Anyone having 2 strike on Wednesday?

Our bin men are going on strike  .  Bloody council raises our taxes 4% and tries to cut 50 bin men's jobs to save money.  WTF!?  The bins are only emptied 1 day/week as it is!  Guess they don't call it 'Auld Reekie' for n/thing.  The rats in the Old Town are probably throwing a party over this.

Looks like I'll be striking on Wednesday.  As far as I know it is the union Unison that is leading the strike and I am currently a member.  I do beleive in the strike.  They are raising the pension age from 60 to 65, even though public sector workers don't generally live longer than they did 10 years ago, and they are changing the pensions from final salery to an average of what you made in your life time.  If you worked all your life and started out at the bottom to finally get a great, high paying job the last 10 or 15 years of your working life then they will still take that mail room job into consideration at the end.  Apparently the government is doing this without any consultation and pretty much refuse to discuss it, which is why it has come down to a strike.

Some interesting points. I understand the concerns some workers have over their pensions, especially those people who are in their forties and fifties.

A bunch of trade unions have clubbed together for this one - the ones that affect my line of work are PCS and FDA. Re. the amount consultation and discussion, trade unions will always claim that there hasn't been enough

Raising the Normal Pension Age to 65 is an unavoidable move, in my opinion, and will go further in decades to come. People are living longer and there's a shrinking workforce (proportionally) from which to fund pension payments. 65 is normal in the private sector, and it just ain't that old these days.

Certainly, "final salary" was a great deal while we could get it. But if we're talking about what's fair, we need take into account Mr X's mail room job, because during his time in the mail room, he was paying smaller pension contributions than a more senior employee. So it wouldn't be fair for him to get the same pension, just because he got a promotion late in his career - he simply didn't put in as much as the other guy. Career average is fairer, and for most workers  - who don't get those late-career promotions - the move away from final salary won't necessarily make much difference.

Raising the Normal Pension Age to 65 is an unavoidable move, in my opinion, and will go further in decades to come. People are living longer and there's a shrinking workforce (proportionally) from which to fund pension payments.

Yes, and there's a solution to this if Europeans (and its an EU problem) would just stop being so flipping racist and loosen up on immigration policies to let younger workers come in. Here's a great case of paying for your beliefs. Hate and distrust foreigners, go directly back to work for five more years.

Yes, and there's a solution to this if Europeans (and its an EU problem) would just stop being so flipping racist and loosen up on immigration policies to let younger workers come in.

I would disagree that it's just racism that stops the EU from relaxing its borders to immigrant workers.

Your solution has been voiced by a lot of people, and the principle  -  increase the number of workers to increase the amount of money in the pension bucket - sounds sensible. But it's a bit dodgy.

Krispy Kreme donuts aside, people will continue to live longer. Unless these newly arriving young foreign workers are all desperate to work in care homes, geriatric medicine, or reality TV ("Big Grandmother", or "Survivor - of my hip replacement operation", for example) there's no guarantee there'll be actual jobs for them.

So if there's a 30% increase people over 60 years of age in thirty years time, we can't magically find a 30% increase (for sake of argument) in new jobs for foreign workers to meet the funding gap. Where are these jobs going to come from? Even worse, with relaxed EU borders we run the risk of foreign workers coming here and landing immediately, or eventually on the dole, putting an even bigger strain on public spending.
               

It's a myth that foreign immigrants come and land on the dole, or stay on it for any appreciable length of time in contrast to the native population. On the other hand, it's statistically been shown that foreign immigrants actually create jobs and add to tax revenues, since they tend to start small businesses. Ever been to a curry house?

As for relaxed EU borders; there has in reality been no sizeable increase of East Europeans coming to work in the UK. The typical profile of an EU immigrant is a young, educated woman, seeking to escape the patriarchal limits in her home land. Few of these are dole-loungers.

Ever been to a curry house?

Glib and patronising. Goodness, did you read my book? 

I never said that immigrants in Britain are dole-loungers. There’s no confusion, racist or otherwise, for me on this issue. You can expose as many myths as you like, but you’d be better off preaching to someone who actually believes them.

It’s been statistically shown that 75% of immigration statistics aren’t much cop. Hey, some immigrants add to the value of their adopted country. And some don’t.  That’s a fact

But there’s no fact proving that relaxed immigration rules will solve the current, or future, pensions crisis. More immigrants might help (I reckon they would, too, and I believe the UK has a moral duty to accept asylum seekers as well as a vested interest in accepting skilled migrants) but they might not. In any case, even if the net result was positive, it wouldn’t be enough.

Your proposed solution isn’t a solution. That’s all. Whereas increasing the Normal Pension Age to 65 does two things – it reduces the number of pensioners, and increases the number of workers.

Some of my colleagues at the library will be striking but not me. I didn't join Unison.

Migrants 'key to pension crisis'
Foreign workers needed to boost tax take

Up to 10 million immigrants might be needed in Britain by 2025 to ensure pensioners can continue to receive £80 a week from the basic state pension, research out today suggests.

Researchers at Cass Business School in London have developed mathematical models of the likely course of the pensions crisis, which point to the need to work longer, save more and allow in more immigrants who will pay sufficient tax to keep the system afloat....

"The UK is facing some tough decisions in terms of state pensions provision. We can increase our work force via migration, we can work longer or we can increase contribution payments - even if we do this it only keeps the current state pension system stable until 2030," said Cass's Professor Lee Mayhew.

"The only other option is to combine these factors - work longer, increase migration and increase contribution levels," said Professor David Blake, another of the report's authors.

These are similar conclusions to those of Adair Turner, who compiled a major report into pensions for the Pension Commission, which was released last month.
http://money.guardian.co.uk/pensions/story/0,6453,1340523,00.html


Estimates of the levels of immigration required to maintain the viability of the UK state pension were made by David Blake for the House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs. Grant that it is necessary to make some difficult choices in order to keep the pension bill within reasonable limits (set by the growth in the wage bill), Blake asks whether immigration could help us to avoid the costs that are implicit in the other main options (a cut in pension benefits; more saving during the working life; an extended working life)? The criterion of success would be a stable ratio between the pension bill and wage will. “Under plausible assumptions”, and on this interpretation of success, annual net inflows of about 500,000 migrants would be required “to save the pension system”. Only when immigration levels are set unfeasibly high, does immigration hold out the prospect of avoiding the necessity of making other major adjustments to pension policy.

[unfeasibly high being a political determination, not an economic one]
http://www.ageing.ox.ac.uk/ageinghorizons/text%20only/pension%20reform/textonlyreplacementmigration2004.htm

From Blake's report:

"It is highly likely that the demographics will dominate the economics over next 50 years in the UK, since increases in labour productivity by themselves will not be sufficient to compensate for the combined problems of population ageing and declining fertility. It is therefore also highly likely that pensions and immigration issues will increasingly dominate the political agenda on national resource allocation over next half century."
http://www.lse.ac.uk/ubs/pdf/dp15.pdf


"The main conclusion of this report is that a targeted immigration policy which attracts young individuals
in sufficient numbers would both stop population decline and slow population ageing. In my view, if current demographic trends continue then population decline and population ageing will lead to a sizeable reduction in the standard of living of Scottish people. Scotland in not unique in this respect, since population ageing is a feature of most industrialised nations. For example, the current economic problems in Germany clearly have a demographic dimension...

It is somewhat bizarre that the Scottish Executive warns us that population decline/ageing is our “number one” problem and yet at the same time they are virtually powerless to do anything about it....
It is clear that the numbers of net migrants needed
to stop population decline, and at the same time decelerate population ageing, are not small. 50,000 net migrants per year is about one per cent of the total Scottish population. It is not difficult to see that managing a migration flow of this size would present a serious challenge to the people of Scotland and their government. It is worth noting that such a number may seem unrealistically large. However, in percentage terms it is not dissimilar to the targets set by, for example, Australia, Canada and New Zealand—all countries that are committed to increased immigration.
http://www.scotecon.net/publications/Wright%20Immigration.pdf



"Immigration benefits the U.S. economy overall and has little negative effect on the income and job opportunities of most native-born Americans, says a new report* by a panel of the National Research Council. Only in areas with high concentrations of low-skilled, low-paid immigrants are state and local taxpayers paying more on average to support the publicly funded services that these immigrants use.

"Immigrants may be adding as much as $10 billion to the economy each year," said panel chair James P. Smith, senior economist at RAND Corp., Santa Monica, Calif. "It's true that some Americans are now paying more taxes because of immigration, and native-born Americans without high school educations have seen their wages fall slightly because of the competition sparked by lower-skilled, newly arrived immigrants. But the vast majority of Americans are enjoying a healthier economy as the result of the increased supply of labor and lower prices that result from immigration."...

The National Research Council is the principal operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. It is a private, non-profit institution that provides independent advice on science and technology issues under a congressional charter.
http://www4.nationalacademies.org/news.nsf/isbn/0309063566?OpenDocument

"The only other option is to combine these factors - work longer, increase migration and increase contribution levels," said Professor David Blake, another of the report's authors.

Kudos on the cutting and pasting, but  a combination of "work longer", "increase immigration" and "pay more"? A whole lot closer to what I said than what you came up with.

Also, I don't see anywhere in the text mountain you provided a cite to back up your assertion that the European Union has a racist immigration policy. Did Google not supply the goods on that one? 

[By the way, I know your style is to have the "this article" vs. "that article" discussion - hey, I know that's how some Internet forums go - but I find it too impersonal and blocky. I like to know what people think, not what they read. Sorry if we're not compatible  ]

Looks like the strike will be averted - not totally surprised at this stage of the game

http://www.unison.org.uk/news/news_view.asp?did=1940

I agree with why there is going to be a strike I just hate loosing a days pay.  Oh well, I will get over it.

I manage the school meals contract for out LEA.  I can not believe how many schools rung me yesterday to say they were closing.  To me it is just an excuse to close.  We are leagally bound to feed any child that is entitled to a free school meal.  Which means we have to order enough packed lunches for every child that is entitled and arrange a central collection point in each town.  Of course they want all this sorted by Tuesday.  I think the gov't will step in at the 11th hour.  There is an election soon and they need the votes.

What really annoys me is our council is in financial trouble and they probabley see it as a cost cutting exercise.  Think of the money they will save in salaries and pension rights.  You have to buy back your days pension including their part.  They will benefit in all of this! 

I agree with why there is going to be a strike I just hate loosing a days pay.  Oh well, I will get over it.

I manage the school meals contract for out LEA.  I can not believe how many schools rung me yesterday to say they were closing.  To me it is just an excuse to close.

The school I work at is closing--- and it is definately not just an excuse in this case. It is a special needs school for children with behaviour and emotional difficulties. They could not be open safely with out the support staff of teaching assistants. It would just be a complete nightmare. So in some situations there can be good reason for a schools decision to close.

We have 4 special schools and so far they have not decided to close.  That is perfectly understandable what you are saying.