BL**DY UNIONS

Crucial Talks On Planned Pensions Strike

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6:34am UK, Wednesday November 02, 2011


The Government is expected to table a new offer to unions at talks aimed at
averting a walkout by millions of public sector workers on November 30.


Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude and Chief Secretary to the Treasury
Danny Alexander will meet union officials including TUC leader Brendan
Barber.

However, union officials have suggested they are only expecting marginal
concessions to be proposed, possibly movement on the accrual rate of a new
scheme and a softening of the blow for some employees closer to retirement
age.

They are not expecting any change to the main issues of contention - public
sector staff being told to pay higher pension contributions and work longer for
less retirement income.

Workers and their unions are building for the biggest mobilisation of workers
in decades as the battle begins to defend public sector
pensions.

Unite national officer Peter Allenson



A TUC spokesman said: "There is a meeting in which we expect the Government
to indicate whether they are prepared to move on their position.

"But we will need to listen to what they have to say rather than comment on
advance spin, which can only get in the way of proper negotiation."

In the Commons on Tuesday, Chancellor George Osborne said Mr Alexander would
set out the Government's offer.

"I think when people will see it, they will see it is fair: fair to the
public sector, people in the public sector will get a much more generous pension
than is available in almost any part of the private sector; but it is also fair
to the taxpayers," he said.

Several unions, including Unite and the GMB, will announce the result of
strike ballots in the coming weeks, starting with Unison on Thursday.

Unite national officer Peter Allenson said: "It is time to make a stand and
vote yes for action on November 30.

"The average local government pension is only £3,048 a year.

"Workers and their unions are building for the biggest mobilisation of
workers in decades as the battle begins to defend public sector pensions

I get really mad with these gimme gimme Unions when around the World, hundreds have died and the living made homeless because of Earthquakes and Floods and the World is facing a double dip recession .

Teachers are the first to join the Protest marches but have nothing to gripe about. They work a seven hour day, five day week, about 12 weeks holiday
a Year, job for life, no test as to their ability to TEACH which results in so many youngsters leaving school without any exam results.

Shame on the lot of you.

I'm a union member and thank god we have unions, otherwise we would be working 7 days a weeks, 12 hours a day, for a pittance and some living in workhouses. Especially in these times where the 1% our doing their best to take everything away, including our rights, we need to be united more than ever. If teaching is so easy why aren't you lining up to be a teacher? It must be one of the most stressful jobs, with unruly students, always taking your work home, preparing lessons, grading papers and correcting tests. I admire those who take up teaching, I know I never could do it.

I can only remember one gifted Teacher when I was in School and was lucky enough to pass the 11 plus and go to Grammar School. Britain is currently 18th in the European table of good Education, even Estonia beats us.!!!

I agree in the old days there was a need for Unions but now there is a minimum wage and no one is really that hard done by. As for the work load of Teachers , no sooner do the children go back to school from a holiday than there is another day off called "Inset "day. No, to my mind there are far more
deserving causes than Teachers

The Government has increased the Pensions for public sector employees by 8% but a General Secretary has dismissed this as inadequate. He says the
Strike will go ahead and the march be bigger than the 1920"s including young people out of work. The Government spokesman advised the waiting Press
but would not be drawn by a question on how much it would cost the Taxpayer and was he aware that Private Pensions which people pay for have been
reduced substantially because of the Economic crisis.

Jon Craig ...sky news

At today's pension
talks in Whitehall, I'm told that leftie Mark Serwotka of the PCS union
was in militant, table-thumping form as he gave a hostile response to
the Government's new offer.
No surprise there, then.
"It's tinkering around the edges," he told me later.
"I
heard Francis Maude saying it doesn't get any better. Well, if it
doesn't get any better, there will be three million public sector
workers on strike on 30 November."
Fighting talk.
But I'm
told that after Serwotka's table thumping inside 70 Whitehall, Brendan
Barber shuffled in his seat and told ministers Serwotka was expressing a
personal view and not speaking for the whole TUC.
Ministers believe the unions are split on the latest offer.
And there's evidence to support that.
One
union insider involved in the talks told me: "Brendan's later very firm
line in front of the cameras was influenced more by the so-called
moderates still balloting than the militants who already have a mandate.
"Yesterday
and up to this morning Brendan had wanted to describe the offer as
'significant', but was told in no uncertain terms that he couldn't."
The
GMB union welcomed the Government's offer, despite claiming it was
probably too little, too late to prevent strikes going ahead on November
30.
That's because the unions are already well advanced with
their strike ballots. Unison will be the first to announce its ballot
result, just 24 hours after the Government's new offer.
"The
Government is fighting a propaganda battle at the moment," a senior
Unison official close to general secretary Dave Prentis told me.
And
that's certainly true. But let's see how high the turnouts are in those
strike ballots. They are often scandalously low, sometimes under 30%.
The Government's offer seems to have wrong-footed the Labour Party as well.
During
Prime Minister's Questions, I looked down from my seat in the Press
Gallery above the Opposition front bench and could see Ed Balls and Jon
Trickett, the Shadow Cabinet Office minister, staring at Danny
Alexander's statement just before he delivered it.
When the newly
promoted Rachel Reeves responded to the statement a few minutes later,
the best she could come up with was to say the Government "must leave no
stone unturned" in the negotiations.
Despite Brendan Barber's
moderate language, my hunch is that militants like Mark Serwotka will
ultimately prevail inside the TUC and the strikes will go ahead.
That
would mean the offer being withdrawn, which is "within the Government's
gift, Francis Maude said at the Treasury news conference after Danny
Alexander's statement.
During the day, I sensed that Alexander and
Maude were playing "good cop, bad cop" in their public statements about
this pensions dispute. Alexander was more conciliatory, talking about
the generosity of the offer, while Maude issued threats to the unions
about what would happen if they rejected it.
Ministers may indeed be right and the unions may be split.
They
plan to hold meetings separately with the various groups of workers
affected, local government, the NHS, civil servants and so on. Trying to
pick off different groups, it looks like.
But the Government
would be very foolish to under-estimate the determination of union
leaders like Mark Serwotka of the PCS and Dave Prentis of Unison to
press ahead with strikes on November 30.
So get ready for more table thumping.

Carolina wrote:I'm a union member and thank god we have unions, otherwise we would be working 7 days a weeks, 12 hours a day, for a pittance and some living in workhouses. Especially in these times where the 1% our doing their best to take everything away, including our rights, we need to be united more than ever. If teaching is so easy why aren't you lining up to be a teacher? It must be one of the most stressful jobs, with unruly students, always taking your work home, preparing lessons, grading papers and correcting tests. I admire those who take up teaching, I know I never could do it.

I agree, Carolina. Unions have done great things for ordinary people. It's thanks to the unions that we have a minimum wage and health and safety regulations, as well as paid holidays and sick pay. When I worked for what was then the nationalised British Rail, many years ago, there was a 'closed shop.' All employees had to be members of a union. One of the rules won by the unions was that there always had to be 2 men in the cab. Since the 'closed shop,' idea went, we now have one man in the cab and I am sure that some of the accidents over the past few years could have been prevented had there been two in the driver's cab.

AnnaEsse wrote:

Carolina wrote:I'm a union member and thank god we have unions, otherwise we would be working 7 days a weeks, 12 hours a day, for a pittance and some living in workhouses. Especially in these times where the 1% our doing their best to take everything away, including our rights, we need to be united more than ever. If teaching is so easy why aren't you lining up to be a teacher? It must be one of the most stressful jobs, with unruly students, always taking your work home, preparing lessons, grading papers and correcting tests. I admire those who take up teaching, I know I never could do it.

I agree, Carolina. Unions have done great things for ordinary people. It's thanks to the unions that we have a minimum wage and health and safety regulations, as well as paid holidays and sick pay. When I worked for what was then the nationalised British Rail, many years ago, there was a 'closed shop.' All employees had to be members of a union. One of the rules won by the unions was that there always had to be 2 men in the cab. Since the 'closed shop,' idea went, we now have one man in the cab and I am sure that some of the accidents over the past few years could have been prevented had there been two in the driver's cab.

I agree Anna, many serious incidents and 'near misses' have occurred within the health service and often still do because of staffing level cuts initiated by medically unqualified HR personnel conforming with accountant driven league tables and reduction in front line staff budgets despite statements that NHS budgets are being increased. Unions are powerless to withdraw labour or even to declare a work to rule and administration know and exploit the fact.

I think a lot of this is just bad management. About 3 years ago I had an op and was in Hospital, the cleaners, never moved Furniture or dussted properly
and I mentioned this in my questionnaire especially since there is so much infection in hospital now. To be fair, the Sister came to my bed and asked me
to point out what I saw.

This is the problem , it is the STANDARDS which have been reduced in everything, not just Hospitals, Education, Training, Behaviour, Manners, all part of
the decline of Britain.

Panda wrote:I think a lot of this is just bad management. About 3 years ago I had an op and was in Hospital, the cleaners, never moved Furniture or dussted properly
and I mentioned this in my questionnaire especially since there is so much infection in hospital now. To be fair, the Sister came to my bed and asked me
to point out what I saw.

This is the problem , it is the STANDARDS which have been reduced in everything, not just Hospitals, Education, Training, Behaviour, Manners, all part of
the decline of Britain.

Yes Panda and it's all to do with profit and how to squeeze the last drop of blood out of a stone. Thatcher introduced the idea of internal markets and businesses should be run by accountants not the people who understood the particular industry. Foreign enterprise and empire builders have moved into what were our public utilities paying themselves huge wages, increasing charges to customers and reducing services supplied. Our MPs steal from the public purse, maintain high taxes, increase immigration for cheap labour and bankers take government handouts but refuse to help small businesses....It's the standards and morals of the people who run the country that have gone to the dogs.

malena stool wrote:

Panda wrote:I think a lot of this is just bad management. About 3 years ago I had an op and was in Hospital, the cleaners, never moved Furniture or dussted properly
and I mentioned this in my questionnaire especially since there is so much infection in hospital now. To be fair, the Sister came to my bed and asked me
to point out what I saw.

This is the problem , it is the STANDARDS which have been reduced in everything, not just Hospitals, Education, Training, Behaviour, Manners, all part of
the decline of Britain.

Yes Panda and it's all to do with profit and how to squeeze the last drop of blood out of a stone. Thatcher introduced the idea of internal markets and businesses should be run by accountants not the people who understood the particular industry. Foreign enterprise and empire builders have moved into what were our public utilities paying themselves huge wages, increasing charges to customers and reducing services supplied. Our MPs steal from the public purse, maintain high taxes, increase immigration for cheap labour and bankers take government handouts but refuse to help small businesses....It's the standards and morals of the people who run the country that have gone to the dogs.

I can"t remember the date, but many years ago a Scotsman living in America turned the whole Country around and made it profitable . The trouble with
Britain many of our Politicians are corrupt and the rot started with 13 years of the Blair Government.The Unions did themselves no good in the 70"s with their one out all out strikes which ruined our manufacturing base, plus of course the emergence of China and India able to supply cheap goods.

I don"t think it"s all to do with profit, it"s Divorce, lack of discipline in the home and Schools, T.V. etc.

Most Unions do a good job.But make no mistake,most Union leaders are 'Champagne Socialists'.We will need much stronger Unions in the coming years i fear as unemployment increases and wages are outstripped by inflation.

There are many things wrong with this country and if it wasnt for the Unions things would be much worse,though as i have said above,the Unions need to watch their own internal structures.

My very first job was working in the Office for a Bus Company which was owned by British Rail. My friend and I volunteered to collect the subs for a small
sum each year but it meant we had to attend Union Meetings. They were the most boring events with Brother this and Brother that, but Union Leaders
today are much more militant and determined to ruin Britain .

To organise this massive march when the Country is on it"s knees and facing a possible double dip recession is selfish beyond words and I have no sympathy at all for the strikers.

Maggie Thatcher destroyed our manufacturing industry.Greedy MP's are failing to manage the country's affairs as they are too intent on sniffing in the trough,oh yes they still are doing that.
The 'New Labour' party built an unsustainable empire of mandarins and local authority lacky's and allowed the bankers unprecedented autonomy to control the money.
'Shop floor workers' didnt cause the recession nor did teachers,train drivers,firemen,bricklayers or electricians.

Who is going to speak for those who have no control on the economy or Political issues but still have to work longer and harder and see their wages buying less in the supermarket.

You might not like the trade unions but they are the only body stopping us going back to the dark ages.

Lioned wrote:Maggie Thatcher destroyed our manufacturing industry.Greedy MP's are failing to manage the country's affairs as they are too intent on sniffing in the trough,oh yes they still are doing that.
The 'New Labour' party built an unsustainable empire of mandarins and local authority lacky's and allowed the bankers unprecedented autonomy to control the money.
'Shop floor workers' didnt cause the recession nor did teachers,train drivers,firemen,bricklayers or electricians.

Who is going to speak for those who have no control on the economy or Political issues but still have to work longer and harder and see their wages buying less in the supermarket.

You might not like the trade unions but they are the only body stopping us going back to the dark ages.

I admit Government is corrupt but it was the Unions one out all out in the 70"s which lost us our manufacturing base, plus of course cheap imports from
China, Japan, India, Korea . Add to this the EU taking over every facet of British Law and Governance and Britain has lost the power to Govern itself.

We have fallow fields which we are paid not to grow anything on yet import vegetables which our Farmers used to produce. Ironic isn"t it that
Farmers are now renting land in Russia to grow their produce.