British Unions Threaten Biggest Strikes Since 1926

[Richard Hakluyt]

I think that 1/3 are more or less pissed-off by the money spent on anachronistic nonsense, the other 2/3 are ok to really happy about it.

The actual wedding cost £20m or so, which is peanuts, 30p each. The extra public holiday is hard to cost, there are about 250 working days in the year, so maybe it led to a 0.4% loss of output. i think that is highly unlikely and that people just did the necessary work as an extra on the other working days.

[Razgovory]

Ah, okay.  Thanks.

[Admiral Yi]

When people talk about the Queen being one of the wealthiest women in the world, does that include the Crown goodies?  Or is she still pretty loaded in her own right?

[Richard Hakluyt]

She is reasonably well-off but by no means in the same league as a run-of-the-mill Russian oligarch. When the government declined to fund the royal yacht ( a 6000 ton vessel with >200 crew) any longer the Queen was very upset, there is no replacement, it seems she can't afford it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMY_Britannia

[Razgovory]

She is reasonably well-off but by no means in the same league as a run-of-the-mill Russian oligarch. When the government declined to fund the royal yacht ( a 6000 ton vessel with >200 crew) any longer the Queen was very upset, there is no replacement, it seems she can't afford it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMY_Britannia

Well the Queen kills less people then the run-of-the-mill Russian oligarch.

[Razgovory]

Poor Richard, we dumb Americans are really picking his brain on this.  From what I've read the 1926 strike was fairly genial.  Big strikes now, would they be as nice?  I'd be afraid you'd get those anarchist lunatics rioting in the streets like they do at those world summits.  Or those riots that now occurring in Greece.  Is there a possibility of that kind of thing happening?

[Richard Hakluyt]

I'm not expecting any major unpleasantness. There will probably be some aggro from the usual suspects ....."socialist workers".........but otherwise the strikes should pass off without incident. It is unpleasant to discover that the country has been living beyond its means and that we will have to cut back but most people are resigned to it.

There were very poor voting turnouts for these strike calls btw, about 30% or so; it will be interesting to see how solid the strikes are.

I think the Greeks really are in a very different situation. We face a spot of austerity and then all will be well, they have been shafted.

[jimmy olsen]

It seems the measures proposed by the government are quite drastic. Is there a popular perception that public employees in the UK are overpaid layabouts?

Traditionally they were paid less than the market rates, but this was made up for by job security and very good pension arrangements. The job security is lower than in former times. Pay, however, has improved over the years...........most public sector workers are on national pay rates; so London-based people (such as politicians) often think they are underpaid, but in the provinces they are generally better paid than their private sector counterparts. The pensions are currently (usually) defined benefit pensions, as life expectancy has increased annuity rates have declined and these pensions have become excessively generous.

From the point of view of most private sector workers the public sector has enviable terms and conditions; there are 6m public sector workers and 24m in the private sector, that is why I think the strikers are shooting themselves in the foot.

That seems like an enormous number, but I guess that must count health care workers.

[Warspite]

A lot of sympathy for public sector workers will be sapped by the fact that there are a lot of people working in the private sector who do not have higher rates of pay, generous leave entitlements, pension schemes, etc; not everyone in the private sector is a banker or corporate lawyer. I think the government is banking on a reaction against the strikers from this segment of society.

[Valmy]

These austerity measures seem quite hollow after spending so much on the wedding (including the day off thingie). Tories can't help being evil toffs, can they?

I was not aware public holidays meant it was evil to try to balance the budget...

Actually I do not think balancing the budget is evil at all.  How is running up deficits good?

[Iormlund]

A lot of sympathy for public sector workers will be sapped by the fact that there are a lot of people working in the private sector who do not have higher rates of pay, generous leave entitlements, pension schemes, etc; not everyone in the private sector is a banker or corporate lawyer. I think the government is banking on a reaction against the strikers from this segment of society.

That's exactly what happened in Spain. Public sector unions responded with a strike to the 5% average salary last year. It was a pathetic failure.

[Razgovory]

I have sympathy for public sector workers.  But not if they riot and tear up shops and such.  Do not care for that.  Wait, are the police public sector workers?

[Zanza]

From the point of view of most private sector workers the public sector has enviable terms and conditions; there are 6m public sector workers and 24m in the private sector, that is why I think the strikers are shooting themselves in the foot.

Wow, that seems to be a lot. Even if you ignore the 1.5 million employed by the NHS, you still have more public sector workers than Germany despite having a 25% smaller workforce.

[Richard Hakluyt]

From the point of view of most private sector workers the public sector has enviable terms and conditions; there are 6m public sector workers and 24m in the private sector, that is why I think the strikers are shooting themselves in the foot.

Wow, that seems to be a lot. Even if you ignore the 1.5 million employed by the NHS, you still have more public sector workers than Germany despite having a 25% smaller workforce.

The figure includes all local government employees, NHS workers, armed forces, police, fire brigade, university staff etc etc.. The actual civil service has 499,000 staff. So it is a broad definition that gets us the 6m figure.

But yes, it is a high figure, that is why I don't accept the argument that the Tories trying to cut the cost of the public sector are evil bastards. It is not the likes of Cameron and Osborne (the "toffs") who suffer providing the money for this over-large and over-privileged sector, it is the millions of ordinary workers in the private sector who generally have lower wages and massively inferior pension arrangements.