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I wonder if the fact that the trade unions still flourish in the public sector is part of the reason wages are now higher than equivalent jobs in the private sector. Interesting what you say about your sister working in a library. A librarian was paid a lot more than a lowly filing clerk when I entered the job market. I never had a career plan when I left school at 16, I just had to get a job to pay my living costs but the only job I ever wished I had qualifications to do was a librarian. As I didn't have the qualifications, I decided instead to just read the books. Unfortunately though, I am not into self improvement books, just crime fiction.
I really think todays pensioners should start campaigning to receive the one tier pension in 2016. It is totally unfair that people with over 40 years contributions will receive about £110 per week, and the new pensioners will receive about £144 per week, with only 35 years contributions. Now my brother will lose out with the new pension as he did not contract out of SERPS and has a private pension. He paid the higher rate of NI contributions but he is in the minority.
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I suspect that most of them will be better off on the lower pension and the add ons. I think in fact that a lot of people will be worse off under the new scheme, but I still think the flat rate pension makes sense, and I still think there has to be a cut off point. Some people are always going to be adversely affected whatever reforms take place.
And do please remember that while I agree with what has been said about fat cat council workers, the majority of workers are by no means fantastically well paid - and even a final salary pension as a percentage of very little, is - well - even less.
The average teacher's pension is only about £12000 per annum, in spite of the fact that a lot of senior teachers will have pensions in the region of £50000 - £70000. This is because a lot of teachers are only earning around £30000 and a lot leave teaching early.
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Most public sector workers have a huge sense of entitlement and wouldn't survive in the real world. I was often rendered speechless at some of their expectations and the difficulty in disciplining and when appropriate sacking useless morons. I have relative working in the bubble of the SCS (senior civil service) who is has worked hard and been successful but they will retire in the next year at 55 with a lump sum and a guaranteed inflation proofed pension which to us would seem like a lottery win courtesy of the taxpayer, do they feel fortunate, not really it's their 'right' after contributing 3.5% of salary towards it for about 25 years and he will receive the new higher rate state pension.............on the other hand my husband who is 7 years older has worked harder and longer in often harsh conditions, earned more, saved much more but his pension plans have been subject to the real world of financial crisis with no taxpayer subsidy and he will lose out on the higher state pension by 3 months........
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Poppyseed
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Never mind 3.5% - for years Civil Servants had none contributory pensions!! Astonishing really - but I think they have gone to anyone going in now?
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Baz -
What is "black money" ???? On a council job ?
His wife, my sister used to work in the Highways Dept. She offered herself for redundancy 3 yrs ago and received a nice payout, approx. £18,000 without leave entitlement etc.. She was earning £23,000 pa in her job which was a senior admin position, plenty of holidays again and a flexible working pattern. She used to regularly knock off Fridays (as leave or flexi) to go down to her caravan for long weekends. After taking redundancy, she then signed on as a Temp but would only go for jobs in the NHS (again public sector), she knows full well she would never survive in the private sector, not because she does not work hard but because she likes the "perks" of public sector. However, as a temp she has found it hard going not having those perks and unfortunately just recently lost the job after voicing her disgust at other "permanent" members of staff being allowed to get away with murder whilst she was expected to pick up the crap jobs they didn't want to do.
She would love to return to the council but they are not recruiting. We have had many a row about the public sector and how people working in it live in shangrila land. She could not really dispute what I was saying as I had first hand experience working there at what went on.
The gravy train for council workers will never come to an end as long as there are strong unions defending their rights and they are not forced to move into the real world. The last 5 yrs wage freeze is only one step towards that, they arealso still cutting jobs at the bottom (of course). We still have CEO's on councils earning as much as twice the yearly salary as the PM. Eventually of course it will all come tumbling down as wages for ordinary mortals have continued to fall with mass immigration and jobs are few and far between so there are people willing to work for far less and the public sector cannot sustain the level of salaries and perks whilst the public cannot afford to keep up increasing their payments of council tax on less and less wages.
The next few years will be interesting as the next step will have to be to change public sector pensions, what the workers contribute to them and also how much longer they should work, because they are unaffordable in today;s economuc climate.
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Roly2
I don't know about the add-ons, except for the basic and Serps related pension my brother will be getting from July 2014. His total state pension is going to be about £180. He has 44 years contributions but in this period between 2010 and 2016 only 30 years contributions are needed for the full pension. When I explained to him that I and every pensioner with 35 years contributions would be getting £144 max from 2016, he laughed and said it was the only time he ever would come out on top with the state. He did not seem to mind about the extra 14 years of unnecessary contributions. I don't understand the decision of making the maximum number of years 35 when we will all be working longer and longer. I expect the state pension to be 69 in about 20 years time. Most Governments will be unwilling to cross the 70 line.
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Baz -
What is "black money" ???? On a council job ?
His wife, my sister used to work in the Highways Dept. She offered herself for redundancy 3 yrs ago and received a nice payout, approx. £18,000 without leave entitlement etc.. She was earning £23,000 pa in her job which was a senior admin position, plenty of holidays again and a flexible working pattern. She used to regularly knock off Fridays (as leave or flexi) to go down to her caravan for long weekends. After taking redundancy, she then signed on as a Temp but would only go for jobs in the NHS (again public sector), she knows full well she would never survive in the private sector, not because she does not work hard but because she likes the "perks" of public sector. However, as a temp she has found it hard going not having those perks and unfortunately just recently lost the job after voicing her disgust at other "permanent" members of staff being allowed to get away with murder whilst she was expected to pick up the crap jobs they didn't want to do.
She would love to return to the council but they are not recruiting. We have had many a row about the public sector and how people working in it live in shangrila land. She could not really dispute what I was saying as I had first hand experience working there at what went on.
The gravy train for council workers will never come to an end as long as there are strong unions defending their rights and they are not forced to move into the real world. The last 5 yrs wage freeze is only one step towards that, they arealso still cutting jobs at the bottom (of course). We still have CEO's on councils earning as much as twice the yearly salary as the PM. Eventually of course it will all come tumbling down as wages for ordinary mortals have continued to fall with mass immigration and jobs are few and far between so there are people willing to work for far less and the public sector cannot sustain the level of salaries and perks whilst the public cannot afford to keep up increasing their payments of council tax on less and less wages.
The next few years will be interesting as the next step will have to be to change public sector pensions, what the workers contribute to them and also how much longer they should work, because they are unaffordable in today;s economuc climate.
Black money, or what ever you want to dress it up as, is when someone gets paid for being, say unemployed or on the sick, as your brother in law was for 12 months and didn't even bother to go back to work because he wasn't asked to......then working for cash in hand........if you care to say your in-law didn't do this, then he must be the only plumber in England..ever.. who got paid full wages by the council for a leg injury, and didn't do anything for 12 months, and said leg injury couldn't have lasted the 12 months to heal......And who paid his wages while doing supposedly nothing.....The hard working tax payer did.
Want a house painter to paint your house.....Ask any employed by the state fireman....if he don't....he knows a man who will.
Your latest post now looks quite the opposite to what you seemed to infer in your first post.
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baz -
No he didn't work on the side when off sick. That is because to be honest he is a bit of a whimp and would have been scared of getting caught, plus he can be a bit of a mommy's boy. We asked him once if he could put in an inside toilet on our extension and he agreed, only thing was he wanted my husband to dig the trench. In the end all he did was fix the toilet and the u bend in, my husband did all the hard work, the digging out etc. and it took him forever to get it done. God help the council if that is the pace he works at. I do have a brother who is a plumber also (he was not available to do it), but he is tons better at hard work than my brother in law. My brother needless to say has always worked in the private sector.
What do you mean what I have just said is the opposite of what I first said ?????
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The add ons are the extras that the poorest pensioners get now, and will I believe include winter fuel payments, Christmas bonus as well as all the other benefits that some can claim.
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To anyone who is looking at this thread and wants some really good information about Spanish pensions, how it's paid and entitlements I suggest you go to the start of the thread where there is some excellent information and detail. The rest is rather off topic and not worth bothering with.
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What do you mean what I have just said is the opposite of what I first said ?????
Your first post read that you were all in favour of the public sector by praising it up, and how good the pension scheme was, and basically good luck to them and stuff the private sector, then in your later post you seemed to suggest you didn't agree with how the public sector got away with so much.
For what it's worth I don't care much for any of the public workers, suits or overalls, as to me they all seem to be in it for one thing, doing no work, short hours, company car, and cant wait to retire on a fat pay out with a large pension, while you make any mention of who it is that has to struggle to pay their wages etc etc and then the trouble starts.
Spain is no more going to go bust then England is just because it pays out a good pensions, if in fact it does, it's a much bigger picture and problem then just pension payments out, I employ people and I have to be honest if I had to pay the same pension/ social payments and all the other government stuff, as I have read on here that employers and self-employed have to in Spain, I would probably do the same as Spain does, fiddle everything and more that I could get away with.
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Yes very off topic but you could be describing Canada here, it's no different, public workers get higher wages, shorter working hours better benefits, iron clad job security and of course a gold plated pension at 55. On topic thanks so much for the EU link, had no idea, my wife worked for 7 years Germany than 7 years in Spain and now have returned to Germany where hopefully the company will buy here out at age 60 (10 years from now) It should be noted that autonomo SS payments are for healthcare, unemployment benefits and pension. The pension it's self is basicly a defined benefit plan meaning pay this much and you'll get this, pay more and get more. I have a friend who retired and paid the max for I think 15 years as autonomo and now gets 1300 a month times 14. She also worked in Canada many many years ago and gets a piddling 100 CDN a month. Recently the Conservative Goverment gave Gen X (those following the baby boomers a nice kick in the nuts by raising the pension age to 67, I'm not affected but my wife is.
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Decided after all I don't like Spanish TV, that is having compared both.
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I get the uneasy feeling that both the Spain & UK State pensions will become unaffordable within the coming years irrespective of how much has been paid in. When countries like the UK have twice the debt/GDP ratio as both Greece & spain (which I understand is correct), then we face an ongoing Northern Rock situation that the governments simply cannot solve. We should not lose sight of the fact that the UK has itself had bail-outs from the IMF-in fact twice.
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Baz1946 -
"Your first post read that you were all in favour of the public sector by praising it up, and how good the pension scheme was, and basically good luck to them and stuff the private sector, then in your later post you seemed to suggest you didn't agree with how the public sector got away with so much."
Excuse me but you are wrong, I did not say " I was in favour of the public sector by praising it up", don't know where you get that from. Also I was not praising up public sector pensions, I said "they have good pensions", nowhere did I say I agree with what they get and in fact I never joined the pension scheme whilst I worked for the local council for 7 yrs. All I said was that I knew what a good number they was on as I worked for them for 7 years and so has my two sisters and brother in law. I happen to think just the opposite and I think you must be dreaming or reading someone else's comments !!
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