Current council strike

[HW John]

I thought id post about this as ive come home from work riled from seeing it.

Dinner ladies, binmen and other workers want more money than they are already on and are currently in the middle of a 48hr strike closing schools and stuff.
What do they want for working 8hrs a week? �20,000 a year?
I know many familes living on the minimum wage and are fine, but some people just take the mick.
Binmen are on more than most earn in this area and are just greedy. Infact they seem to have a strike every year here.
Theres a dinner lady up at the local school who had a chance to go to college and uni and doesnt have any kids. She chose to flunk school and have no qualifications and thinks shes working herself to death 8hrs a week dishing dinners out and lets her husband pay everything, and hes on the minimum wage at the argos warehouse.
Her words to me were 'Well we deserve more money for the hours and job we do'.
I have no sympathy. Instead of campaigning for a bit of extra cash, they should campaign to sort the country out first as thats in more need than their back pocket.

If they try tell me next week that they wont take our extra binbags, there will be hell on!

[Honey Bunny]

Yes have to admit im a bit disgusted today as my kids had to finish school at dinner time today because there was no dinnertime staff etc so they missed out on a whole afternoon worth of education. Same again tommorrow not impressed. I wouldn't mind but my kids are on sandwiches and not school dinners so dont really understand why they couldnt just tell everyone to bring sandwiches and ask for volunteers to look after them.
To be honest now there is a minimum wage I dont think they are doing to bad when i think back to about ten years ago me and my partners had a joint annual income of 12000 between us with two kids and we managed without benefits etc by sacrificing anything we didnt need. There was no minimun wage then and I was going to work to pay for my car to get to work/petrol and the childcare and came home with nowt.
If it was me I would just look for another job with more pay. I would definately not be willing to risk kids education to get what i wanted thats for sure.
Once again the unions holding the country to ransom.
Then they wonder why companies are folding and laying folk off left, right and centre. Thats why companies are operating from china/india etc as its cheap. So thirty people winging in the uk about not being paid enough results in the company shutting its uk warehouse and employing two hundred chinese/people for the price of ten whinging brits. Then they whinge its disgusting the company has took its business abroad.???

[tom,s]

well,when you have an hierarchy running this country and have the power of self voting on there wages and perks are you suprised that the lower paid workforce are miffed.

just look at what they can do under self voting,vote themselves a wage rise way above inflation,claim expenses of thousands of pounds per month and hire there family and friends to work for them,but dont actually do any work,buy a second house and furnish it at our expense.

they act like gods and treat us as mere mortals,telling us what we can have and what we cant have,they forget that we are there employers (i think?) its time that there was indipendant revision of there way of life and wages and perks they get.

why does it take 2 jaguars to drive from 10 downing street to westminister when its a 10 minute walk,why cant they use an electric car for the distance they travel,these are the people telling us to cut down on emisions and taxing us to the hilt for not doing it,"HYPOCRITE" comes to mind.

so do you blame people for striking when we have a corrupt government who are on a nice little earner,yes its mostly greed thats going on here,first wagon drivers on �32,000 + bonuses striking for more and holding the country at ransomand now this lot.

i was watching the news this afternoon and there was a line of cars driving along complaining they wanted more money,every car was nearly new and one was even driving a merc now that says a lot about needing money,"yes to keep it going" if they cant afford to run it buy a smaller car or use the local transport.

you live within what you can afford,i bought my first car when i was 35 because on my wage i coul'nt afford one before hand, bet half of these strikers can use public transport to work and could give up the car,a car is a luxury and only bought when you can afford to,just imagine how much money they would have per month extra to live on.

to sum up,yes it is pure greed these days and if they had to be brought up in the 50's they would understand that you made ends meet, "no frozen food then" just good old fashioned home cooking,and yes this corrupt goverment gets paid far to much for nothing.

hadrian built a wall to keep the scots out,little did he know they would ruin brittain in other stealth ways by secretly taking over goernment and spending all of our money,now we have a money pit with nothing left in it thanks to 2 scots and a deficit of billions.
tom.

[Rondetto]

The tanker drivers started this run. They got a settlement, and so........................................................................................

[jacko123]

Not really read through the thread but my take is.

GOOD ON THEM.

Yes, we all want extra money but come on, This Government is hiking up the price for everything and not giveing us anything back in return.

I wish I could strike for more money but i'm self employed and earning just above minimum wage.

I worked out last week that we would be better off signing on at the dole.
Do you know what! I couldn't bring myself down to the level of the UK's layabouts.

Go On SHOOT me down......... I'm ready for it.

[jackieblack]

I work in a primary school.

In my experience, most school support staff (i.e. not teachers) only work in schools because the hours fit with their family responsibilities.

However, contrary to popular belief we DON'T get 3 months holiday a year, what we have is a 'seasonal' contract to work for the 38 or 39 weeks per year of school terms. They calculate what you'll earn over that time (pro rata), divide by 12 and pay this each month. This means that every month you get paid for roughly 3 weeks work, and only 'catch up' with what you're owed at the end of August. Then the whole cycle starts again.

For example, if you work 20 hours a week, that would be about 80 hours in September and October, but you only get paid for about 63 hours, so by the end of October (half term) you're owed 34 hours (a week and a half's pay). Then you have a week off (unpaid). By the end of December you'll have worked abot 15 or 16 weeks, and been paid for about 12 weeks, and so on. (And who's earning interest on this money? Not the worker!)

I'm not saying no-one else is badly treated at work, everyone these days is expected to work more hours for less money, but it does make me cross when people make comments about school staff having three months holiday a year!

Staff only want a rise in line with inflation. As a matter of principle, anything less is equivalent to a cut in pay.

I'm not on strike because I can't afford to lose two days pay.

[uncle spud]

Totaly agree with Tom on this subject i walked past my local borough council office,s this morning at 8.00am and the paper shuffelers that work there were picketing what i,d like to know is why cant they get there at that time in the morning to go to work instead of 9.30am!!!
and if these little hitlers get a pay rise that is coming out of my POCKET re increased COUNCIL TAXES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!