Message #3404

[Martin]

Well there will almost certainly be people counting up the number of people who were on strike in order to try to make out that the unions were unsuccessful in getting their people out.  So your action is not without its consequence even if you cause little disruption by striking.  At the end of the day this is a propaganda war as much as anything.

Listening to the TV I hear the constant, unchallenged, refrain from the government, that 'public sector pensions are not affordable'.  Meanwhile the government can find money to underwrite loans to businesses.  I hear the government saying that 'nobody in the private sector gets such a good deal as is being offered to the pulbic employees', yet I see FTSE 100 directors getting 50% pay rises (and, presumably, equivalent pension deals).

We are in a war of words.  The millionaire leaders of the political parties have no real knowledge of what it's like to struggle to make ends meet.  Public sector workers are just that. Workers. People who go and do a daily job, often for low salaries, their pension packages will not turn them into super-rich pensioners, they will simply have a reasonable income in retirement.  The fact that private sector workers' pensions are so ****-poor that they won't amount to much, is not a good reason to make public sector pensions just as bad. It's a good reason to force employers to improve private schemes.

Here's a novel plan.  Tax the rich. Abolish tax havens. Sack all directors who have given themselves a mega-rise while giving their workers below-inflation rises (they have proved themselves to be unworthy).  Skew education investment in favour of the poor, abolish private schooling.  Invest in technology, limit the size of banks and mega-companies so that big business doesn't become more powerful than elected governments, and have proper, proportional democracy.  Don't keep on and on ripping off the worker, telling them that there is no money left to afford them while the greedy rich keep on grabbing more.

You won't find David Cameron, Nick Clegg or George Osbourne is any poorer after this double dip.