PUBLIC SECTOR WORKERS ARE VOTING en-mass to take strike action on June 30. Both the National Union of Teachers (NUT) and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) have voted “overwhelmingly” (be it from low turnouts) to play truant. They hope to be joined on the day by NHS, town hall, and railway workers - while the civil service is expected to follow suit today with their own strike vote. In all, according to the unions, some 750,000 public sector workers are expected to participate in a “coordinated” day of action.
The teaching unions have been told that their members have to contribute 3 per cent more toward their pensions, and be expected to work longer before retirement. In other words they are being asked to emulate their colleagues in the private sector who have had to come to terms with far greater sacrifices than are being asked of the public sector.
It shows just how powerful the public sector has become in this country; its numbers had swollen under the previous Labour government.
The Labour Party has increased its financial dependency on the unions, as company donors have taken to the life-boats; a process that began with the departure of Tony Blair and accelerated under Gordon Brown.
Those private donors have seen Labour’s current leader crowned by the unions, in a bizarre electoral process that found Ed Milliband’s brother David, come top in the poll among party members and MPs, only to have his crown put on his brother’s head by union barons.
Whether the Labour Party likes it or not, they are once more in the grip of the unions, as they were in the 1970s and 1980s. Having burnt its bridges with the private sector, the party, and in particular its leader, finds himself in the unwanted embrace of the likes of Bob Crow.
HOWEVER, UNLIKE THE 70s and 80s; today the discontent is restricted to the public sector, who, despite their increased numbers, do not have the power or wherewithal to bring the economy to a standstill and threaten the nation’s prosperity.
Those working in the private sector have it much harder than those who will be marching on June 30th . In the private sector, the people now understand that their and their families fortunes are tied up with the success of the company they work for. These workers produce the wealth that pays their wages, from which they have to pay their taxes, which in turn pays the wages of those in the public sector, who also pay taxes – but from private taxation.
Of course we need teachers, doctors, nurses, as well as civil servants. But they cannot expect a more privileged position within the economy than those working all hours in the private sector - in many cases for far less than those who will take the day off on the 30th June.
This country is in a mess and all the main parties know it. There needs to be a tightening of the belts if we are not lose our economic prestige in the world. We have £170 billion deficit that needs to be emasculated, and the only way to do it, is to cut back on public spending. For the public sector is the one area of the economy where governments can act directly to reduce the deficit, and so it has to be
There is no other road to take. Even the Labour Party realises this, but pretends that the pace at which the cutbacks are made is of significance. They do this to conjure up a dividing line between themselves and the Coalition. No doubt on 30th June, Ed Milliband will be told to be on hand by his paymasters, to once more elaborate upon this fictitious dividing line in Trafalgar Square or Hyde Park.
IF THE LABOUR PARTY truly had the nation’s interests at heart, they would take their paymasters to one side and impress upon them the necessity of pension changes, job cuts, and pay freezes in the public sector having had them introduced by employers in the private sector.
In the private sector workers have even taken a pay cut to ensure their continued employment. If the public sector believes that such people as these will be found to be sympathetic to their cause; then I suggest they had better think again before it is to late.
The private sector is the driving force within any free economy. This sector, and only this sector, produces the wealth that affords taxation. We live in a free market economy – the most creative and successful social organisation that man has ever put his mind to.
The architects of any public sector are the politicians, who decide how the taxes garnered from the private sector are to be spent. Defence, Health, and Education, have been considered, in this country at least, to be at the forefront of people’s minds when they look puzzlingly at their wage slip to see how much these priorities are to cost them.
They are willing to pay, but, I suggest, not willing to be taken advantage of by those to whom they have given part of their salary. If those they pay through their taxes, have an unperturbed and far more comfortable retirement outlook than those whose taxes pay for such a retirement vista will ever see: then, may I suggest, that on June 30th those unions had better be more persuasive than the facts suggest.
No comments:
Post a Comment