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South West Railways - AF (20th Dec 2022 - 18:13:05) Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse it does. For those who don't know were down to 1 train an hour and no early or late trains. I can't get to work on time anymore by train so am now using my car and hiring a parking space from a local Church when I get to London, at least the Church makes some money. The railway militants need to understand there is no more money, the trains are paid for by the government and they cant afford to give them more money, and this goes for all public service workers. That includes me i got a 5% pay rise this year, and whilst i would have liked more i was surprised to get that much. Public service workers will have to accept 5-6% rises and accept this year they will have less money in real terms. And hopefully it will help to bring inflation down which is essential.

Re: South West Railways - Ian (21st Dec 2022 - 07:40:39) Many public sector workers seem to think they are the only ones poorly paid and struggling at the moment and seem stuck in the past where they feel the tax payer should fund inflation busting rises whilst the rest of us struggle on. For example, shop workers and hospitality! Generally very poorly paid with long hours, zero hour contracts in many cases and often excessive hours. In the case of supermarket employees, they like nurses worked throughout the Pandemic yet you don’t see them holding the public to ransom. Many people are paid too little at the moment but these strikes are primarily political with the unions driven by a more sinister agenda than workers rights

Re: South West Railways - Susie (21st Dec 2022 - 08:54:55) Agree with you Ian in your last sentence. However comparing nurses with supermarket employees is apples and pears, incorrect Nurse training is a higher education requirement and usually three years as a minimum, more to specialise. Supermarket employees are not required to undertake HE training. It’s classed as low skilled work unless you are in management. Nurses are unable to receive any monetary benefits other than their salary once qualified, unlike supermarket employees who have access to a range of benefits etc. There aren’t overtime payments for nurses, but usually TOIL, and this is never convenient to take. I could go on, but I’m sure if you check pay grades for both vs skill level and responsibility you will get my drift. And for all the cynics out there I’m not in the RCN

Re: South West Railways - Grape (21st Dec 2022 - 08:55:23) Good first two entries. Let's also remember the self-employed amongst us who provide services and never enjoy any of the perks paid by the taxpayer nor the employer. We're unwell? We get paid £0.00 We're holidaying? We get paid £0.00 We retire? We get paid £0.00 And the list goes on.... Yet, we continue to provide service, pandemic or otherwise. All we ask for is respect to our hard-earned taxes we pay through our nose; there is a very long way to go!

Re: South West Railways - Theade (21st Dec 2022 - 21:41:43) SWT made an adjusted operating profit of 226.8 million pounds last year. They are a monopoly. They have no reason to keep their customers happy or safe. Nor pay their staff a penny more than they absolutely have to, despite the being tons of money to do so. It's not in their interest. There is no incentive. As long as they perform just enough to keep their franchise, they've done the right thing by their shareholders. This is the system you most likely voted for, and will continue to vote for. And yet here you are complaining about it.

Re: South West Railways - Joe (22nd Dec 2022 - 00:58:38) I think the nurses are striking for better working conditions not just money however the poster was wrong to say they have no benefits - there is a very good pension scheme. I agree more years spent training should mean that they receive more than an employee who can be fully trained in a couple of weeks.

Re: South West Railways - D (22nd Dec 2022 - 08:25:16) "Supermarket employees who have access to a range of benefits". What are these benefits? Do they differ from any benefits you might find in any other job?

Re: South West Railways - Susie (22nd Dec 2022 - 10:03:36) To be clear Joe please define’very good pension scheme’. That is your opinion.The pension contributions for the average paid nurse is 9.3%.I’ll let you do the maths on that,but for many it’s unaffordable and they opt out. Employer contributions are I am aware 14.9% but nurses on the average salary cannot afford to contribute.I guess you haven’t read the papers / data with all the numbers for each region,workers who choose ref affordability,opt out. Saving for the future is all very good but when day to day living costs are soaring,saving goes on the back burner and just isn’t possible.it’s a ‘nice to have’ that’s all and not realistic Obviously those on higher pay bands in the NHS will enjoy the benefit,its a two tier system and works well for the higher paid as in all work places. But don’t quote nonsense about nurses without having the details. As they say the devil is in the detail.!

Re: South West Railways - D (22nd Dec 2022 - 10:45:47) Susie, why are nurses paying 9.3% of their gross wage in pension contributions? Because the last (I really do hope it's the last) Labour government doubled the civil service pension scheme contributions. The tabloids at the time thought it wonderful that civil servants were having their pensions increased, not realizing it encompassed all public sector employees. I'm still interested in what benefits supermarket employees receive?

Re: South West Railways - lac (24th Dec 2022 - 10:24:26) The topic has strayed from the original post but I will comment on nursing pay. The profession has an Independent Pay Review body, as do many other public sector professional organisations.This team of experts looks at "job size" - training needed, responsibility, etc etc, and compared the roles with external ones (private sector). This year the review body underestimated inflation by about 2%. There is a littlel "wriggle" room to allow a small increase in pay on what is being offered.19% is a complete nonsense. As someone said in the earlier part of this correspondence there is a management issue in the NHS. Basically, they are a poor inflexible employer. It's like working for a Soviet style bureaucracy. Whenever you have strikes it's a sign of management failure, not pay. The British Car industry is a case in point. In the 70s it was riddled with strikes caused by poor management. Nissan showed how to build cars better and to my knowledge have a happy work force and no strikes. Unless the NHS has radical reform it will continue to be struck with industrial action. Pay protest is a symptom of a badly run organisation. Same applies to railways. PS the public sector gold plated pensions are worth far more than an earlier post indicates. The current inflation proof pensions roughly requires £100,000 pension "pot" for each £4.5k paid out at 65. For a £15k pension that needs a pot of about £350k. Try saving that over a 40 year career from £30k salary, even with pension contribution tax relief.

Re: South West Railways - Simon (24th Dec 2022 - 11:34:18) "Independent pay review" - you mean the review that's appointed by the PM and cabinet members? Very independent.

Re: South West Railways - DL (24th Dec 2022 - 18:40:51) As usual the crabs in the bucket make sure to viciously pull each other back down, so that none of them can better themselves. Everyone should be paid enough to live comfortably. We also get blinded by bad statistics, and economics. If inflation is running at 10% this year, anything less than a 10% pay rise is actually a pay cut. If inflation has been at x% the last 10 years and pay rises have been x-y% then an above inflation pay rise might just be putting someone back where they were previously from a few years of real terms pay cut. Why can't we afford to give these pay rises? There was talk from our leaders that pay rises would lead to further inflation creating an out of control feedback loop, this is a lie, although many bought into it. There is also talk of balancing the budget, but national budgets don't really work like household budgets. Partly because households can't just print more money to pay their debt, ironically this action taken by the government is one of the real causes of inflation - running the money printing presses for multiple years of QE. Partly because the governments income through taxation is linked to the size of the economy, so money can be borrowed as long as whatever it is used for grows the economy in the future, as that will mean next time round there is more money to service the borrowing and function as normal. Whilst it is true you don't want your deficit or debt to GBP ratio to get too large, the fallacy that has been sold to everyone is that the best way to manage this is to cut spending, rather than make sure whatever you do borrow is used for growth. Sadly the only real reasons for cutting spending and not paying fair rates to public sector employees are because of political ideology, rather than economic reality. As we see in this thread, they serve a useful purpose too, the crabs stay busy pulling each other down, and don't worry about the cook gradually carrying the bucket closer to the boiling pot, rubbing his stomach in anticipation.

Re: South West Railways - D (25th Dec 2022 - 18:25:37) Iac, I remember the gutter press using the term "gold plated pension" twenty years ago when Mr. Blair raised contributions. Never did find out what it meant, I assume you imply a public sector pension is more generous than a private pension (I've paid into both, so no bias here). As has been mentioned earlier, the public sector pay nearly ten percent of their gross income into their pension. Compare this with the five percent required of the government introduced "workplace pension". Of course the public sector pension is going to be better because they pay more in. It's a shame we see the usual public sector bashing. While the public sector kept working through the pandemic, the private sector and self employed were being paid to stay at home. For several years the public sector received a rise of one percent a year. None of the better paid private sector were moaning then. You quote a yearly income of thirty thousand, none of my colleagues have ever been on twenty thousand and that includes current public sector employees, but they still pay into their pension. I'm not aware of any "opt out" quoted by Susie. If working for the public sector is so brilliant, come and join us (but there aren't many jobs here that would match your thirty grand a year).

Re: South West Railways - lac (27th Dec 2022 - 10:17:57) Fact checking: The public sector only exists because of taxation. The private sector generates the wealth to pay that taxation. Some of the public sector money is recycled by paying tax but it does not generate wealth, only provides important services. There are hardly any final salary private sector pensions left. Money purchase schemes predominate, none of which provide anywhere near the final benefits of the public sector. Money purchase schemes - what you save is what you get. Contributions range from 5% to 10% by employees and 5% to 15% by employers. You also have to work out how long you intend to live for and hope inflation isn't sustained. Otherwise you run out of money. Anyone who saves roughly less than £80k in their "pot" is wasting their time as benefits fill the hole. I too have worked for both private sector and public sector employers so no axe to grind here either. It's a simple fact that current taxpayer funded pension schemes are far better than private ones by simple virtue of payment for life (no chance of money running out) and inflation proofing. None of the public sector pensions are funded by "pots". They all come out of taxation. This is a huge benefit not taken into account by the strikers. PS as someone involved with salary reviews in the past I can assure you the independent pay review body is exactly that. They look at those in the same "job size" as those outside in the private sector and make their recommendation accordingly. Governments of all shades have accepted their findings for a long time as indeed the current round has been accepted by government. If the striking workers get what they want it will be paid for by extra taxation. PPS real wages have fallen in most developed countries for a number of years across all sectors. This is another whole new topic to discuss!

Re: South West Railways - D (27th Dec 2022 - 13:46:34) Iac, the recent furlough payments came from taxation. Much of it from public sector taxation. Do you think the self funding private sector and self employed should have refused those payments? As I said before, if public sector jobs were so great everyone would be there. We used to have a hell of a job recruiting people, when we did they only lasted until a better paid private sector job came along. I've managed to pay into public sector and private pensions and my income has never been nowhere near twenty grand a year. There is such thing as cutting your cloth.

Re: South West Railways - D (27th Dec 2022 - 15:30:41) Iac, just checked and my private pension (all be it the pension I was invited to pay into when employed in the private sector) will pay me a monthly income all the time I am alive. It is not limited until the money runs out as you suggest. It is not a final salary pension neither, just as the public sector one no longer is.

Re: South West Railways - Self employed retired (27th Dec 2022 - 17:20:34) Most of my working life self employed. So had to provide for my retirement only way was to pay into a retirement fund. So took advice at the time Equitable were recommended by a number of experts including the government. Plowed all my spare money into the fund got near to retirement they went bust lost over two thirds of my retirement the government had cold feet and did not come up with a rescue plan for years many people died in the mean time with out getting any compensation. My compensation amounted to a meal down the pub lost thousands. This DOES Not happen in the public domain gold plated pension’s secured by the private sector. And before you say I’m wrong I have relatives working in the public sector more money than you could wish for huge pension’s and very short working week things need to change.

Re: South West Railways - passfield resident (28th Dec 2022 - 17:26:46) I worked in the public sector. My working week wasn't short, the pay was nothing special considering how complicated the work was, and the pension wasn't huge.

Re: South West Railways - Ian (28th Dec 2022 - 22:10:51) I work in the private sector, very long hours, not great pay, no perks and minimum pension. I’ve also never gone on strike!

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