This Wednesday, 30th November, public sector workers (i.e. those employed by the Government) will go on strike over a dispute about pensions. The Government says that public sector pensions are “too good” and they should be reduced. What they’re not saying is that they’re doing this to pay for the interest on the loans they took to bail the banks out.
Read that last sentence again and then let me reiterate in a dramatic fashion:
The Government would rather take loans to support the banking system (and their outrageous bonus schemes) than pay the hard-working citizens of “Great” Britain the money they were promised when they signed up to provide essential public services.
Yes, public sector jobs have good pensions but there is a critical fact here which sheds a very poor light on our elected overlords. It is so unnecessarily evil that I feel I must write in capitals: THERE IS NO DEFICIT IN PUBLIC SECTOR PENSIONS. That’s right. The Government CAN afford to pay nurses and teachers etc. their well-deserved pensions, they are CHOOSING to rape these pension schemes just to pay back that loan interest.
What drives the knife even deeper into this scandalous abuse of power is that Members of Parliament aren’t even leading by example. Their pensions (which are significantly better than your average nurse or teacher pension) will remain untouched. MPs get expenses, second homes and, when they’re tired and need to lie down for a bit, they get the pensions they signed up for and they have worked for. It’s all double standards. It’s a “Screw the proletariat while we swim in pools of their cash” runaway morality train.
Is nobody else sickened by this?
I loved the Government’s offer a couple of weeks ago. They said the public sector workers needn’t “lose a day’s pay” and instead they should perform a “token walkout” for 15 minutes, and then get back to work. And that way they wouldn’t lose a penny. But take your average 4th year teaching professional, they will lose £100 the day of the strike. But if they lie down and just take the pathetic, nepotistic behaviour of the Government without fuss they will lose £100 PER MONTH from their pensions.
Please, for the sake of sanity and Doing The Right Thing, support your local public sector workers during their strike this Wednesday!