Public Sector Pension Strikes – A JOKE !

A question about : Public Sector Pension Strikes – A JOKE !

A Public Sector worker earning Ј30,000 contributing 10% (Ј3,000) a year for 40 years will get an index linked pension of Ј20,000 (based on 1/60ths). Current life expectancy means they'll receive this for about 20 years. This was acceptable, a few years ago when life expectancy meant they'd receive it for about 5 years. This is not acceptable now, annuity rates have dropped to a third (a Ј100,000 annuity now pays Ј3,333, it paid Ј10,000 twenty years ago), in the last 6 months alone annuities have gone down by almost another tenth. In twenty years the cost of private pensions has gone up threefold whilst Public Sector pensions have remained unscathed.
When they retire their pension contributions and national insurance payments will cease (thus saving them over 20%), their (age related) tax code will commence and they'll also get a state pension (it's being proposed this is raised to circa Ј7,000 a year soon). Their net income will be greater during retirement than when they worked. This is totally unjust and a mockery to other pensioners. The vast majority of this injustice will be funded by the Tax Payer.
Paying Ј3,000 a year for 40 years to receive Ј20,000 a year for 20 years is an exceptional deal. It's absolutely ludicrous that they're going on strike because they're expected to pay a bit more, or work a bit longer, or receive a bit less.
In the Private Sector paying this Ј3,000 a year may just mean one escapes means testing in retirement. Any insurance company that forecasts a pension even close to Ј20,000 a year for this sum is lying.

I now expect to receive various responses to this post from the feel sorry for the Public Sector brigade saying that I've got the wrong view of how the deck chairs are arranged on their Titanic:

Namely:

1) The figures are incorrect - They're close enough.
2) They're on a 1/80ths scheme - Oh dear they might have to take a slight drop in income when they retire compared to when they worked.
3) They haven't had a pay rise for 3 years - One way of reducing the costs of their final salary based pension is to slowly reduce their final salary.
4) They earn less than Ј30,000 - Then the comparable increase in their income during retirement will be even greater.
5) Their pensions are fully funded - These types of pensions ceased in the Private Sector because their liabilities can not be calculated, the shortfall in their schemes will have to be met by the tax payer.
6) They work very hard - Don't we all?
7) They can't work when they get too old - Neither can the rest of us.
8) Their employer makes additional pension contributions - This is in effect extra pay, do their Unions add this when negotiating their salaries?
9) They don't have 40 years in the Public Sector - Then they should have funded the rest of their pension from their time in the Private Sector and realise what a wonderful scheme they're now on.
10) Everyone in the Private Sector has a company car - Which planet are these people on?
11) They also pay taxes - Which is 20% of their income, do they go to the pub with their mate and buy them a pint after they've been bought 5?
12) The Private Sector should demand better pensions - If Private Sector companies had to fund similar schemes they wouldn't survive and there wouldn't be a Private Sector and then there wouldn't be a Public Sector.

They'll have a million other reason for these strikes and believing the utter rubbish spouted to them by their Unions. The real and only reason is their unfettered and totally blinkered GREED.

Best answers:

• the public sector pensions are much better than the poorer private sector pensions
  so it certainly makes sense to have a productive an far reaching investigation of what the appropriate pension provision should be for all workers
  sadly no-one seems to be interestd in doing so
• You also forgot No 14
  14) The strike vote only had a 33% turn out, with union members accounting for around 57% of the public sector - meaning only around 20% of public sector workers actually voted to strike!
  Stop b!tching about the 'greedy public sector' as if a few union pros and a handful of their sheep actually represent the rest of us - its insulting and boring.
• if it wa just the pensions alone then they may have been willing to go along. however its a lot more that that and even the moderate unions that have never stuck have had enough. maybe go and chat to a nurse or care worker. tell them that they are spoilt. now lets see have the bankers pensions been reduced mmm i bet not. oh hang on we cant punish those that got us into this mess lets blame the public workers.
• I'm a public sector worker who will be retiring (according to the pension forecast I got last year and depending on me retiring at 63) with a pension of Ј5000 after 40 years service - hardly gold plated.
  Yes there are sections of the public sector who will get a large pension, namely senior civil servants, senior health service workers, senior teachers but for someone like me who is at the lower end of the scale it is not that generous.
  As someone previously stated, it's only partly to do with money. The fact is many of us signed a civil service contract with the promise of a final salary pension. Government is now trying to change that - that is why the majority of those who voted, voted for strike action.
• https://highpaycommission.co.uk/wp-co...DPpensions.pdf
  I find this a joke myself. WOuld members of the innovate private sector realise that the benefit reductions that they have seen have not been universally shared by their directors and bosses above.
• Funny that every union except one got a clear yes to strike action.
  The suprising votes were from the Head Teachers Union and the Senior Civil Servants Union. This government better wake up and smell the coffee or they will be trying to draw unemployment benefit come the next election!
• One of the key problems is the quality of the people on the goverment side.
  Alexander says things which are plainly wrong. No government can impose a policy on a subsequent government but he has claimed the deal will last for 25 years and no further changes will be required.
  Osborne has destroyed trust by the change from RPI to CPI which should have been one of the bargaining counters now in use. After all, it is possible (though unlikely) that change will be overturned by the legal challenge. I think it is quite likely that for at least one small special group it will be overturned. So how can anyone do any reliable calculations at present? Osborne has zero tactical ability - as well as being innumerate.
  Note - I do think the cost of public sector pensions needs reducing. But the current approach to the problem is just so poor.