Seemed like fairly simple questions to me.



I'll put it even more simply.
Do you really believe that people on, say, minimum wage have enough spare cash at the end of the month during their working years to be able to create a large-enough pension-pot to see them through their retirement without dying of hypothermia or malnutrition?

Course they have. It's not as if there's a massive shortage of affordable housing and every essential commodity is increasing in price quicker than wages are able to keep up, is it?

But now they don’t/now they’re not needed, right?

Now, for instance, when an employer wants to slash the pay of people, they should bend over backwards to allow it to happen? After all, if they can’t pay the bills, then it’s their own fault, eh?

And before you comment, this is happening right now, in various places across the UK, and is not just about high-paid workers, but those on low wages too.



You mentioned a strike. You didn’t mention which one or what it was about. Were you referring to 30 November?



Because jobs are 10 a penny …



What ‘wrong’? In the case of 30- November, fighting for the retention of [usustainable pension schemes[/u, instead of agreeing to pay more money out of one’s own wages to pay off the bankers’ gambling debts?



You’re the lucky one. Many can’t. But who cares about them, eh?



Protect children – a worthless role, I admit.



Any job should be paid decently. Or are you really going to suggest that someone who goes out to work should not be paid decently?



On 30 November, nobody was striking over wages. It was all about pensions. – Not: ‘we want bigger pensions’, but simply ‘ we want the pensions we signed up to and pay into and don’t want top have to more to pay off the deficit’.

Other actions are taking place because councils and charities are slashing wages. But at least you wouldn’t have to worry about such things, so why worry about anyone else?



Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. For many people, they accepted working for lower pay in the public sector rather than the private because they wanted to do a job that benefited society, as you mention. One of the compensations was a decent – not ‘gold-plated’ – but decent pension.

This has been understood for a very, very long time. And just because someone does something that they feel a vocation for doesn’t mean you screw them into poverty in retirement.



There aren’t many step-down jobs, no. Just as there aren’t if you’re a nurse.



I bet you’d believe that people who go to court shouldn’t be allowed representation either – if you’ve decided already that they’re guilty.



As opposed to: “The majority of public sector workers are overpaid and are simply not value for money...”

How do you work out the value of social care, eh? In financial terms? Or of saving a child from abuse? Let’s get down to brass tacks – what is the financial value of teaching children? Y’know – not the human value, just the financial value.?

I’m afraid this utterly illustrates what’s wrong with this country – the cult of the individual, the cult of greed and the cult of nothing matters except money.



How long does it take to train to be a paid snitch?

There's plenty of evidence, yes.



I may have missed it, but I don't recall you responding to my last answer to you in that debate, about the huge rise in the cost of essentials over the last 30 years, from housing to prescriptions, to education to opthalmic and dental care to fuel and transport costs.

Of course, perhaps you can show that all wages have risen concomitantly ...

How much of your pension can you afford to lose?

I did should actually be i am, i'm still training.

Paid snitch or not, it's a job and i do it because people want to be paid yet not do their job, if these people wanted to actually knuckle down and do an honest days work my job would be redundant, it's not all i do either, it's a lot nore complex than that.



And you think there are people out there how are completely altruistic and don't have any self interest whatsoever? William Hesketh Lever for instance on the outside looks like a spledid person (he probably was a very moral man) but if you don't believe that the reason he looked after his employees was anything more than a happy workforce is a more productive work force then you're naive. In otherwords it was in HIS best interest so technically SELFISH dressed up with a frilly pink bow, in a dog eat dog world people will always look after number one, people will always look after number one, you think you're a moral guardian BUT everyone has a different point in which self preservation kicks in, would you be so moral and selfless as to take a bullet instead of a random child in a war situation or would you want to live (extreme yes, but i'm exploring limits so take it to the extreme edge), the cult of the individual has always been present.
Unions dress up solidarity but even that is self preservation, if i walk out on strike in support of a worker and protect his job then he'll do that for me, basically self preservation or cult of the individual dressed up in another frilly pink bow.

There are very few if any people out there who are 100% selfless, some people do good deeds just so THEY can feel good, it's a way of making YOURSELF feel better, it just so happens that a by product is someone else is happy, liberals seem to think they are beyond natural animal instincts like self preservation, selfishness and natural unbalance, we are not all equal and yes that's the way i prefer it.

Are you still here posting rubbish? Ah, but of course: no employer would ever mistreat decent staff, would they?

I'm surprised you didn't comment about "thew real world" or scream that you 'thought' someone was telling you not to eat bananas.



Not in my experience.



Not in my experience.



Who cares if people can barely afford to live. Or, in this wonderful consumer culture of ours, can't afford to contribute to the wider economy, eh?

:27cuxtbu

Sainthood beckons.

When did the good people of Swindon start speaking geordie?

Really. So it's not deferred pay, then?

I was made redundant 13 years ago i wasn't in the union some off the guys were in the union, they underlined they only needed x amount of men and they were doing it on a last in first out basis, i accepted it and started looking for another job upon being given 2 months notice, the guys in the union fought it. In the end we all went at the end of the 2 months, union or not it made no difference. 6 months later i get a letter through the door asking me if i want my old job back, i was working but they were offering better terms, i came back and worked for them on the same terms i left with and worked for them for another 2 years before i left for a better job, non of the guys who had been in the union who fought it were invited to come back, who got the better deal out of that?

Well, it doesn't get more conclusive than that.

And in my experience, in a variety of non-unionised companies I've worked for since the early 1980s, I've found absolutely sh*tty bosses who would sack you for all manner of reasons – for example, because I wouldn't lie in one case, because the boss himself was incompetent in another and because I wasn't prepared to work extra hours for nothing in order to help the editor herself make extra in yet another.

Hey Honda/Nissan they all look the same mate...

I'm not equating it to the whole union experience you sarky sod, and neither is that my reasoning for not being in a union as i've never been in a union, i don't personally see the need for them, i've asked for a pay increase in one of my jobs and negotiated it myself and i'm a honest hard worker so i don't need them to fight my corner either, the world helps those that help themselves

I agree with much of what Mintball is suggesting but there is a difference between like to have and reality.

Plenty of people manage to get on quite happily without the need for the support of a union, they are able to negotiate their pay and conditions unaided, given the shrinking union membership I would suggest they are in the majority.

I signed up to a final salary scheme when I joined this company - the company closed it, that is the reality outside of the public sector. I am still lucky my employer pays in 3 times what I do into my pension.

I agree everyone should be paid a living wage - whatever that is - but there has to be an acceptance that certain people will be paid more than others through simple supply and demand. Whilst a lollipop lady does carry out a valuable job the skill required to do it is attainable by virtually anyone which is shown in the wage. You appear to be suggesting - I may be wrong - that their pay should be in line with a manager in the private sector?

Bailing out the bankers has been an expensive exercise - although with a bit a luck the country will recover it and some. I have no truck with the likes of Goodwin and Cameron at RBS, they should be - Cameron especially, Goodwin had no grasp of what Cameron was doing, in jail IMO. The fact still remained the Labour government was increasing the deficit significantly through extreme spending on public services which was beginning to cause some serious concerns which were compounded by the banking stuff.

I don't often get the opportunity to do this.
I agree.

I'd just say though, that collective bargaining saves the employer a lot of time and money in a lot of cases.
Using your lollipop lady example ... you wouldn't negotiate with lollipop ladies individually would you?

Mind you, there's one near where I live who must be on some kind of bonus based on how much traffic she can disrupt.

Sarcastic? Me? Never.



What about those who pay a trade union to negotiate on their behalf? Aren't they helping themselves? Sure, you may have the confidence, eloquence and necessary access to those who decide your remuneration to make direct negotiation entirely realistic. But that's not the case for everyone, and it would get very time consuming for the Chief Executive of (for example) Hull City Council if he had to enter wage negotiations with every lollipop lady, cleaner, dinner lady, road sweeper etc etc individually.

Do please provide it then...



I got bored of you skirting around the issue. Yes, inflation means things cost more now. However what is the difference in real terms and how does that compare to the increase in wages for all but the top few?
It also occurred to me that the claim was far too vague and wide reaching to ever be corroborated. I mean, what is the 'cost of living'? How can that be succinctly quantified? I guess at least it may be possible to put a figure on the average increase in wages for all but a given top earning x% of the population. But you haven't even managed that.



If I had the evidence to backup or refute your claims I wouldn't have been asking you to provide it. I've made no claims, I'd just like to know if there's any truth to the things you are stating as facts.

Why would the Chief Executive have to do it? In my experience wage negotiations form a natural part of the performance appraisal process and so are conducted with the manager you report to.

Someone has to have overall budgetary control over the thing. If everyone is negotiating his/her salary individually, someone needs to keep an eye on the overall cost. Can't have individual managers handing out pay rises willy nilly. And then there are all the other conditions to think about. Should each worker negotiate changes to his annual leave entitlement, pension arrangement, sick pay, working hours, overtime arrangement etc individually too? Can't see it working out, really.

I was in the GMB for 20 years. Cancelled my subs a few years ago, because they backed just about every Labour working proposal. They sat around and did nothing, whilst companies like Tesco were getting away with paying minimum wages, and still expected the employees to do weekend/ bank holiday work for normal pay. I lost heart with the Labour party and the trade unions.

Now I agree with people going on strike, but I did'nt agree with last week's strike by civil servants. Just about everybody I know, who has retired in the past few years (private) has been told that their pensions have not matured as much as they expected, so why should civil servants expect any different?

But the 1 thing thats pees me off about CS, is sick pay. Put them on a pay as you work system, and the number of sick days these people have, will be decimated, especially schoolteachers. Those b5stards think the world owes them a living. The above statement, does not apply to nurses.

Why weren't you in USDAW?



That went with the working time directive, you did get guaranteed paid holidays in return, the retail trade is one of those industries where weekend and bank holiday working is part of the job, I didn't like it so I changed my job.



While there is no doubt there is a culture of an allowance of sick days I'm not sure the teachers are the main culprit.

Why - are nurses a 'special case.'? I have spent quite alot of time in hospitals in the last few years and have been shocked at the almost complete lack of nursing care. I am taling childrens wards here - and apparently its as bad in old folks wards. Appalling. So many of them prefer chatting than work. On one occasion an older nurse who had just come back after a 20 year break was aghast and trying to do everything herself - she couldn't believe how standards had slipped and how lazy everyone was. I had to say to her that I was glad it wasn't just me who thought that!

You can have a go at nurses, i've heard their sh-t smells too