The Madness over Local Government Pay - Strike Action

grayee Sun Jul 13, 2008 at 10:51:30 PM GMT Print-friendly version Facebook

On Wednesday and Thursday next week, the two biggest unions in the public sector will hold national strikes in England, Wales and Northern Ireland over the latest Local Government pay offer. This is over a below inflation rate offer of only 2.45% being made by the employers. Inflation is up by 4.3%, Food is up 6%, transport 7%, mortgages 8%, electricity and gas 15%. 2.45%? It does not add up. Pay in the private sector is rising by 4%. Some 600,000 UNISON workers are due to go on strike.  Most Town hall services and many schools will be closed.

So the madness continues.  In less than two years we will face a general election and the only Political Party that does actually give a damn about public sector workers is trying to gain their support by cutting their pay?  Does anyone think that this offer will really appease the Tory press? Is this really “evidence based government”? Or is this the beginning of the 2nd longest suicide note in history?



Anyway – Good luck to the strikers, despite the fact that my wages are linked to local government NJC terms, my branch was not balloted on strike action. In my employer we have staff on about at least 8 different pay, terms and conditions so it is a bit of nightmare. I think we have sorted this out now so if there is any further action it is likely we will be called out. I will donate my wages for these days to the branch hardship/strike fund.

Also, UNISON Housing association members will join local government members at local picket lines to show solidarity. In London on the Wednesday there well be a demo, so assemble at 1pm at Lincoln Inn Fields, 1.30pm to start March, 2pm –Rally @ Friends Meeting House. Speakers to include: · Keith Sonett, Deputy General Secretary, UNISON, Jack Dromey. Deputy General Secretary, UNITE; · Kevin Courtney Branch Secretary and NUT NEC.

Keep it in the family - I am very proud of my “better half” who informed her headmaster the other week that she will be going on strike for the two days. She is a teacher assistant (on less than £10k per year) in a London primary school where the GMB are the dominant union amongst support staff. She will therefore be the only one in the school on strike despite this being the first year of her service.

My “little big sister” is a self employed gymnastics coach in North Wales and her LEA schools will be closed. While my “little sister” is an assistant social service worker in Lincolnshire who will also be on strike.

Gordon, Alistair, for crying out loud – forget that these people are my family, they are all instinctive Labour Party supporters, but if you pay them rubbish money, how can you get them out to vote for you in 2010?

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The Madness over Local Government Pay - Strike Action | 8 comments (8 topical)

Re: The madness over Local Government Pay (#1)

by jkitleft on Mon Jul 14, 2008 at 12:51:14 AM GMT

Who is inflating inflation? The rich. Gordon, you've got to crack down on the rich. Stick it to 'em on boardroom pay. Condemn them. Tell them it is obscene that they are taking double figure pay rises.

Gordon is condemned for using 0.5% of the pensions system (taking it out of the private accounts of the upper middle-class), for bringing NHS waiting lists from an average wait of 18 months, to an average of 9 weeks.

It is apparently a pensions 'raid'. I have a question for the people who propagate this pensions 'raid' myth. Where does boardroom pay get stolen from? Shareholders. In whose interest do they do this? Their own. At least we used the money for collective interests.

It is no use telling people inflation is at 3%. They are taking pay rises of around two-thirds of that. If you are one of the low paid, you have to worry about the price of bread and the price of milk. And they're not going up by 3%.

First of all, if we want to help the unions campaigns, lets do what Brendan Barber is suggesting. Beef up the Low Pay commission, and make it the Pay commission: it should have a duty to recommend not just the minimum wage rate but to comment on the dysfunctions and dislocations caused by out-of-control pay at the top, now fracturing middle pay rates, inflating house prices, raising interest rates and harming all. It should comment too on migration and its effect on pay rates.


Re: The madness over Local Government Pay (#2)

by AngryVoter on Mon Jul 14, 2008 at 09:55:07 AM GMT

Who is inflating inflation? The rich.

And the Government for the highest fuel costs in the free world. [Yum, $12 a gallon] Not to mention tearing council tax and housing prices etc out of the inflation calculations, allowing them to dance to their own merry little tune.

The nominal rise in fuel prices have a massive effect on the amount from the treasury that it happily scoops in, the price of fuel goes up a small amount, that 60% or so that initially seems reasonable also goes up, compounding the problem.

This, in turn, hits the lorry drivers and hauliers who bring the crops and foodstuffs to our supermarkets. The increase in fuel prices [now a full £1,000 a tank for lorries] has to go somewhere and that goes back to the people who buy the food, most of whom certainly aren't rich.

The alarming problem with this all is the way the government has reacted. Rather than try to find relief for the motorist, an encouragement onto public transport through an ad campaign, or even the "essential users rebate" for the lorry drivers we instead get Brown telling us not to waste our food.

The statistics behind it, shows what a redundant statement from Brown it really was, it was little more than a "principled flush" with no actual realistic basis behind it.

Britain wastes approximately £1 billion per year on food.

There's 60 million of us.

1 billion divided by 60 million results in around... £16.67 per year, per person.

Meaning, per day we waste, in food. A grand total of.........

4p a day.

I can't think of a single thing I can buy for 4p, aside from 4 penny sweets.


[ Parent ]

Re: The madness over Local Government Pay (#3)

by jkitleft on Mon Jul 14, 2008 at 12:26:36 PM GMT

I agree about the food waste issue. It was like when Edwina Currie told old people that they should wear wooly hats during winter. Wise-but inpertanant coming from a politician.

Even if we cut the amount of tax on oil, sooner or later, it would be back to the price it is now. The era of cheap fuel is over. The cost of driving a car is nominally less than it was in real terms of say, twenty years ago. Contrast this with the massive increases in real terms of public transport.

It is the rich who are inflating house prices. If the government was to calm the market by building more homes, then suddenly everyone thinks the economy is flatlining. That's why all the 'Middle England' papers glumly report house prices falling.

Some property developers are asking for 22% return on every house. Property developers who have buy-to-leave flats, when they find leaving property rises prices more.


[ Parent ]

Re: The madness over Local Government Pay (#4)

by AngryVoter on Mon Jul 14, 2008 at 10:53:45 PM GMT

DISCLAIMER: For the crappily eyed press, politicians and assorted folks whom read this blog I am a TORY. This is a debate rather than an attack on Labour blah-di-blah-di-blah....

I agree about the food waste issue. It was like when Edwina Currie told old people that they should wear wooly hats during winter. Wise-but inpertanant coming from a politician.

I shamefully admit. She was my local MP. She ran around in a bright Pink tracksuit also....

Bizarre woman, bizarre statements.

Even if we cut the amount of tax on oil, sooner or later, it would be back to the price it is now. The era of cheap fuel is over.

Mind, at 60% on the fuel duty, and the taxes on the barrels of oil as they come in, well. The money made has to be made somewhere in order for the companies to continue to be profitable, and thus the price of plastic and petro-chemical products goes up as well as fuel.

Mind, with the price of oil... they sort of said this in the 1970's and then we developed the North Sea Oilfield, and everything else, ending the crisis. [Oh, what short memories we have!]

The same is going on now in the West of Africa. There's plenty of oil and oil reserves in places such as the West Coast of Africa and Alaska/Canda, never mind the Falklands, the problem is time. To set up all of the infrastructure and everything else can take around 10-15 years.

The west coast is still a full 5 years off from completion and the US is hampered by the lunatic green brigade in their, actually, environmentally unfriendly Toyota Pryuseseses.

[The Minerals for the batteries are extracted in the USA, shipped to Europe to be turned into a sort of foam, giving off a lot of gasses, then across to china where it's rammed into batteries, then across to Japan where it is rammed into Pryuseseseseses, then shipped across to the USA where they're sold]

Russia meanwhile has just passed legislation to fast-track drilling and oil extraction infrastructure.

The cost of driving a car is nominally less than it was in real terms of say, twenty years ago.

You don't actually own a car do you mate? The problem tends to be the bewildering amount of tax on your own personal transportation that gets me. VAT when you buy the car, then your Road Fund licensing tax, then the VAT and Fuel Duty taxes to put the fuel into the car, plus the VAT on any replacement parts or your MOT, not to mention the cost of the MOT. It can be painful, eventually, and with it going up it can pressure people more and more into doing things such as spending less on the economy etc which has a wider effect. Still, it's the "pain at the pump" that is most often felt by the very un-rich, and it sure isn't the oil companies who're entirely responsible for that. "Nominally" it's about 45p a litre before one adds the VAT and FDT.

Because it's a tax people pay very regularly [Every week, on average] they become more angered by it, especially when the government can have a direct influence on it by lowering the fuel duty and then threatening to rebate drivers from companies who don't lower their prices also.

Contrast this with the massive increases in real terms of public transport.

This is true, the rail network these days is superb for the most part. Like any system t'aint perfect and I prefer to "let the train take the strain" when I travel further afield but again the cost will go up in general because of higher fuel prices, and where does the cost go? Straight over to the customers.

It is the rich who are inflating house prices. If the government was to calm the market by building more homes, then suddenly everyone thinks the economy is flatlining. That's why all the 'Middle England' papers glumly report house prices falling.

The problem is there are plenty of homes, they just ain't shifting and haven't been for a while really.

Around here there's a lot of empty homes as well as new developments. The market reached saturation point across the country, rather than on a "county-by county basis" and as such is now rapidly correcting itself. [As all capitalist systems do, which is nice]

I still maintain that it's partially the government's fault when Brown decided to wrench council tax and house prices from the inflationary index, both of which have essentially been permitted to dance to their own tune with nobody paying attention to them.

The Consumer Price Index certainly isn't the "real" cost of inflation and I agree with Sir John, it's probably closer to 10% when one properly takes into account actual essentials also: Gas, electricity, mortgage payments, fuel, food have all gone up well above the CPI's 3.3%, and people are finding it harder to make ends meet on those basic essentials, something that a measly 3.3% would not have had that great an effect on.


[ Parent ]

Re: The madness over Local Government Pay (#5)

by jkitleft on Mon Jul 14, 2008 at 11:12:34 PM GMT

My two sisters drive.

Anyway, don't take my word for it. Just ask the RAC, who say that the real term costs have gone down by 18% from 20 years ago.


[ Parent ]

Re: The madness over Local Government Pay (#6)

by AngryVoter on Mon Jul 14, 2008 at 11:20:39 PM GMT

Do they pay for everything, is the question...


[ Parent ]

Re: The madness over Local Government Pay (#7)

by Floating voter on Wed Jul 16, 2008 at 02:58:39 PM GMT

" Just ask the RAC, who say that the real term costs have gone down by 18% from 20 years ago."

Twenty years ago petrol was 35p a litre so that is a 342% increase in 20 years. According to the report it is the decrease in servicing costs that has driven down the price.

I notice you didn't mention that the report said "However, almost twice as many motorists now use buses, coaches and trams compared with 1988." so the illusion, often presented, that public transport is a shell of what it once was is shattered. Simply put, more people are travelling than ever before and cars are just part of the mix.


[ Parent ]

Re: The madness over Local Government Pay (#8)

by Floating voter on Wed Jul 16, 2008 at 03:01:12 PM GMT

Hmm... I've misread that. It said

"However, almost twice as many motorists now use buses, coaches and trams compared with 1988."

which I read as

"However, almost twice as many people now use buses, coaches and trams compared with 1988."

so I'm not sure what that sentence tells me....  :-( 


[ Parent ]

The Madness over Local Government Pay - Strike Action | 8 comments (8 topical)