Public Sector strikes

If you are of a socialist persuasion, please look away now.  This will likely seem hurtful.

In fact if you are of a Conservative ministerial persuasion, also look away, as you probably won't like this, either!

I have posted here before about public sector strikes  http://bit.ly/1jj5yCz and here about the tube strikes http://bit.ly/1oMwA4o but essentially the problem comes down to two things.

Firstly, 'pilgrims'.  I have written before, here http://bit.ly/XHPGin  and here http://bit.ly/1qQ7e7y about these.  For those that don't know, a 'pilgrim' is a union official that essentially works full time on union business while employed (and paid)  by a public sector organisation.  This costs the taxpayer, twice.  First to pay for the union organiser and second to pay someone else to do the job that he/she was actually hired to do!  The cost to the taxpayer is estimated to run into the 100's of £millions level.  That is money that could be used to reduce taxes for working people - people like those that struggled to get to work yesterday, because of the public sector strikes.  Money that could repair potholes, or provide adequate care for the UK's elderly - but please, after Mid Staffs, not in the caring or their version of the word, NHS - or money that could reduce the debt burden that the country has.

Just as importantly, if action is taken on pilgrims, then the public sector workplace might actually become a place of work!  Somewhere where the class warriors of the union movement have to actually do some work rather than sit around agitating for change and salary increases.

So, Angus Maude, George Osborne and David Cameron - Action Please!  This shouldn't require an act of parliament - there was none passed to get these parasites into place.  What is needed is clear guidelines sent to all ministers and Permanent Secretaries that this practise must cease forthwith and, no later than August 31, all such posts to have been abolished.

Yes the unions will howl.  So will their paid lobbyists - Labour MPs - but here's something for Angus, George and David to consider, my money is on you never being able to get their votes, anyway!  So be like Nike.  Just do it!

Re-reading the above, I realise I have just wasted 15 minutes of my life!  Maybe I have the makings of a pilgrim or union official myself!  Why wasted?  Because Conservative politicians simply won't tackle this issue.  Just like they won't tackle the high salaries paid in the public sector nor the cosseted pension schemes that public sector workers enjoy.   

Face it, we have Conservative politicians - certainly the leadership - that do not follow Conservative policies or pay only the flimsiest of lip-service to same.  In the USA, people have a term for those Republicans that act in a similar fashion.  They call them RINOs - Republicans in Name Only.  What can we call such British Conservatives?  Polite answers only, please!

Opinion polls regularly show that the people of Britain 'get it'!  They understand that, as a country, we have been living beyond our means, for years.  They know that change will be painful.  They know too, that taxing the 'rich', ever higher amounts won't be sufficient, in the long run.  The cause of the government debt problem isn't on the revenue side.  It is on the spending side.  Deep cuts need to be made in welfare, health and local government spending.  Let me repeat that - deep cuts.  And these cuts MUST be on personnel levels.  These cuts need to be made to the bureaucracy not to the front line - so in health, tear out layers (plural) of management not nurses or doctors, -  in education, remove all of those local officials, yes all, provide direct funding to the school governing body at an agreed figure - let's call it £5,000 per pupil per year and then let the headmasters/mistresses and the school governors decide how to utilise those funds - in local government abolish planning departments, abolish community outreach departments in fact abolish and abolish.  Just leave local government with a few basic tasks - repairing local roads, administering social housing (until this can all be sold-off), collecting household waste and, no that's it.  Just those basic tasks.  These wouldn't require a bloated and over-paid bureaucracy.

This isn't about bashing the unions.  Seeing them with a significant reduction in membership (they mostly represent public sector employee) would be a happy by-product.  Seeing them having to use their own funds to pay for these pilgrims is a scandal that must be righted, immediately.

This though, is about having the courage to do what Britain so desperately needs - a strong government doing what is right for today's and tomorrow's Britons.  Not sure that the Conservatives have the stomach for it so it will probably need to wait for the inevitable financial crunch to happen.  Then we can blame outside forces and the 'gnomes of Zurich' and the Euro and all the rest - anyone but our spineless politicians and the rest of the elite, not forgetting of course, the biggest culprits - ourselves for letting this happen!.


 

Airport strikes, Maude and Pilgrims

How do you think Francis Maude is feeling, today?

Not unreasonably, he finally decided to start a 'consultation process' looking to end the abuse of taxpayers, by public 'service' unions.   I refer of course to the so called 'pilgrims'.  Full Time union officials who are ostensibly employed in the Public Sector and paid by the taxpayer  and who, instead of doing the job for which they are employed, then work exclusively on union business.

Instead of just immediately ending this abuse, he wants to 'consult'.

The payback for his 'softly, softly Mr Nice Guy' approach is that the most militant of the public 'service' unions has decided to call a strike among its members in the Border Control agency, right on the eve of the London Olympics.

See what happens when you trade-in a spine for reasonability?  The un-reconstructed class-warriors that run, dictator-like, public 'service' unions sense the lack of back-bone and push on with their aims of causing the maximum disruption to their paymasters - the tax-payer - under the guise of 'concern about service levels'.

Yet again, another example of government rhetoric that isn't matched by real action. 

Consider.  We are going to be tough on Welfare claimants!  We will impose a cap on Welfare benefits!  Then think about the level of 'toughness'.  Such claimants will eventually have their benefits capped at £26,000.  That is, higher than the national average wage, before tax. 

Rhetoric and fine words or intentions shouldn't be a substitute for running the country and doing the right thing!

Pilgrims - Action at last

More than two years into a so called austerity programme, the Conservative-led coalition is finally getting around to looking at the scandal of 'pilgrims'.

These are union officials, almost always full-time, employed within and paid by the public sector.  However, they work full-time on union activities.  So the already over-burdened tax-payer has to then fund an additional worker to cover for the work that isn't being done by the 'pilgrim' and for which the 'pilgrim' is also being paid by the tax-payer.

Think about this for a moment.

These union leaders pay lip service to probity and the need for transparency and berate the business world for a perceived 'too-cosy relationship with the government' and 'having their hand in the public purse'.  All the while, they are having their officials paid for, not by their members but by the general taxpayer.

Consider this further, we, taxpayers are paying people to sit in offices that we provide so that they can scheme and plot ways to disrupt the services that we pay them, and their colleagues, to provide.

Read that again and see if there is any kind of rational sense in that.

So - the 'action'?

Francis Maude has launched a 'consultation exercise' to address the estimated £36 million cost of this.

Other estimates, by the Sunday Telegraph, put the amount in excess of £100 million when all forms of such 'pilgrims' activity were considered - that is, in all forms of the public sector, NHS, Education, local government, etc.

Frankly, what is to consult about.  If any consultation was needed it should be with the taxpayer.  Something along the lines of, should we continue to close libraries and hospitals and lay-off front-line public servants or should we take the money from that which we waste on 'pilgrims' and use it to pay for those services or (very radical) should we use this to start to reduce the burden of taxation on you the taxpayer!

I know what I want!

Mr Maude - don't consult, LEAD, less jaw-jaw and more action today.  Do you really think that the likes of the Marxist  Mark Serwotka, from the Civili Servants union is EVER going to be persuaded?  Do you?  Take the Nike approach - Just Do It!

The effect of the Public Sector strike in the UK

Consider this.
What impact did the strike, by some union members, on May 10, have on you?

The best that the unions can come up with, in terms of numbers of participants was 'in the hundreds of thousands'.  This out of a total of 5 million.  So most probably less than 10% of these people were actually motivated to withdraw their 'labour'.

Remember too that in many cases the support for strike action is often preceded by a very poorly responded too strike ballot, with participation typically around the 35% or less mark.  So when these union leaders claim 'the overwhelming support of their members' they usually mean something around 20% !!

So what impact did the strike have?  Even the biased BBC had difficulty in pushing the large turnout spin as the crowds just weren't there.  Their wide-angle shots just couldn't get into 'throng-mode'

On a personal note I came into London Heathrow from overseas, yesterday morning.  The pilot warned passengers that we might experience delays at immigration, because of industrial action.  Result was that I got through the UK Border Control  post faster than I can ever recall!  They even had the automatic scanning machines working, which is something that they couldn't manage a couple of weeks ago, on a previous trip.

I believe that the 'rank and file members' of the public sector unions understand, as regards pensions (the supposed cause of the strike)  that

• They had a good deal.  Would have liked it to last but..
• The deal on offer is a good one - which is fair to them and moving to something more financially sustainable
• The deal on offer is still better than those that the taxpayer (that's the people that pay for the pensions, in case anyone forgets) can enjoy - much better in most cases.

In recent times, the government has been accused of being 'out of touch' with the electorate.  On this though, they have got it right and it is the union 'fat cats' that are out of touch with the public and, more importantly, with their members.

Perhaps now we will see greater scrutiny on the pay and perks packages of the union 'fat cats' just as we have seen on the executives at privately owned companies?  We can but hope.  This too is a scandal, at a time when we all have to 'tighten our belts'.

I just hate it when some union leader reaches over and tries to tighten my belt while insisting that he particularly and his members in general, should be allowed to freely sup from the public trough.  

While we are at it, I renew my call for the so called 'pilgrims' - full-time union officials who are employed and paid for by local and central government but work exclusively or predominantly, on union business (rather than what they were employed to work on!) -to end.  These 'pilgrims' are costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of pounds.  Money which incidentally, is then saved by the unions so that they can fund the Labour Party, (so don't expect help from that quarter),  and can seek to create ever more opposition to a financially sustainable future.  That's right, we the taxpayer are paying for people to be employed and it is the job of these people to put their hands ever further into our (the taxpayer's) pockets and take our money!!  At least we get a chance to vote for politicians!!