UK govt ready to follow French example of surrender???

[Agent_Smith]

Pride comes before a fall

We spent all this week laughing at the lilly livered French, then what does John 'Jabba the hut' Prescott go and do?

Ministers were accused last night of preparing to climb down over plans to scrap generous early retirement pension deals for council workers.

Unions representing hundreds of thousands of council employees said the Government and employers had "given ground" in a dispute over the right to retire at 60 on a full pension.

In return, unions called off strikes which would have shut schools and disrupted rubbish collections before next month's local elections.

Digby Jones, the director general of the CBI, issued a warning about the consequences of "craven surrender" in the face of "strong-arm union tactics".

Echoing fears among council leaders that failure to end the special pension rules for staff would bankrupt their pension schemes and lead to higher council tax bills, Sir Digby said: "The private sector has bitten the bullet. The public sector must do so too or the nation will end up paying the price."

He said the worst possible outcome would be if John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, who regulates local government pensions, decided to repeat a previous "capitulation" allowing civil servants to continue retiring at 60.

The Tories accused Mr Prescott of ducking the pensions crisis in the public sector to avoid political fall-out during the local elections in England.

Eric Pickles, the Conservative spokesman on local government, said: "This Government is obsessed with short-termism and spin and is not addressing the challenges that our nation faces.

"Last year John Prescott fudged public pensions to avoid embarrassment before the general election."

Telegraph

 

[semper]

its not the ordinary workers fault that we have to this situation.
many of it is down to the Empoyers , taking a Pension payment Holiday for as much as 10 years building up a debit in the persion fund and Brown robbing the Pension funds through Tax.

why should we stump up for their Fcuk ups, they should make good any gaps not the workers.

 

[crabby]

It's the fault of the unions partly. Remember a pensions forecast was predicted long before Brown appeared.

The unions are trying to flex their muscles. Council jobs are now on a general level of those private jobs. Why should they have special treatment that dates back to the old days? The private sector changed, the public sector must follow. As the population ages there are more and more people drawing pension and due to draw pension, surely everyone should work their part.

Any backdown is very unlike the French backdown, their reforms were "huge" for their private sector and affected millions of young people. In the UK we need these young workers to help support the old, should our generation have to work extra hard just because someone feels they have the right to retire 5 years before everyone else because they had greater job security in a public sector job?

 

[putteesinmyhands]

its not the ordinary workers fault that we have to this situation.
many of it is down to the Empoyers , taking a Pension payment Holiday for as much as 10 years building up a debit in the persion fund and Brown robbing the Pension funds through Tax.

why should we stump up for their Fcuk ups, they should make good any gaps not the workers.

Trouble is, it's us who have had their final salary pensions scrapped who have to pay extra so the left-wing social workers can keep theirs (and retire early). Hmmmmph!

 

[frenchperson]

Pride comes before a fall

We spent all this week laughing at the lilly livered French, then what does John 'Jabba the hut' Prescott go and do?

Ministers were accused last night of preparing to climb down over plans to scrap generous early retirement pension deals for council workers.

Unions representing hundreds of thousands of council employees said the Government and employers had "given ground" in a dispute over the right to retire at 60 on a full pension.

In return, unions called off strikes which would have shut schools and disrupted rubbish collections before next month's local elections.

Digby Jones, the director general of the CBI, issued a warning about the consequences of "craven surrender" in the face of "strong-arm union tactics".

Echoing fears among council leaders that failure to end the special pension rules for staff would bankrupt their pension schemes and lead to higher council tax bills, Sir Digby said: "The private sector has bitten the bullet. The public sector must do so too or the nation will end up paying the price."

He said the worst possible outcome would be if John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, who regulates local government pensions, decided to repeat a previous "capitulation" allowing civil servants to continue retiring at 60.

The Tories accused Mr Prescott of ducking the pensions crisis in the public sector to avoid political fall-out during the local elections in England.

Eric Pickles, the Conservative spokesman on local government, said: "This Government is obsessed with short-termism and spin and is not addressing the challenges that our nation faces.

"Last year John Prescott fudged public pensions to avoid embarrassment before the general election."

Telegraph

Come come, Sh1t Magnet, didn't you notice that Prescott did a pretend climb-down before the last threatened one-day strike in 2005? He then did a massive about-turn and decided to break his promise on negotiating with the unions, which is why the whole situation flared up again.

You've only got half the story there.... Oh, and if you've got it from the Telegraph, it's half of a skewed version of some of a portion of something they made up following a long liquid lunch.

 

[Agent_Smith]

I am in very slight agreement with the unions, in that why should they be forced to change their pension plan, whilst whitehall civil servants are immune to the changes to their pension schemes.

Other than that, i still feel the unions are stuck in the dark ages with their protectionist driven agenda.

 

[frenchperson]

Also, this 'private sector have fallen in to line' nonsense doesn't extend to the top private sector bosses, who generally retire (with massive golden handshakes) in their mid to late 50s. The likes of Digby Jones will not be drawn on this question and prefers to go in for soundbites the Daily Mail would be proud of - that's his function and what he's paid for I suppose.

If I was in the private sector, I'd be getting organised, unionised and attempting to get a fair deal instead of just rolling over and blaming it all on the 'lazy' public sector - that's exactly what Blair wants, after all, and too many Sun reading 'I'm alright Jacks' who don't think beyond what's on page 3 are putty in his hands, doing his (and Murdoch's) bidding. Two shining hypocrisies are here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2884069.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2145708.stm

 

[W.Anchor]

The Government have got them selfs in a bit of bind over the peerages sale, and I think they just want to lay low for a while.

 

[crabby]

Also, this 'private sector have fallen in to line' nonsense doesn't extend to the top private sector bosses, who generally retire (with massive golden handshakes) in their mid to late 50s.

I think you'll find that can be the same in a private or public sector. They tend to have worked incredibly hard, they're earning enough to mean they can top up their pension fast enough and why not? My father will retire at 56/57ish, but for the past 25 years he's worked a 7 day week between 3rd January and the start of March, minimum 12 hour working day with 3 hours travelling. Many directors and important staff have earned their earlier retirement. Remember they pay into a private pension scheme, whereas public sector is the public pension scheme, which is far less likely to collapse than a private scheme; look at GM or many other companies with huge pension deficits.