary pension and only have to add about 3% from their own salaries. Those pensions are mostly in deficit and are being subsidised by tax payers - that's the rest of us who often earn less and don't get a fraction of the pension on retirement.
In these tough times, striking because you don't want to pay a little more into your own generous pension pot (but expecting the rest of us to do it for you) and don't want to work to the same age the rest of us will have to, is way out of order.
I'm as far from a Tory or Lib Dem as you can get, but this is one cause I can't support.
That being said, I don't support the public sector workers strike tomorrow. Protesting because you're being asked to pay a reasonable increase into your ridiculously generous, tax payer subsidised, final salary pension is way out of step with what's happening to the rest of us in the private sector.
The majority of workers in the private sector - from shop assistants to builders to secretaries etc. - are lucky if they get 5% of salary paid into a defined contribution pension (based on iffy investment in the stock market, NOT final salary) and usually have to match that amount from their own salary. Public sector workers get more than 15% paid into a final salary pension and only have to add about 3% from their own salaries. Those pensions are mostly in deficit and are being subsidised by tax payers - that's the rest of us who often earn less and don't get a fraction of the pension on retirement.
In these tough times, striking because you don't want to pay a little more into your own generous pension pot (but expecting the rest of us to do it for you) and don't want to work to the same age the rest of us will have to, is way out of order.
I'm as far from a Tory or Lib Dem as you can get, but this is one cause I can't support.