Motorcycle Forums

Baza blue

Do you seriously want to go back to the days of British Leyland? 

Eh, I think not

Slowlearner.

You say "Public sector wages are frozen for the third year running, and aren't exactly great for the vast majority.   My wife's a nurse, she can look forward to a pension of about £4000-5000 in another 25 years.   Hot stuff eh?"

Now, I am not an expert on the NHS Pension scheme, but, I believe that roughly speaking, for every year of service you get 1/80th of your final salary as a pension. So, forgetting about any previous service, at retirement age, with 25 years service your wife will get 25 80ths of her final salary. I assume the £4000-5000 you quote is at todays rates, ie not adjusted for inflation. So, according to my maths (not my strongest subject I grant you), this means your wife's current salary is £14,400 per year. To arrive at this figure, I have taken the middle of your range (£4500), divided by 25 (to give 1/80th) and multiplied by 80 (to give 80/80ths). Now even I know that a full time qualified nurse earns more than that (I have two daughters who are nurses), so I think your "facts" are a little misleading. If we take another example, a public sector worker who starts work at 25 and works until 65, earning the national average wage (£26,000pa I believe), they would get a pension of £13,000pa (plus of course their state pension), my calculation for this is 40 years service, so 40/80ths of final salary (£26,000pa). I have ignored price and wage inflation throughout, since my maths is not upto those calculations. In addition to my nursing daughters, I also have a daughter who is a maths teacher in a local comprehensive school. She is "just" a teacher, not a department head, or any other frill or extra. She earns £42,000pa. Sheis now 39 and has been working since she was 25, with a small amount of time off to give birth to two children (say 3 years). So, I am not sure what her expected pension age will be, but let us say it is 68.  This will give her 40 years service so 40/80ths of £42,000 ie £21,000 plus her state pension (at current rates c£5148pa). In all of these figures, I have ignored the tax free lump sum which can be taken on retirement.

The actual pensions amounts described above are only slightly better than could be expected in a private sector final salary scheme. BUT, and it is a big BUT, the effect of early retirement and of index linking after retirement is significantly better in the public sector.

Again taking a teacher as an example, one of my relations through marriage has just retired at age 58 for her teaching job. She had to take a hit of 5% of her pension for each year of early retirement before current teachers pension age (ie 60). In the private sector (as I know from personal experience), the hit would be nearer 10% for each year of early retirement. I have several other friends and relations who as public sector workers (local council mostly), have been given even more generous packages, some "retiring" as young as 50. The record in my circle of acquaintences is one of my wife's school friends who was a teacher and "retired" at 45!

Now, I take your point, at least I think it was your point about not being hoodwinked in trying to drag the public sector workers down to the level of us past or present private sector workers. I have seen the placards reading "fair pensions for ALL". But that is most definately NOT what this strike is about. It is about maintaining an advantage for the public sector. If it was about fair pensions for ALL, the public sector would be accepting a freeze, or smaller increases while the rest of us caught up. Now, I may have missed that in the many hours of coverage on TV and in the newspapers, but I think not.

unions

quicksilver....i never suggested that at all...see dinosaur unions...I was in a job with no union and at times it would have been usefull but it never had to be confrontational....

Holy F..k,

This is a MOTOR CYCLE NEWS forum not party parliment, just join the real world and get on with it like the majority, oh no sorry, are the private sector the majority or the minority?

something similar on "over 18's

It 's good that although we all have different views we all share the same passion and as long as it doesn't get personal then it's all good. I daresay some of the views we might disagree on  one topic we might share the same on another

It shows we are a bunch of intelligent people with lot s of heart and soul.