Unions and Pensions

Just who do the public sector Trades Unions thunk they are? The saviours of the economy? Those who can be relied on to save money for the rest of us? Those who can be relied upon to invest, set up businesses and otherwise to expand our GDP? So why is it that the public sector Unions can as a result of a vote of less than 50% of their members disrupt the rest of us for the sake of their pensions when their hero Gordon Brown completely buggered the pensions of those of us in the private sector not only once by taxing dividends paid into the pension funds but secondly by his criminal mismanagement of our economy. When those of us buy annuities with our pension pots the amount we will receive will be about a third of what we would have received say 5 years ago unless prior to our enforced purchase of annuities the base rate goes up. We may not like it but we accept it. Public Sector pensions cost us £32 billion a year today and will continue to rise inexorably. The deal offered to the public sector Unions is by any stretch of the imagination generous to a fault. No changes will affect those 10 years or less from retirement and current employees will continue to enjoy final salary pensions. Furthermore accrual rates have been improved thus improving pension benefits.   Public Sector pensions will be up to 20 times better than private sector ones. All the public sector has to do is to accept something the private sector has already accepted - to work longer and to contribute 3% of their salaries to their pension pot. So how dare the Unions take strike action. The time has surely arrived when no strike can be called unless a majority of at least 50% of the Union has voted in favour of strike action. The time has long since passed when payments to the Unions for any reason can be funded by taxpayers. This was a scandalous notion brought in by Blair to make the taxpayer fund the Labour party since money paid by the Unions to the Labour party was replaced by subventions from the taxpayer to the Unions.