Posted on 06/18/2011 7:21:07 AM PDT by DeaconBenjamin
Britain faces the biggest wave of industrial action since the 1926 general strike, Dave Prentis, the leader of the largest public sector union, has warned.
In issuing his threat, Mr Prentis has stoked the row over Government pension reforms. Unions are considering walking out on negotiations.
Mr Prentis said: “It will be the biggest since the general strike. It won’t be the miners’ strike. We are going to win.”
The Chief Secretary to the Treasury provoked union anger by warning public sector workers it would be a “colossal mistake” to reject the best deal they could hope for.
The reforms include increasing the general retirement age in the public sector from 60 to 66, moving from a final salary system to benefits based on career-average earnings and raising contributions by an average 3.2%.
But Mr Alexander insisted that those on the lowest incomes would not have to pay any more and that low and middle earners would get roughly the same benefits as they do now.
Mr Prentis, whose union has more than 1.3 million members, said the country should brace itself for “rolling action over an indefinite period” until workers get their message across.
The pensions proposals came amid a threatened wave of industrial action starting with up to 750,000 teachers and civil servants going out on strike on June 30.
Mr Prentis said the government cuts were hitting public services hardest and were paving the way for privatisation.
“You can’t just look at what’s happening around pensions as a single issue. All our members provide public services. You look at what this coalition has decided to do to reduce the deficit and it’s decided that most of the deficit reduction programme will be at the expense of our public services,” he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
hopefully..communism’s last stand...?
LOL! In England what else can they cut other than social services?
They sound almost exactly like the Air Traffic Controllers did in 1981. The question is whether there is anyone in the British government with the fortitude of Ronald Reagan.
Dave Prentis, the leader of the largest public sector union, has warned... Prentis has stoked the row over Government pension reforms... The Chief Secretary to the Treasury... warning public sector workers it would be a "colossal mistake" to reject the best deal they could hope for... include increasing the general retirement age in the public sector from 60 to 66, moving from a final salary system to benefits based on career-average earnings and raising contributions by an average 3.2% ...those on the lowest incomes would not have to pay any more and that low and middle earners would get roughly the same benefits as they do now.
My guess is the current government is not strong enough to face down the unions the way Thatcher did. The Tories are sharing power with the leftist Lib Dem party and they are far too sympathetic to the unions to stand strong.
ahem....it was the Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher, who curbed the Brit unioms, and showed Reagan it could be done..
This is going to backfire against them. The people are as sick of the hassles that Union strikes are causing them as the French wwere with the Last big strike *they* threw.
And if this strike is as big as they are threatening, they will bot only lose support from the Brit populace, they will anger a great deal of them *against* the Unions.
BRITISH UNIONS STRIKING IN SOLIDARITY WITH THEIR BROTHERS AND SISTERS IN GREECE..
The question is still the same. Is there anyone in the British government with the fortitude of Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher?
Goverments that accept the legitimacy of unions sign their own death warrants.
It just takes a while for sentence to be carried out.
Europe, Britain and the US need to pass laws making public sector unions illegal. Once that is done, if someone attempts to lead a strike, jail them. I’m getting sick to death of the threats. If they don’t want their jobs, I’m sure there are a lot of good people out there who have lost their jobs in the private sector who would be glad to fill any open positions.
The giant, worldwide Free S**t Army will eventually be killed off in gulags and man-made famines - if not by their current governments, by the successor totalitarian governments that their actions are helping to bring about. They cannot comprehend this possibility, of course.
Early in the last century the balance of power between labor and management was out of balance, in favor of management. Union gained power during these years.
Today, the balance of power between labor and management is once again out of balance, in favor of labor. Unions are going to lose this battle.
In the public sector, there is not enough money to keep giving to the unions everything they want.
In the private sector, management has the option up to and including shutting down, moving to new state, or out of the country.
Again, unions have not learned the basic lessons parasites learn, do not kill your host, are you die.
Unions are killing the host. That is why they may win this particular battle, but lose in the end.
I think they will, because they have no choice. If the Lib Dems decided to vote against future budget legislation, it would be treated as a vote of no confidence against the Government, which would mean the Coalition Government would collapse and a general election would have to be held. Given that the Lib Dems are currently at 9% in the national opinion polls (in the 2010 general election they were at 23%) they would be all but wiped out in terms of the number of seats they hold. The only hope the Lib Dems have is to keep the course and hope the electorate give them some of the credit should the deficit reduction plan succeed.
No.
Cameron is perhaps too lightweight, and a RINO by US parlance, but he is still the better option when you look at Ed ‘Mr Bean’ Miliband, the leader of the Labour party. Nick, the deputy PM, is a Liberal Democrat, and better than Miliband, but would be too liberal for those of us who are conservative.
We still have four years for the country to get good enough that Cameron and the Tories win an outright majority, which would give them another five year at least without pandering to a coalition.
You are correct, of course..we shall see. Oddly, I think that the imploding situation in Greece will make it much easier for the Tories to make the case against the unions...they can ask the British electorate..the choice is yours..
Are they going to threaten not to work? Union members haven’t worked in 20 years. They’re just on the clock.
Years ago a Brit told me that Brit “workers” didn’t punch the clock, they signed the guest registry.
The liberal packed NLRB has told Boeing otherwise.
It remains to be seen, how it plays out in court.
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