...is in desperate need of reform

Kit wrote:

You can't change a pension scheme without negotiation and agreement.

Why not? The Gov decide what they want to do , they make legislation. Game over.

I guess there may be a number of people who decide that the changes in contract no longer suit their life needs and leave. They are then replaced from the unemployed , and lets face reality here , you can probably train up your average 'community liaison officer' in about 20 minutes.

Job done.

No they don't. And you know what, this is the bit I love because whether I believe in it or not, it's fairer than what we've got. You seem to think because it has a deferred element of it because it's a pension that it is somehow still the government's. It isn't. It's the worker's. And twice the government already did this with a compensation scheme in the civil service, and both time they went to court and lost. They went for primary legislation and that will be clogging up the courts in the near future. If the government loses there, well...

Otherwise, it'll go to Europe. Initially, it'll go up against the articles of the Human Rights Act of 1998 which, Daily Mail wanking aside, is a fabulous piece of legislation because it treats you like the human you are and preserves the right you have (in theory. There are still no end of cunts that will kick the chair from under Jody McIntyre). And it will lose because of it. You can't have someone work their entire life on a set of terms and conditions and undergo negotiation for any changes throughout and then twenty minutes before they retire, tell them they have eight years to go and they'll be taking some more of their pay from hereon in. They could Blair Peach me while I defended that with them because there would be fucking riots.

They're elected, Kit. They serve, they don't fucking rule. We have a Queen and she does a great job in not fucking about with it all. My forebears didn't run all over western Europe fighting a rearguard action in the 30s and 40s for the fucking Hun to be in charge here 70 years later. This lot are the worst there's ever been and we're the worst in Europe. It's not something to defend. It is, in a different scenario, bearing in mind that the majority of public sector workers at lower grades are women and the grandees in this are millionaire ministers, the socio-economic equivalent of rape. Take what they want, shame about the victim.

Meanwhile, I won't use "race to the bottom" (despite it being true) if you don't talk about "unsustainable pensions" (which isn't).

I don't know what a "community liaison officer" is. Is that local government? They weren't out on Thursday. Again, Kit, I have to question how much you know and how much you're just repeating.

Kit wrote:

NotBert wrote:Incidentally, if anyone wants a Past twat/Current twat comparator, remember this

"There should be a General Election, Brown has no mandate to govern, we never voted for him"
"No Conservative absolute majority"

I'd have let neither take charge. And when Blair got in on 22% when there was a non-turnout of 39%, they should have converted Parliament into a hotel and let them play parliament in some fucking gym in the Midlands and installed them all in dormitories.

Bit like the PCS union vote being carried by 18% of members!

Is that comparative? I will gladly go head to head on this in terms of numbers if you make it a fair fight.

You give me the same premise as a general election for any union vote and that union vote will exceed any GE in turnout.

That'd be a non-postal vote, convened in suitable sites and carried out on one day in a ten hour spell. Suitable sites? Since it would be the unions who are balloting, they'd bear the cost so you could hold it at every workplace in the country with sealed ballot boxes and suitable scrutineers as it is now in both GE and union ballot.

A manual workplace ballot at every branch in the country? I'd guarantee a 90%+ turnout of members in just about every union in the country who were in work on that day and a fair proportion of those who are not.

There are a million hoops for a union to jump through before a ballot can be sanctioned, convened and then action drawn up from the result. Take away the hurdles and see how you go.

Kit wrote:It just dispels the myth about public sector earners being on lower wages, and thus needing better pensions than private sector

Abdul Kowalski wrote:also, you can't just compare public with private, compare the jobs - office worker to office worker, manager to manager, specialist to specialist, etc

I've asked this already but I'm not getting that comparator either

With regard to the unions vote of 18% carrying the strike , hopefully there will soon be some anti union legislation that will stop this nonsense .

If we keep legislating against the unions , bit by bit, plugging each hole as it becomes apparent , they will soon become completely worthless.

NotBert wrote:

Kit wrote:It just dispels the myth about public sector earners being on lower wages, and thus needing better pensions than private sector

Abdul Kowalski wrote:also, you can't just compare public with private, compare the jobs - office worker to office worker, manager to manager, specialist to specialist, etc

I've asked this already but I'm not getting that comparator either

I am waiting for abdul to provide some figures to back that up, I assume he has just not plucked a fact out of his ares, and they will be forthcoming

Incidentally, Kit, the PCS numbers worry me. If 18% of roughly 300,000 vote for strike, then that comes out at roughly 50,000 people.

What I can't reconcile is how only one sixth or so of staff are out on strike but the country is crippled? If the public sector is so bloated, then the public purse should rejoice at not having to paid that 50,000 or so while being able to maintain the same service.

It is also at odds with reported numbers. I can't understand it at all. The ballots are draconian in outline, the numbers cannot be so wrong.

Kit wrote:With regard to the unions vote of 18% carrying the strike , hopefully there will soon be some anti union legislation that will stop this nonsense .

If we keep legislating against the unions , bit by bit, plugging each hole as it becomes apparent , they will soon become completely worthless.

Ha ha, fuck off. They've spent thirty years, from Thatcher to Brown, punting at legislation to makes labour laws, strikes and so forth more and more difficult. Vince Cable comes across like a child molester with a bag of sweets saying "we won't change legislation if you play nice" - how much lower can that man's stock plummet? - when the top and bottom of it is if you let the people assemble and vote freely, you'll get a fucking massive turnout and get fucked over every time.

"The unions" won't weaken Kit, because "the unions" are the people you're walking past in the street. They get to vote in a General Election, give them the same freedom of vote at a legitimately convened ballot of their membership. They're not some shadowy Al-Qaeda like organisation who walk around in shadows. They're the average Joe in the street. You can try and demonise the abstract body that the government fabricates in every edict, like "the taxpayer" or "the parent" when it wants something but has no fucking idea how to get it, but it's The Emperor's New Clothes. It's soundbites instead of answering the question and when Peter Allen is mauling you on FiveLive, you want to take a long hard look at yourself.

NotBert wrote:Incidentally, Kit, the PCS numbers worry me. If 18% of roughly 300,000 vote for strike, then that comes out at roughly 50,000 people.

What I can't reconcile is how only one sixth or so of staff are out on strike but the country is crippled? If the public sector is so bloated, then the public purse should rejoice at not having to paid that 50,000 or so while being able to maintain the same service.

It is also at odds with reported numbers. I can't understand it at all. The ballots are draconian in outline, the numbers cannot be so wrong.

(I'd point out that on any given day, for various absence reasons, most big organisations factor in an expected absence level of around 25%. 18% is beneath that)

How much does Bob Crow earn? £94,747?

How much is his COUNCIL HOUSE rent?

Power to the people!

And his overall pay package rose from £122,167 to £133,183 last year.

On top of this he claimed £9,989 in expenses and £2,376 in travel costs, taking his total income to £145,548.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1302316/Bob-Crows-12-pay-increase-RMTs-militant-leader-pockets-10k.html#ixzz1QxOjm12h


Comrades !

Kit wrote:How much does Bob Crow earn? £94,747?

How much is his COUNCIL HOUSE rent?

Power to the people!

Does that matter? His wages will be met by member contributions and he is elected to his role by a full ballot of members. William Hague was not involved on Thursday also. If you want to carry out spurious comparisons, he was elected into his full time role as an MP but also has outside earnings that are considerable. I'm not going to look them up because it's far more fun for others to do it. Please also remember at this point that Philip Hammond had to transfer shares into his wife's name to circumvent cabinet protocols.

Hague makes Crow (who represents more members than Hague has constituents) look like a rag and bone man in a nudist vegetarian colony.

Bob Crow's union was not out on Thursday (ongoing action they had scheduled to run into Thursday was called off when a settlement was reached).

You can address a real issue any time you like but you keep going for things that aren't true, things that have been massaged, half stories and now Bob Crow. Kit, I don't want to sound patronising but you are better than this.

Kit wrote:And his overall pay package rose from £122,167 to £133,183 last year.

On top of this he claimed £9,989 in expenses and £2,376 in travel costs, taking his total income to £145,548.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1302316/Bob-Crows-12-pay-increase-RMTs-militant-leader-pockets-10k.html#ixzz1QxOjm12h


Comrades !

Again, if they weren't happy with him, Kit, they'd vote him out and his wages, unlike Hague's ministerial salary which will comfortably exceed this without his "out of office" work, is not out of the public purse.

Try again.

I will say, as someone who only knows the RMT by reputation and results, that they appear to have spent their money well - membership is thriving under him and settlements are achieved in spite of the worst anti-worker government in western Europe.

NotBert wrote:

Kit wrote:How much does Bob Crow earn? £94,747?

How much is his COUNCIL HOUSE rent?

Power to the people!

Does that matter? His wages will be met by member contributions and he is elected to his role by a full ballot of members. William Hague was not involved on Thursday also. If you want to carry out spurious comparisons, he was elected into his full time role as an MP but also has outside earnings that are considerable. I'm not going to look them up because it's far more fun for others to do it. Please also remember at this point that Philip Hammond had to transfer shares into his wife's name to circumvent cabinet protocols.

Hague makes Crow (who represents more members than Hague has constituents) look like a rag and bone man in a nudist vegetarian colony.

Bob Crow's union was not out on Thursday (ongoing action they had scheduled to run into Thursday was called off when a settlement was reached).

You can address a real issue any time you like but you keep going for things that aren't true, things that have been massaged, half stories and now Bob Crow. Kit, I don't want to sound patronising but you are better than this.

Hague does not live in socialised housing paid for by the tax payer!

Kit wrote:

You can't change a pension scheme without negotiation and agreement.

Why not? The Gov decide what they want to do , they make legislation. Game over.

I guess there may be a number of people who decide that the changes in contract no longer suit their life needs and leave. They are then replaced from the unemployed , and lets face reality here , you can probably train up your average 'community liaison officer' in about 20 minutes.

Job done.

Reading back, Kit, I don't think you meant this but you aren't comparing a "community liaison officer" to a "compliance officer" are you? Because one works in a social arena whereas the other combats fraud and default.

Kit wrote:

NotBert wrote:

Kit wrote:How much does Bob Crow earn? £94,747?

How much is his COUNCIL HOUSE rent?

Power to the people!

Does that matter? His wages will be met by member contributions and he is elected to his role by a full ballot of members. William Hague was not involved on Thursday also. If you want to carry out spurious comparisons, he was elected into his full time role as an MP but also has outside earnings that are considerable. I'm not going to look them up because it's far more fun for others to do it. Please also remember at this point that Philip Hammond had to transfer shares into his wife's name to circumvent cabinet protocols.

Hague makes Crow (who represents more members than Hague has constituents) look like a rag and bone man in a nudist vegetarian colony.

Bob Crow's union was not out on Thursday (ongoing action they had scheduled to run into Thursday was called off when a settlement was reached).

You can address a real issue any time you like but you keep going for things that aren't true, things that have been massaged, half stories and now Bob Crow. Kit, I don't want to sound patronising but you are better than this.

Hague does not live in socialised housing paid for by the tax payer!

Council tenants pay rent. A council tenant may be so for decades - as a son of a council tenant family for forty years, I am well aware of this. I would wager Bob Crow pays rent. You might have had a gripe had he bought a council house under Thatcher's reign (my old man refused on principle) but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Hague meanwhile has his "secretary" and "office supplies" met by "the taxpayer" (shame on you for taking the abstract, Kit). I believe that his housing in the capital has been met and continues to be met by the public purse? Or would you like me to swap over to the three Downing Street houses and see the rents on them?

I think that means Hague lives in private housing.

Funded by "the taxpayer".

I didnt realise till last week that I also pay for 'Breast feeding coordinators'

God knows what they do, get all the mums to do it at the same time or something

Crow earns £150k a year and lives in tax payer subsidised housing FFS

Whats that song about the red fucking flag flying ?

Kit wrote:Crow earns £150k a year and lives in tax payer subsidised housing FFS

Whats that song about the red fucking flag flying ?

(i) No he doesn't, you've put up his salary details. That's what the job pays.
(ii) No he doesn't, he lives in socially appointed housing, something which as a pauper at birth myself, Kit, I am more than familiar with.

You do know who the man responsible for housing in the Attlee government was, don't you? Shame on you for pissing on that ghost.

could he not get a place off of his own back (his substantial wage), and give up the socialised home to a more needy person?

I guess that would go against his values lol

Are you saying you should uproot from your community because you have a few shekels in a non-permanent job, Kit?

That's a very short-sighted view and one that goes against any aspiration to a cohesive society as it would essentially marginalise certain areas according to earning power - ghettoisation, in fact.

I don't think Bob Crow would go for that although I'll admit to not knowing the man.

You seem to have subverted this thread from its original drift as well, Kit.

Not complaining, it exemplifies the way that any such debate goes in this country currently. Except that you are massive value, Kit, whereas I would not piss on a lot of the media and the cabinet in this country were they on fire

NotBert wrote:You seem to have subverted this thread from its original drift as well, Kit.

Not complaining, it exemplifies the way that any such debate goes in this country currently. Except that you are massive value, Kit, whereas I would not piss on a lot of the media and the cabinet in this country were they on fire

I know where you are come from, that great socialist Tony 'fucking' Benn for instance. He had two or three generation MP's before him (great great granfather etc) then he shoe horned that awful Hilary character into a job, and I hear there is another Benn trying it on at this very time.

70,000,000 people, but obviously only the fucking Benn's are suitable!

But its OK , Wedgwood gave up his title!

Power to the people!