National Strike

Today saw a national strike but many public sector workers throughout the country over pensions. This has affected many public bodies and institutions around the county.

I always think if people are passionate enough to go on strike then they should be taken seriously. They are right to be concerned over what the government are doing with workers in the sector. The changes mean that they will have to work eight years longer and accept a three-fold rise in their contributions to their pensions, while also seeing their eventual payments halved. Of course people in the private sector will say welcome to the real world, however what they forget is the people working in the public sector have lower annual incomes then workers in similar jobs in the private sector. In fact it is the pension that makes up for this difference in salary.

The question is were they right to strike, and I think they were but I think they really missed a trick on this one. If they wanted to get the wider public support  for there action then they needed to make it more  general than just focusing on pensions. There is so much going on with the cuts in public spending they could have introduced elements about what these cuts are going to mean to the services we all receive and then tie in the pensions issue. These cuts will hit us all and I don't think we fully realise how bad they affect us as the Government create a smoke screen to hide behind. 

The Union would have got a lot sympathy by playing the fact cats get richer card while the poor get poorer by focusing on the pay outs made to the top management in the banking sector. They really missed a trick to make a point with the strike. Obversely there will need to be cuts but the question I still don't think is clear, is could they have been phased in more gently than in a massive rush. I do wonder that this still might cause a growth to slow more than is really needed. May be this is an angle they could have used.

This won't be the last strike we see and I'm sure there will be others but if they want the public to back them then they really need to find something grab our interest.