Don't know enough of the ins and outs of it to be able to offer an informed opinion EFFT.

Well, my kids are very angry about it, but only because they both had to go into school, whilst other years and classes got the day off.

I have no idea if our council is striking or not......   but I imagine it's kinda hard to tell the difference between them officially not working or attending their place of employment as normal. 

That's OK Veggie. Just been reading all the comments on the BBC site and half of them don't really understand what it's all about. Hasn't stopped them wading in though....

Ah kids! you got to love 'em.

Haha! True enough.

I was thinking the other day that if I'm not at work the only one it's going to really affect is me....as there'll be twice as much to do the next day.

As it is it'll be even worse as I have been on sick leave since Monday...and probably for the rest of the week too.

Even if I'm on strike?

I've just picked my sister up from Stansted airport and she said she'd ring me after she'd seen how bad the queues at Immigration were.

As it was, it was the quickest it's ever been and she said it seemed like theirs was the only flight arriving.

Found this.

http://pensionsjustice.org.uk/...-sun-refused-to-run/

Might explain the strike action.

Thanks for that Blizzie. It's the bit about using our pension money to fill the hole left by the banking fiasco that I found the biggest galvanizer.

I dont blame them, from what i understand the government wants to make them pay 1k more a year, continue to do this for longer than they had expected all to recieve LESS a year when they do finally get their pensions.

Now i agree there is a pension problem in this country but to tell people who have worked hard thinking they are getting a half decent retirement (finacially) that infact they wont is wrong. They need to do it slower with alot more warning so people have time to save more through out thier working life to compensate.

The spin from the government is incredible. "greedy" public sector workers ! 

Hi all I am a Teacher and I elected to strike purely for this reason-

A Good education, a good wage, and a good pension is a right not a privilege...This government have no right to put a "Sly tax" on teacher's and public service workers pensions, in order to cover up the gaping hole of recession left by greedy bankers....

I support the people that are on strike, for the reasons stated above.

But I know I am opening a can of worms, surely if the government stopped giving pensions to people who have never put anything in the pot.

Stopped giving child allowance that goes out of the country to other European countries.

Stopped paying pension to people (Who I know) that live in Australia and have done for 35 years.

Stopped giving handouts to all and sundry that come here just for that reason, then I am sure that there would be plenty to go around and the people that do work hard would not have to be in this predicament.

TY Bliz, Good to see you around again

..........And never, ever give the "fat cat" greedy bankers those ginormous bonus' that got us in the this dog awful mess to start with.........

Government say that their proposals shouldn't affect those who are due to retire within the next 10 years....is this a covert admission that it will affect everyone else? Also they seem to forget that our plans for the future may hinge on BOTH incomes if we are a couple.

i.e. Hubby is older than me. He retires from work a few years before me, we work out that I can afford to retire from work when he gets to state pension age, but government keep putting up state retiral age, so that's another few years before I can retire from work. And what if one partner can get their state pension at 66 but the other has to wait 'til they're 67?

Has government taken that sort of financial impact into consideration?

Yes, we could stay with our paid work for a few more years, but that's very unlikely to make that much difference to our overall wealth or amount of pension once we DO retire.

Or do they imagine that we are all going to be so rolling in it anyway that we don't need to bother re-jigging our post-retirement plans?

Kaffy, it always interests me where the belief that public sector workers do v little comes from? That's certainly not my experience, far from it. I see people working v hard, often working many, many hours more than they get paid for with an amazing amount of good will

Thankyou Jenstar, nice to see we have some support, the amounts vary btw, dependent on salary/scheme etc. but yes, in essence we'll be expected to pay more in, work for more years and get less out.....

As for your point re people getting more warning, I, for e.g. have been paying into my local government pension scheme for nearly 30years, 'saving' for my future/retirement so to speak. The t+cs when I signed up for it were that when my service plus age= 85years then I was entitled to my pension. That would have meant in 2 and a half years time. With these proposals I'll need to work 14 more years and obviously pay 14 more years contributions than that. Really not on, imo

Well said Senora....I expect the ascertion that those things are a 'right'  may be disagreed with by some, however, may I add that our pensions are a 'right' as part of our contracts/terms and conditions of employment. 

Well.. I suppose it depends on departments, Supes and I daresay there are people at every level who give above and beyond - as many do in the private sector.    My perception comes from working for them as a temp (secretarial services and housing office) in the past and being amazed at how little there was to do and how long the breaks were (extra half hours on lunch, extra 15 minutes on tea breaks without anyone ever being pulled on it)     Having worked in the private sector I was gobsmacked at the attitude.  

Granted it was a good few years ago now, but my brother started working for the council more recently after a lifetime in the private sector (manual work) and he and his mate are regularly sent home at lunchtime because they've completed 'what's expected' of them in that time and the line managers can't or won't reassess the standards.   

Can't speak for everyone else.. but that's why I make the sort of statement I did.

Oh... and don't get me started on the whole benefits department being sent on a spa away day to alleviate stress....     didn't do much for my stress levels I can tell you.

BTW... the above ^^^ doesn't mean to say I support the government moving the goalposts... just my personal, local bugbear.

Aww Kaffy.

*donates cold compress*

TBF, I've never experienced either of those 'departments' Kaffy but it's a long long way from my experience....Oh and lunch and tea-breaks, remind me, what are they again?

I do think it's worth saying 'though that I'm sure there are hard workers, skivers and everything else inbetween in both the private and public sectors

Ah, now I've had experience of q a lot of people I know in the private sector getting that kind of 'perk' and bonuses etc. etc. but never, in my personal experience in local government......I must be in the wrong job 

Thats the exact reason i back those who are striking, People have paid in thinking they knew what they stood to get back, now the saps are trying to move the goal posts and i really dont think its fair at all

Of course there are supes... and I know what you mean about the breaks thing and the hours thing too....  we probably share the same work ethic, only my efforts benefit dirty capalism        My general experience of working for the local authority though (which was over a period of over a couple of years)  was of people who thought they were in 'jobs for life', they weren't hard pushed, they were relatively well paid for what they did (even if they had worked full shifts ) and really just took what they had as the norm, when I knew it was far from it.    I hated working there with a passion tbh and eventually ended up refusing jobs there.     I'd like to think times have changed, but when I hear my brother talking, I sometimes wonder.    As I say though, that's just my experience and I know there are a myriad different departments and I'm sure attitudes.  I had a lot of experience with the social work department while mum was ill and after cutting through all the red tape stuff initially, I had a huge respect for the people I dealt with there.     

They're for tutorials with students , since we don't have any timetabled time for that ! 

Have to say ( and I know it depends on section/ department etc ) that the public sector is far from an easy option in my experience. 

Can't quote on this pc supes... but yes... I'm not kidding about the spa thing - it was in the local paper and there was uproar.      The council printed a load of guff about how stress was the cause of x many lost working hours so they thought it was worth the money.   Now.. given the experience I've just droned on about up there...I'm sure you can understand my somewhat jaundiced view.... 

Kaffy, local government , colleges etc have been restructured, contracted out , restructured again and again .. there IS no such thing as a job for life in the public sector . Posts have been cut, workloads are bigger, terms and conditions have been hacked away at , pay has been frozen for years now. It's a nightmare. 

Ohh actually, I'll qualify what I just said. Senior managers seem to be doing ok!  

Chances are there that they got some of the external funding there is under programmes such as Healthy Working Lives to fund that, rather than it coming out of the cooncil pot .

Slinks... i'm not teacher/tutor bashing either....    I've a few friends who are teachers and I know if they were paid on a hourly rate they'd be spending their holidays on their private yachts  (doesn't stop me winding them up about their holiday though )

How senior?

I know  But even then - the "holidays" are taken up with developing units, doing bits that there's no time to do during term time, and generally recovering from the total bedlam of the academic year!