The years of discontent, 2022/23

[Left Back]

6 minutes ago, oaksoft said:

And that is the danger today.

There are so many parallels between what happened in the 1970's and what looks to be on the cards now it's scary.

The only "positive" I see is that less of the workforce are unionised today.  Something like 25% as a pose to around 50% in the 70's so in theory it might be easier to resist union demands.  It may not get quite as bad as the 70's but it could get really bad for a good few years.

[G51]

1 minute ago, oaksoft said:

I think it will depend on which industries the unions have power over. With the rail network, I think we can work around it as a country because of WFH. We can also work around the fire brigade as we have done so on several occasions by using the army. The postal service appears to be dying on it's arse for everything other than parcels and we at least have some options there like Hermes (ugh!) so the postal strikes are not such a major issue. I'm coming to the position that now universities are setup for online learning, there is scope to resist strike action from lecturers. Beyond that, the NHS looks vulnerable but I cannot believe doctors would refuse to work.

In my entire career, I've never been in a union or in any workplace where one was commonplace so I'm not sure what other crucial industries are affected. There presumably will be some but that's a few thoughts off the top of my head..

you've never worked somewhere with a union? what is your career?

[vikingTON]

2 hours ago, coprolite said:

Taxation and borrowing. 

 

We are already borrowing huge amounts of money, just to tread water right now. And with more borrowing comes more interest payments which puts less in the public purse than there should be anyway. With sovereign debt under scrutiny and the pound being weakened already (which makes import prices for fuel etc. even higher), this is a complete non-starter. 

This leaves us with tax rises. Yet even an increase in NI ostensibly to mop up the complete mess that is the NHS and social care didn't even last 6 months before enough fury led to the tax rise being watered down. There is no consensus nor significant groundswell for higher taxes other than for a few valid but minor gestures such as a windfall tax on energy companies that doesn't actually generate much at all. 

This discussion sums up the infantile nature of democratic politics in the UK today. The people and government demand that an immediate stand is taken against big, bad Putin without once considering the cost/benefit analysis, and so lollop into a disastrous economic tit for tat exchange. The people then complain that the same measures they overwhelmingly backed have predictably led to sky-rocketing inflation, and call for their idiot government to magic up phuree money all round to fix it.

The second major contributing factor for rising costs - Brexit - was of course directly approved by the Great British public and then confirmed in the most recent election by a thumping majority. 

The UK public is getting the economic and political shitshow it deserves. 

[vikingTON]

43 minutes ago, Bairnardo said:

If your workforce is collectivised but you are not a member, not only do you personally have no voice or seat at the table for anything that falls under the collective agreement, you also weaken the position of the collective meaning that you are likely to get less. Once your workplace is unionised, being a member us no less than common sense and should be unhitched from politics.

If a union is run by syndicalist wallopers for their own self-aggrandisement, treats its own officers like utter shite for whistleblowing about improper behaviour in its organisation or does nothing substantial to earn its subs, then workers should absolutely refuse to participate in it. 

Not all unions fall under the above categories, but they're not run by angels either and so the worker should determine that they are obtaining a credible benefit and not just propping up a rotten edifice before making that decision. 

Edited June 29, 2022 by vikingTON

[coprolite]

34 minutes ago, oaksoft said:

This argument of a "pay cut" was being used well before fuel, food and transport was causing temporary inflationary pressures.

It plays well in the media but it's an illogical argument.

The cpi basket is meant to be representative of the average. In general poorer people experience higher inflation than rich people. 

In aggregate and on average a below inflation pay rise is a real terms pay cut. 

Inflation was above zero fpr years while public sector pay rises were zero. Inflation hasn't just been invented. 

That's a logical argument. 

[hk blues]

1 minute ago, oaksoft said:

I'm retired now.

My career was winding to say the least and involved a lot of software when I was an employee.

[coprolite]

5 minutes ago, virginton said:

We are already borrowing huge amounts of money, just to tread water right now. And with more borrowing comes more interest payments which puts less in the public purse than there should be anyway. With sovereign debt under scrutiny and the pound being weakened already (which makes import prices for fuel etc. even higher), this is a complete non-starter. 

This leaves us with tax rises. Yet even an increase in NI ostensibly to mop up the complete mess that is the NHS and social care didn't even last 6 months before enough fury led to the tax rise being watered down. There is no consensus nor significant groundswell for higher taxes other than for a few valid but minor gestures such as a windfall tax on energy companies that doesn't actually generate much at all. 

This discussion sums up the infantile nature of democratic politics in the UK today. The people and government demand that an immediate stand is taken against big, bad Putin without once considering the cost/benefit analysis, and so lollop into a disastrous economic tit for tat exchange. The people then complain that the same measures they overwhelmingly backed have predictably led to sky-rocketing inflation, and call for their idiot government to magic up phuree money all round to fix it.

The second major contributing factor for rising costs - Brexit - was of course directly approved by the Great British public and then confirmed in the most recent election by a thumping majority. 

The UK public is getting the economic and political shitshow it deserves. 

You seem innumerate. 

Inflation means that government borrowing is even cheaper than before in real terms. 

Tax will rise in line with price and wage increases. It will probably rise by less than inflation because of low growth. 

 

[G51]

6 minutes ago, oaksoft said:

My career was winding to say the least and involved a lot of software when I was an employee.

I'm retired now and spend my days writing the odd porn film script and annoying people on the forum. 

as in software engineering, or more of an it guy?

i struggle to believe that if you were in software engineering, your workplace wasn't unionised

[vikingTON]

Just now, coprolite said:

You seem innumerate. 

Inflation means that government borrowing is even cheaper than before in real terms. 

Existing borrowing is cheaper in real terms - which also applies incidentally to every householder with a mortgage while you're banging on about 'real terms pay cuts'.

Future borrowing is not made cheaper by inflation and by the already underway response to it - higher interest rates and gilt costs. 

And as the sum total of borrowing costs and interest rises, that leaves less money to spend on actually delivering public services. Which in case you haven't noticed, are already in an absolute fucking nick of a condition after ten years of cuts. 

Quote

Tax will rise in line with price and wage increases. It will probably rise by less than inflation because of low growth. 

Which means that in your own, beloved real terms analysis, there will be less to spend on essential public services than before, if wage increases are pegged to inflation. 

[vikingTON]

4 minutes ago, G51 said:

as in software engineering, or more of an it guy?

i struggle to believe that if you were in software engineering, your workplace wasn't unionised

Tbf he said working where union membership was commonplace - not that a union didn't exist at all. There are plenty of workplaces/sectors where the union presence and membership is nominal. 

[coprolite]

3 minutes ago, oaksoft said:

The problem is that the average doesn't generally exist.

Your argument is weakened by that.

 

Yes it does and can be calculated in various ways. 

If you want a more precise expression, with below inflation pay rises, more people will experience real pay cuts than will experience real pay rises, with a greater imbalance towards the ends of the income distribution. 

[coprolite]

5 minutes ago, virginton said:

Existing borrowing is cheaper in real terms - which also applies incidentally to every householder with a mortgage while you're banging on about 'real terms pay cuts'.

Future borrowing is not made cheaper by inflation and by the already underway response to it - higher interest rates and gilt costs. 

And as the sum total of borrowing costs and interest rises, that leaves less money to spend on actually delivering public services. Which in case you haven't noticed, are already in an absolute fucking nick of a condition after ten years of cuts. 

Which means that in your own, beloved real terms analysis, there will be less to spend on essential public services than before, if wage increases are pegged to inflation. 

Gilts are still free money at current rates. 

I'm not suggesting that all demands should be met or that pay is pegged to inflation, but we need public servants to deliver public services and if they've all fucked off to the private sector then we're equally fucked. 

(declaration of interest- i fucked off to the private sector after "pay restraint" and pension reform 2008-2015 cost me 25% of my take-home)

[Ross.]

1 hour ago, Left Back said:

High Inflation didn't start in the 1970's because of wages either.  It started because oil prices tripled.  Wages then took over because of union demands and caused the wage-price spiral.

The UK could help itself somewhat be not repeatedly driving its economy off a cliff and  constantly devaluing its currency as a consequence. The evidence supporting wage push inflation is flimsy. There are significantly bigger causes in this case, and not increasing wages will likely do far more damage.

[Netan Sansara]

27 minutes ago, G51 said:

as in software engineering, or more of an it guy?

i struggle to believe that if you were in software engineering, your workplace wasn't unionised

I’ve worked in 5 different companies in tech and none have been unionised. I don’t think it’s particularly commonplace. 

[Billy Jean King]

The problem is that the average doesn't generally exist.
Your argument is weakened by that.
 

You are not seriously saying that due to inflation peoples outgoings have not risen by more than they have received in any increase in their pay packets over the last few years. Add in tax rises (NI especially) and it's even worse. Personally the rise in Petrol alone has outstripped any rise in our pay received over the last 3 years add Gas and Electric and we are hundreds worse off and that's before we take account in the rise in food and other household essentials. The vast majority of working people have outgoings rising way out of proportion with any rise in income and hence there most definitely has been a real terms pay cut. You may be oblivious to it being retired but for most of us on here it's all too real unfortunately.

[scottsdad]

1 hour ago, oaksoft said:

I'm retired now and spend my days writing the odd porn film script and annoying people on the forum. 

The mind boggles at what oddities are included.

[Aufc]

2 hours ago, coprolite said:

I'm not sure that's true of economics as a discipline. It does seem to be true of influential positions for economists though. A disproportionate number of people from privileged backgrounds get influential positions in all disciplines. 

You could argue (as many economists currently do) that there is no reason for economics to have more influence on government than, say, sociology. 

But rubbishing a whole discipline based on your personal prejudice is part of the whole "had enough of experts", anti-science axis of dumb

I dont think my comment came across as rubbishing a whole discipline. There will be some good ones out there. However, a decent majority of them fall into the category i mention (which i think you actually agree with)

 

Sadly, money makes the world go round hence its importance. 

1 hour ago, virginton said:

We are already borrowing huge amounts of money, just to tread water right now. And with more borrowing comes more interest payments which puts less in the public purse than there should be anyway. With sovereign debt under scrutiny and the pound being weakened already (which makes import prices for fuel etc. even higher), this is a complete non-starter. 

This leaves us with tax rises. Yet even an increase in NI ostensibly to mop up the complete mess that is the NHS and social care didn't even last 6 months before enough fury led to the tax rise being watered down. There is no consensus nor significant groundswell for higher taxes other than for a few valid but minor gestures such as a windfall tax on energy companies that doesn't actually generate much at all. 

This discussion sums up the infantile nature of democratic politics in the UK today. The people and government demand that an immediate stand is taken against big, bad Putin without once considering the cost/benefit analysis, and so lollop into a disastrous economic tit for tat exchange. The people then complain that the same measures they overwhelmingly backed have predictably led to sky-rocketing inflation, and call for their idiot government to magic up phuree money all round to fix it.

The second major contributing factor for rising costs - Brexit - was of course directly approved by the Great British public and then confirmed in the most recent election by a thumping majority. 

The UK public is getting the economic and political shitshow it deserves. 

Im no economist but surely tax cuts are actually the way to raise more cash for the government? I always think tax rises are a false economy as it just results in people spending less (especially in the current climate which is why the NI tax increase was watered down). Putting money in peoples pockets is the best way to get the economy moving. People will argue this would result in increased inflation. However, the current inflation is mostly led by the power prices and fuel prices. The fuel price could be controlled by the government if it wanted. The power prices just seems like the companies taking the piss. There are other factors which you mention above both of which we brought upon ourselves. 

[Sergeant Wilson]

3 hours ago, Hawk89 said:

Assuming you are with PCS, have the same vibes coming from them at my work via the three unions we have - PCS/Prospect and F something or other. PCS told us in 2019 that we were roughly 25% behind inflation over the past 10 years. With 2 years of freezes and no offer on the table for this year yet, it will obviously be a much wider gap. On top of that there is the illegal theft of wages disguised as pension contributions which are never added to the pot - The Firefighters Union challenged this and won their battle in court plus quashed the attempts at overturning a couple of years ago. However, they have still refused to payout to anyone. 

Alot of my colleagues are jumping ship on level transfers to ScotGov because the wages are effectively what we get with London weighting added on, so it is a no brainer for folk up here. 

You will also find in the UK Civil Service (not sure if ScotGov are the same) that the SCS level staff have still had their pay rises over the past couple of years. The very people telling us we are all in this together with the cost of living rises and we should add to our expenses with unnecessary journeys back into the office because they like to see people. Alot of very very angry people now on our internal message boards. 

It's been a long time since any of them threatened a strike that would have Government capitulate.

[coprolite]

15 minutes ago, oaksoft said:

An average inflation rate of 9% for example is useless information in the teeth of fuel prices which are rising multiple times that just as an example.

Anyone can manipulate statistics to show what they want. Claiming to have received pay cuts simply on the basis of rising inflation is one common way of doing it.

It's not useless information at all. 

It's partial information and has many flaws but the CPI is very useful information about general price levels. 

It seems like you won't accept the concept of a "real terms pay cut". 

God knows why, it's quite simple and obviously a real thing. 

[Aufc]

26 minutes ago, oaksoft said:

An average inflation rate of 9% for example is useless information in the teeth of fuel prices which are rising multiple times that just as an example.

Anyone can manipulate statistics to show what they want. Claiming to have received pay cuts simply on the basis of rising inflation is one common way of doing it.

someones fuel a month goes up by £200 a month. they get a pay rise which equates to £100 a month. Surely thats an effective pay cut