The Public & Commercial Services Union took out a half page advert in this morning's Metro, main text as follows (or see end of this post):
"Going on strike and giving up two days (1) pay is never easy, but we're angry. The government wants to make it easier for whoever (2) wins the general election to cut loyal and public servants on the cheap.
"We are proud of the services we provide - services everyone relies on. (3)
"The government wants to slash our redundancy terms which will mean many of us will lose tens of thousands of pounds (4) if we are forced out of the jobs we are proud to do. (5) The government are tearing up our contracts, (6) whilst (7) claiming it can't do anything about the millions (8) paid in bankers' bonuses because of contractual obligations. (9)
"We are amongst the lowest paid (10) and help people back into work, (11) deliver tax credits (12) and secure our borders. (13) We are coastguards, passport workers and court staff (14) and deliver services that touch us all from the cradle to the grave." (15)
1) Should be days' with an apostrophe.
2) whomever.
3) services on which everyone relies, actually... but do we? There are six million official public sector workers and another two million at parastatals. That's more than one in ten of the population. Everybody can make up his own mind to what extent we rely on them - everybody does to some extent - but surely it can't require one person employed full-time to administer the affairs of eight or nine others?
4) See point (10) below.
5) 'Forced'? When you wrote that, you thought that there'd just be a lot of voluntary redundancies, natural wastage and so on, but then again you were expecting a LibCon government and not zero-based budgeting. I've not had many dealings with the public sector, but from my experience, they're no better or worse than anybody else. Some take a real pride in their work and go that extra mile (yes, that means you, Mr Garner, who worked in the Council Tax department at LBWF eight or nine years ago), others are just jobsworths and some are downright power-crazed shits. But, if they really took such pride, how come they are all so keen to pack it in as soon as they've built up an entitlement to a liveable pension?
6) I think it's called 'renegotiating'.
7) while
8) billions actually.
9) Apart from that, fair point. But don't worry, we'll do them as well.
10) True, it's the lower paid public sector employees who tend to be doing the more useful stuff, and it's quicker and better value sacking everybody being paid more than £50,000 first (or making them subject to voter approval, like MPs) and then working our way downwards through the salary scales. But how does this square with the notion that they are losing 'tens of thousands of pounds' in potential redundancy? Even if their redundancy packages are being halved (which I doubt) that would mean that their remaining redundancy packages are still worth tens of thousands, yes?
11) Jolly good. You shouldn't have too much trouble helping yourself back into work then, should you? That remaining redundancy package should tide you over for the first year or so.
12) I forgot to mention, we scrapped tax credits as part of the move to a Citizen's Income-style welfare scheme, so that's fifty thousand of you superfluous to requirements, I'm afraid.
13) Fair enough, we need 'secure borders'. But the massive influx of immigrants has dwindled to nothing since I announced that you had to have been living here legally and supporting yourself for ten years before any entitlement to welfare kicked in. And I've made most hitherto illegal drugs subject to the same rules as alcohol or tobacco, so smuggling's not a big problem any more either.
14) Hurray for 'coastguards, passport workers and court staff'. Apart from the passport workers involved with the identity card scheme and the 'interviews', your jobs are gone, I'm afraid.
15) Sure, the state as a whole can do good stuff and we're better off for having one. But let's not get emotional here. Would the boss of Tesco stand up and say that the food his stores sell 'touch people from the cradle to the grave'? Methinks not.
Put On Your Big Boy Pants, Maybe?
1 hour ago
9 comments:
Au contraire - we need more sane people in Government, I can't really identify any sane capitalists in any of the main parties.
"we're better off for having one"
Are we really? I don't fucking think so.
"the massive influx of immigrants has dwindled to nothing since I announced that you had to have been living here legally and supporting yourself for ten years before any entitlement to welfare kicked in"
Come off it, Mark. Do you really think they come here for State benefits? Or do they actually come in the hope of working for a better life for themselves?
I was going to write to something serious, but fuck it. In the words of Les Grossman: "Yeah. But seriously, a nutless monkey could do your job."
CU, I'm talking about 'the state' and not 'the government'.
O, yes we are. I'm not sure what they're for, but they're nice to have.
AC, we don't mind the ones who come here to work in the private sector and who mind their own business. Or at least we shouldn't.
RLJ, at whom was that insult directed? Me or the PCS?
Funnily enough, I didn't see it as being the slightest bit ambiguous.
Everybody can make up his own mind to what extent we rely on them
Correction. Everybody can make up their own minds as to what extent we are forced to rely on them due to state imposed nationalisation and monopoly.
HH, fair point, but I meant in an everyday, practical sense under the present state of affairs.
Even if you have as little as possible to do with the State you still benefit from the existence of policemen, street sweepers, the court system, refuse collection and so on, and so for the purposes of this discussion, you 'rely' on them.
Conversely, nobody 'relies' on people working in interview centres for new passport applicants, as this is entirely unnecessary extra admin and faff.
"Sure, the state as a whole can do good stuff"
'stuff' may now be accepted in the use of our language when generalising, but one could argue it is a lazy use of the language - especially for a pedant? tsk, tsk.
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