Excellent. That's the sort of thing that should be happening.

Obviously no one wants anyone to lose money, especially over Christmas, but as both you and I have said many times Cod'ead, if unions and management work together and understand the problem, then solutions can often be found.

It's tragic that the employees are losing money of course, but far less tragic than the otherwise likely job losses.

The company is up against it. People have considered the economic reality of the situation, a few days extra holiday unpaid is better than no job at all.

In other news I note that Hutton has now said public sector pension reforms need to go further.

I wonder if he is prepared to lose some of his pension as an example to the rest of us?

I very much doubt it.

Armed forces are next for the great pensions shafting, but they can't strike.

The reality is pretty much everyone is going to have to work longer, pay more and get less in return.

Labour knew about this 10 years ago, but did nothing about it for fear of alienating their core vote.

Yes, Thatcher destroyed the mining industry BECAUSE OF THE UNION wielding too much power. So you agree with my analysis that over-strong unions do nothing in the long-term interests of their members. The last bastion of that sort of unionism is in the the public services and guess what, their members are suffering job losses.

I'll probably get shot for saying this, but I'm not overly convinced that anyone is really 'to blame' for not foreseeing this.

Pensions are linked to all sorts of economically driven factors, and any one of them - or a combination of them - can contribute to the value of them being driven up or down. The "credit crunch" was predicted - in that it was widely reported that ordinary people would struggle to repay the debt they got themselves into, but ANYONE could have told you that! Can anyone, though, honestly say that accurately predicted the wider economic crash, the length of the recession, or how badly everything was going to turn out. I very much doubt it. No one has a crystal ball.

Now, I don't know the answer to this as I've never personally directly worked for the council or the government, but when you start your employment and are "invited" to contribute towards your pension, are you not TOLD that the value could vary? Are you not given 'expected performance', worst case scenario, or exceptional performance figures, and told that the pension performance is dependent on various factors? If not, why the hell not?

Armed forces are next for the great pensions shafting, but they can't strike.



What they can do is contribute individually to a pension like the rest of the country and not get it for free

It is part of their salary package just the same as mine in the private sector, and to think both are non-contributory is blinkered at best.

Average armed forces payment last year was £8,693. I am not entirely convinced this figure means anything, since some will serve short periods and leave with small pensions, others will serve their full career.

I know a Squadron Leader who did 30 years, his pension is around £20K p/a,

When you consider his final leaving salary was around £60K, you might think this pension is not fantastic compared to what some in the public sector get.

I'm not convinced your pension should be in any way reflective of your final salary. Why should it? It should be reflective of what you have paid into it (which I understand forms part of the beef the strikers had)

What if you get a series of great big massive eff off promotions in your final five years, doubling your pay in that time?

In any case, my grandma, who is 92 and retains all her marbles, came up with a valid, if not entirely politically correct point. Pensions might be lower than salaries, but you get concessions on pretty much everything (travel, council tax, TV license, for instance), and you should have paid off your mortgage (if you rent, you will receive Housing Allowance), so you don't NEED as much money to live on, particularly when you get a lump sum on retirement in addition the monthly payment you get.

That, of course, is not to suggest that the £100 a week state pension is anything like enough to live on of course, before anyone trots that one out.

Grandma Robinson makes a good point. We should [iall[/i surrender those parts of our income we don't [ineed[/i. Perhaps her grandson will do us the honour of being the first to do so?

Politicians of all hues have known about this for at least a couple of generations but have done nothing about it because its an issue that until now has always existed well outside of the current term of parliament.

Nothing will be done about state pensions until the current generation of workers under the age of 40 find that they haven't got one and have to start living under bushes on roundabouts, and because you can't have a polling card if you live under a bush on a roundabout then politicians still won't care anyway.

Where did I say that? Come on.

What I'm saying - and it's more clear in my edited post - that you [ishouldn't in theory need [/ia pension equal to what your final salary is.

Do I expect to earn the same money retired as I do working? No.

The only bit of your last couple of posts that I agree with with is "Thatcher destroyed the mining industry".
You have shifted from "Unions" to "over-strong unions" to try to stand your case up a bit ... but just what you mean by "over" strong is known only to you.
German unions are very strong indeed, which is why the sensible Germans have long since invited them into the process rather than trying to smash them.
And guess what? ... it works.

Your logic is like saying that, as all Collies are dogs, therefore all dogs are Collies?

Incidentally, just to be clear, in case you are wondering ... I have not been a member of a union since I resigned my membership 40-plus years ago ... and am content to criticise them where it is warranted.

Fair, if dramatic, point, but consider this.

Our grandparents invariably did something to save us from the Germans. Also, private pensions didn't really exist, and people were unlikely to live very long past retirement age anyway. Therefore, the state pension was affordable and appropriate.

Nowadays, however, we're all educated (or should be), and therefore in my opinion at least, there is no excuse for not doing at least SOMETHING to ensure your retirement isn't spent freezing and living on lentils. It's not hard to set a pension up, and if you start one early enough, you'll get a reasonable whack out of it when you've stopped working.

Say you retire at 65 and are expected to live until 70, it's one thing making a pot of, say £100,000 last for 5 years. However if you're now expected to live for another 15 years beyond retirement, you either have to make that £100,000 last 15 years, or find another £200,000 to give you the same money per month.

Where do you suggest that extra money comes from?

Very fair indeed ... but not quite as dramatic as you might think, given Cameron's moves to shift electoral-roll registration outside the responsibility of local government.
In the future, when self-disenfranchisement thereby becomes very widespread, the dislocation of the masses from the political system will be be even more clear.
I see in the polls that women are expressing great dissatisfaction with him, they'd better watch out or he might be tempted to repeal universal suffrage.
But never mind, he's already appointed lots of new peers to take up the slack.

I'm suggesting that in fact the saving of money into a pension pot is not as simple as you think, I contributed between £300 and £500 a month for several years (until recently) into a NatWest pension only to find that in three out of the last seven years they have lost money from my pension pot and they have now finally thrown their hands in the air and declared that they don't want to do pensions any more, selling the whole business to Aviva.

My pension pot currently stands (only just) as a very sick looking individual and I certainly cannot now afford to "invest" that sort of money any more as I now earn what is regarded to be a national average sort of wage, my children who are just starting in the workplace now currently have money to waste from their wages and could feasibly start a pension scheme and we are trying to get them to do so but with little faith in what they might be "investing" in - however they are also of child bearing age and (hopefully) might be thinking of setting up homes of their own soon (jesus I hope they are anyway), and so in the next phase of their lives the question of the sort of substantial sums that would be required in a private scheme would be out of the question.

The idea that a 20 year old can put a fiver a week into a pension plan that will pay them a liveable pension at 65 is what governments have always tried to sell in order to relieve themselves of the responsibility - it doesn't work, and sooner or later a government will admit that and make some reasonable provision out of public funding.

To take up your other point I agree with your grandma, I won't need a huge amount to live on in ten (more likely fifteen) years, at todays prices I'm looking at a monthly amount of around £900, which, if my mortgage is paid off is do-able, its not at decadence level by any means but two of us could live on that.

Haven't a clue what this refers to, so will skip it.



What proportion of a wage under, say, £20,000 would you say should be put away (and frittered by fund managers) to provide a decent liveable pension?
Then step down a bit, what proportion of a minimum wage should be invested to provide a decent liveable pension?

I would contend that the £6bn that Vodafrone didn't pay in tax would help out greatly in this area.

That whole post is a take. Come back with something more sensible and we'll talk.

Organised labour has a part to play in ensuring reasonable working terms/conditions - the problem comes when they try and operate outside of the core remit e.g. Scargill/Jack Jones/Dean/Reid and their ego overtakes them. Its is no surprise that we no longer have any mining/shipbuilding/newspaper typesetting/car manufacture outside of the Japanese - all had one thing in common!! The demise of mining in this country was down to one person and one person only Arthur.

Someone better tell the Clyde shipbuilders, Land Rover, Range Rover, Jaguar and BMW Mini...

And on the opposition benches too!! On PMQ's this lunch time one lady MP, in the middle of her question stated Cameron is turning women off in more ways than one! Made me giggle anyway

Translation: I am unable to answer any of your points, so I'll try to make out that it's you that's stupid.

How many people are employed building ships on the Clyde? anyone who flies into Belfast City Airport can see how well Howland Wolf are doing!!

Of car production in the UK what % is Japanese? The Honda factory in the NE is claimed to be the most efficient in Europe, just shows what happens when management and employees work together without the interference of the TGWU!!.

Translation - I made some huge generalisations and now I'm back-peddling.





The workers are the same, the bosses however have had a huge upgrade.