Surely the most basic test of the value of unions is the levels of membership where its voluntary? In Australia only 14% of private sector employees are in a union. That about sums up what most people think of them.

One thing that seems to be ignored sometimes is the implicit pact for public sector workers - generally lower wages than their private sector counterparts, but in return the expectation of pretty secure post-retirement lives. In any event, if governments start to change this pact they need to give people serious lead time to self invest - at least 15-20 years if you expect somebody to seriously contribute to their own retirement.

Sometimes the unions themselves have broken this pact. In the public sector in Queensland, public sector unions (which basically run the Labor party here) have routinely had wage rises above inflation irrespective of any improvements in productivity. As a result people in general office jobs here for example earn far more than they could if they left the public sector - ten years of inflation plus 2% will tend to do that. That in turn leads to bloated public sector costs and huge inefficiency relative to the private sector. Bizarrely the very same unions that have forced these wage rises through then complain bitterly when the government is forced to look at provatisation to balance the books.

One thing everybody should look at when planning for their retirement (if they have the ability to do so - most funds worth their salt will enable you to do a bit of diversification in a general sense) is to try to diversify some of your investments. The sharemarket is always a bit of a rollercoaster, and whilst returns over the long-term are generally good, you can face significant short to medium term volatility in the value of your shares - a real problem if you face retirement on a maturing investment during a sharemarket collapse. I know quite a few older people here who are really worried about having to postpone their planned retirement as they simply cannot afford to stop working.

Actually lets get it right.
She destroyed the mining industry because SHE WANTED TO DESTROY THE UNIONS.
The unions were not the only ones looking for that fight Thatcher did as well.
That is a big diffrence.

It should be 0% according to this little gem.

I'm sure my sister will be overjoyed to hear this when she next helps save a life on ICU.

Give over mate, everyone makes out that all doctors and nurses are amazing people, selfless and full of virtue, i know a few and guess what some of them are right see you next Tuesdays. Just like not all soldiers are heroes, put i suppose it goes against the populist BS that people peddle in mindless fashion. Not everyone is a paragon of virtue regardless of profession.

What mentality is that? Low paid workers (as most are) not wanting to carry the can for the bankers screwing up the economy because they, the public employes, are easy government employed targets?

Having been out of hospital for 8 weeks, all I saw on my orthopaedic ward was hard-working, understaffed, dedicated nurses. I have never seen morale so low either. I don't doubt what you say in your experience, but I've had 5 ops in the last 2 1/2 years and not once had I had a complaint about a nurse.

A few examples: 2 staff nurses for over 30 ladies. One staff nurse heavily pregnant and came in and was immediately sent home as she was sick. That left 1 staff nurse for a 13 hours shift and she even had time to come down to theatres with me. Second example: on my discharge the nurses put my prescription into pharmacy at 8am. By 2pm when no prescription was forthcoming, one particular staff nurse went down to pharmacy every half hour from 2pm till it was finally ready at 4.30pm. She didn't have to do that but did.

Imo its not the nurses who can't be bothered, they are let down by a system thats overloaded and bureaucracy thats in place.

Didn't he sing 'Smokestack Lightning'?

That's okay – I got bored ages ago of you being an apologist for what anyone with a grain of morality/ethics can see has been happening and can see is wrong.

But this is risable: "inflation means things cost more now." Just for one, the cost of housing has not gone up, over the last 30 years, by the rate of inflation.

They already do. When you opt into one of the pension schemes, you agree that some of your pay will be deferred and go into that scheme instead.



So if people want a decent retirement, they have to become wizards at playing the financial game, yes?

That, I'm afraid, is part of what's gone seriously wrong. People have to trust their lives to a bunch of gamblers.

Please link to the post where anyone has claimed this.

How very boring, generic and predictable of you

It depends when you start, really. Start one early enough (and keep it up) like you're advised to, then yes.

I'm sure you know, however, that there will always be some kind of safety net for people who have been physically unable to, though. I doubt ANY government would be so callous as to remove that.

You would expect me to agree with your post, but I just don't.

Contrary to what the some think on here, I'm not against unions. I'm just against the way most of them conduct themselves, especially when compared to places like Germany, where it works well. That's the frustrating bit - that the Germans can make it work, but we can't.

Unions are great where there are large numbers of workers in an organisation. I employ 10 people, all of whom do different things, with their package appropriately reflecting this, so it's not hard to sit down once or twice a year with everyone and discuss their wages (amongst other things, such as performance, training etc).

You can't however, do that when there are 500 of you. That's where unions can serve some purpose - it's a time saver for the management, as well as a trained negotiator fighting your corner if you're a worker. With respect to, say, factory workers, they're unlikely to be good negotiators, which is why is should - in theory - be good to be in a union, so all that is done for you. And were I in control of a company with so many employees, I wouldn't object to the workforce being unionised if the union stuck to the theory and worked WITH me, rather than trying to oppose me all the time for no reason other than - it seems - to justify their existence.

The problem, however - ignoring for one minute the perception that ALL management is unscrupulous - is that unions invariably fail to understand the situation the employer finds himself in. A fall in income ALWAYS means that costs need to come down; if your personal outgoings are £15,000 per year and you earn £20,000 (ignoring tax for the minute), you're OK.

BUT supposing you suddenly experience a fall in income to £14,000? Or even you suffer a fall to £17,000 but your outgoings increase to £18,000? You're then cash flow negative, and you have to make some savings. The problem we have, is that the general public - with respect to them - don't seem to get that this applies to businesses, and our country, as well as them individually. A company that turns over £2m per annum sounds good, but if their costs are £2.5m, then they either have to try and boost income or cut costs. They can't 'just pluck' half a million from somewhere any more than you personally can 'just pluck' a couple of grand from nowhere.

It is therefore the job of the unions to understand this, and reach a compromise; too often, we see unions tabling their objections and demands, then proposing strike action when they don't get it. Every so often you'll get a union leader out to make a name for himself, which again, sets the union cause back even further. Just as people dismiss management as being 'all the same', the same gets said of the unions FOR THIS REASON.

And yes, management SHOULD INDEED talk to the unions to allow this to happen, but first of all the unions need to demonstrate that they're worth talking to and reasonable to deal with, otherwise they will continue to be treated with the current level of disdain.

Well obviously, common sense tells you that each manager has control of his own department's budget, and will therefore know what he can and can't spend.

They're called MANAGERS for a reason.

You mean the safety net that is ESA that the government is one step away from limiting it to 365 days and on the 366th day if your spouse earns over £149 a week you get NOTHING, and I mean NOTHING.

Or the safty net of DLA so I can pay my gas bill because my heating needs to be on full all day in the winter and the means to have transport to be independant that the government are reassessing and reports are that 98% of DLA claimaints will not be eligable for the new PIP (Personal Independant Payment).

Or the safety net that cancer sufferers having chemo have to go through a Work Related Assesment to see if they are fit for work?

Your doubts are wrong. This governement are as callous as they come.

Not at all, they can sleep soundly knowing their future and their money is safe and well in the hands of the likes of Bob Maxwell.

So my sister hasn't helped save lives then?
You had better tell her that because she is damn sure she has.
Still if it gives you a warm feeling 'peddling this BS' as you put it feel free.

Exactly. Private businesses will look after them. Or miss-sell them a pension. Or, as with RBS, gamble so irresponsibly that people will lose money.

So the way forward is for everyone to become a financial wizard. And then they can buy their own pension ...

Oh, hang on a minute ...

Now I've got to ask, who the fook are HSBO?

Halifax Scotland Bank of (rearrange as necessary)?

Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Organisation?

It's the UK elite's equivalent of an ASBO: The Highly Splendid Behaviour Order, awarded to bankers alongside their much deserved bonuses.

Meanwhile, Peter Tatchell has some good ideas:

[urlhttp://www.redpepper.org.uk/economic-democracy-the-lefts-big-new-idea/[/url

...and if they'd had the decency to declare from the outset that actually pensions are investments and investments are unknowns which are just as likely to go down as up (not "can" but "will"icon_wink.gif rather than skim over those facts with a loose tag line while smiling and offering assurance that you definitely will be much better off giving your money to them to look after - then we would at least not feel hard done by.

The fact of the matter is that these are not back street shady cash-in-hand dealers who disappear to the pub with your weekly money every time you call, we're talking about international banking organisations who asked us to trust them and then shat on us all, and when the likes of Nat West brazenly just sell the whole of their pensions business lock stock and barrel to Aviva and declare that they aren't going to do pension investments any more then you know that actually, they probably didn't know what they were doing when they promised that they would look after our money until we needed it several decades into the future.

Meant RBS – and changed to reflect that.

Indeed. And if you look at that as an indicator of how people trying to be responsible are treated, then how can you continue to demand that people behave responsibly?

I mentioned the Fred the Shred documentary earlier: when everyone can see people like him getting away with what he did (and he's far from alone), and paying no effective price for what he did and the damage caused by the company under his control, then what incentive is there for anyone to behave responsibly?

she trained and is paid for it but it doesn't make her saintly or a nice person and worthy of some sort of hero worship like she's above 'normal' human beings, it's a job, granted with a lot of responsibility but i don't hold nurses above any other trained and dedicated person