So who noticed the strikes yesterday?

[Dextraneous]

Further, when I classed all those mentioned in one basket it was for a purpose,

I suspect it was laziness on your part to even bother to discern.

 

[LastMagicBean]

Teachers will do anything for another day off.

All that wrapping the kids up in cotton wool must be tiring.

 

[collisioni]

and some can't see the woods for the trees

 

[Doug99]

Second is that I've seen a few relatively workshy sparks and plumbers in my time alongside the majority of decent hardworking ones.

The difference is that the bad apples in the private sector would not last long in employment, whilst the same bad apples in the public sector can happily plod along for a living.

 

[Doug99]

I certainly wouldn't notice if a council worker was on strike but I would if my house was on fire and there was no fire service.

When the fire service go on strike, they are still manning their stations and would still react for any serious incidents involving risk to life.

 

[tony1851]

An interesting rant there Tony. I don't normally disagree with you but since you have no idea what her salary is nor what her contracted hours actually are, nor indeed her caseload and what her output actually is when she is working surely it is a bit unfair to criticise her?

Second is that I've seen a few relatively workshy sparks and plumbers in my time alongside the majority of decent hardworking ones. Would it be right to base an entire case against such tradesmen based on the tiny minority of anecdotal bad apples?

Something tells me your OH might be a planning officer, so I'd better shut up!

 

[tony1851]

Second is that I've seen a few relatively workshy sparks and plumbers in my time alongside the majority of decent hardworking ones.

The difference is that the bad apples in the private sector would not last long in employment, whilst the same bad apples in the public sector can happily plod along for a living.

That's right; you very rarely hear of council officials being sacked for under-performance.

 

[AronSearle]

public service workers for years have had very poor pay in general but a decent pension

That hasn't been the case for years, except in some parts of the south-east, most of their pay is above average, and its not just the size of the pension they get, but the lower number of years they have to contribute towards it.

Personally I would still support them.

If they actually went on a proper strike, most of them treat it as a day off.

And if they could come up with a credible plan to fund the public sector, other than more debt or just shouting "tax the rich", taxing the top 25% at 100% would still only close the deficit by a third (or about 5% deficit, I think 3% deficit can be run indefinably).

 

[jockscott]

public service workers for years have had very poor pay in general but a decent pension

That hasn't been the case for years, except in some parts of the south-east, most of their pay is above average, and its not just the size of the pension they get, but the lower number of years they have to contribute towards it.

Ahh but you forget, councils can always put council tax up to fund public sector wages and nice pensions (through creative accounting ) Just wait until council workers have to retire at the same age as private sector workers before they get a crap pension.. They'll be out of the town halls on strike, quicker than Usain Bolt.

 

[Dextraneous]

Teachers will do anything for another day off.

All that wrapping the kids up in cotton wool must be tiring.

Not as tiring as bringing up entire herds of kittens and training them to carp on other people's lawns.

 

[Dextraneous]

Something tells me your OH might be a planning officer, so I'd better shut up!

Not the case. My point is that although there are bad apples in all walks of life, not everyone is and it's somewhat unfair to start tarring us all with the same brush.

The case you cite about the planning officer may indeed be accurate and involve an overpaid, inefficient and complacent person. On the other hand, it might involve someone who is only contracted to work an insufficient number of hours and has a huge workload and number of applications to deal with.

Without this knowledge of the state of affairs, jumping to a derogatory conclusion is surely not the way to go.

My opinion of these strike actions is that they aren't really solving anything in their current format. The whole situation has been a bit of posturing on both sides and has simply raised the hackles of ignorant onlookers. I use the word "ignorant" in a non-derogatory manner - i.e. lacking in knowledge of the full facts and relying on anecdotal evidence and bigoted soundbites to fuel an illegitimate argument.

 

[collisioni]

blimey, it just goes to show how easy it is to speak or write any old tosh without knowing. Councils are controlled by central gov and they cannot raise council tax when they like . Mid 50s housing in my area has undergone a council guttering upgrade. The scaffolding crew arrived and did their thing, a week later the guttering mob came. The old cast iron stuff [didn't leak] was replaced with plastic. I kid you not, the first rain and the guttering leaked front and back. It still does.

 

[Dextraneous]

blimey, it just goes to show how easy it is to speak or write any old tosh without knowing.

Precisely

Councils are controlled by central gov and they cannot raise council tax when they like .

True, but now let's have a look at this following bit of anecdotal "evidence" from which you are going to sully the reputation of ALL public employees:

Mid 50s housing in my area has undergone a council guttering upgrade. The scaffolding crew arrived and did their thing, a week later the guttering mob came. The old cast iron stuff [didn't leak] was replaced with plastic. I kid you not, the first rain and the guttering leaked front and back. It still does.

Can you confirm that these crews were actually council employees? Most work nowadays tends to be subcontracted out to private companies. If this happened in the case you cite (and I suspect it is), then this is sweet f.a. to do with public employees and everything to do with a private company taking the pi$$ with public money

 

[collisioni]

that constricted mind strikes again, even with a phrase that was going around, 'the bigger picture' it appears that it makes little difference if minds can't apply that phrase. However, just to explain. Public sector workers are paid by and use public money to carry out all things in the publics interest. The operative word is 'public'. It is irrelevant who actually does the work it is who dishes out the contracts and whether it was money well spent. In any field, short term bodges don't work out as viable.

 

[Brigadier]

Best assy strippers I ever worked with were direct labour (council's own assy team). Ok, it wasn't stripping power stations, but large school heating projects were more than able to go t!ts up, if not done properly. Also, the guys were a pleasure to work with.

But, they were milking it good and proper - £24 per hour for the operatives on a Saturday (more for the supervisors, and the managers and EHOs who invariably showed their faces), hugely overmanning the job, and stringing it out beyond belief. I was on £8 ph, OT rate.

One fondly-recalled job was to remove a single piece of undamaged asbestos insulating board, about a square metre in size, which was lying loose on top of a dumb waiter lift shaft.

Take a guess at how many men, for how long, to put that into a red bag?