The Strikes in UK are they to do the Country down?

 

The Unions v The Government of UK 

The strikes up and down the country in the cold winter at end of 2022 and early 2023 as many would state, is to test the nerve of the Conservative Government. 

It has been seen to be coming for many months, but Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, like his predecessor Margaret Thatcher, has painted the Trade Unions, as well as the Labour Opposition for supporting picket lines, as the enemies of ordinary hard working Brits, blaming them for causing the chaos in the run up to Christmas. 

It has in one sense worked as 49% of the British public is opposed to some of the Unions, particularly, the RMT Rail Union as greedy. Some other unions like the Transport Salaried Staff (TSSA) last week voted to accept Network Rail’s offer of at least 9% for this year and next with Network Rail promising to make no compulsory redundancies until 31 January 2025. 

Private Contractors have agreed pay offers with Unions 

Other Unions, like Unite have also accepted an improved pay offer for the Ground Handling Staff at Heathrow Airport from their Private Contractor, Menzies. So have planned strikes by Security Guards on Eurostar to Paris on December 16 and 18^th were similarly suspended while they considered a fresh pay offer from Contractor, Mities. 

We read that Rolls Royce, a unit of Germany’s BMW, had agreed a very generous pay offer with the Union, Unite, on 16 December 2022, worth 14.8% and up to 17%, the largest single pay deal in the history of the factory at Goodwood, West Sussex, Southern England. 

Another well-known name, EasyJet agreed to raise base pay by 7.5% in France and averted a French Cabin crew strike over Christmas. 

While many Private Companies have seen it constructive to make peace with their Unions,the Government has been holding firm, even with the Royal College of Nursing (RCN). 

Is Nurses Pay more important in today’s political scene?                                                                    

The two professions, one the Train Drivers (RMT) on an average salary of £59,000 pa with fewer vacancies and Nurses on just under £35,000, with 45,000 odd nursing vacancies across England, there is public sympathy (66% at a recent poll) with the Nurses. 

The Sunak Government is left with little choice but to make a climb down in his fight with the Nurses, who are willing to also come to a reasonable deal. 

It may be a “U Turn,” the second time in his recent six weeks that P.M. Sunak would have to cave in, similarly to his change on his housing agenda, on the building of onshore wind farms. 

With MP’s salaries on £84,000 and some “moonlighting” there is a hue and cry to help the Nurses. The Big Issue is who deserves a pay rise at present, a Nurse or a Train Driver? 

Can you compare Train Drivers to Nurses?  Train Drivers have six (6) months training inside the train cab, while Nurses need up to six (6) years training on the hospital floor. However, in a sense it is not comparing like with like and here is the difficulty from the Government’s standpoint. 

We all know the NHS needs a major overhaul and an efficiency drive. But look at it another way, the average Nurse’s salary is four (4) times the State Pension. But, will we be better off rapidly reaching the “Cost of Insurance” based Health Care, like the United States, or Germany. 

The main question on people’s minds is: “Will Private Medicine be a more effective service than the NHS, we have got used to over decades? 

I leave it to my readers to decide, which is better? 

Victor Cherubim

 

 

One in five of working-age population is now economically inactive?

 

There are now nine million 16 to 64-year-olds who are out of the workforce in UK,Erza Bailey/Getty Images

 ONE IN TEN YOUNG PEOPLE HAVE NO INTENTION WHATSOEVER OF GETTING A JOB,ACCORDING TO A NEW SURVEY.

That’s 227,000 kids aged between 18 and 24 with no plans to do anything whatsoever to earn a living.

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Never in human history have we had a young generation which is so affluent and so magnificently entitled.

These are people who genuinely believe that old cliché that the world owes them a living. The reasons for this strange and deluded mindset are many and various. That generation has been too cosseted and pampered.

It has known nothing of real hardship. And so it doesn’t see why it should demean itself by working. It would much rather “express itself”. And somehow expect to get paid for it.

It is also the case that the old notions of the benefits of work — the discipline, the gift of your labour to society and to the community, the notion that you can only be rewarded if you actually DO something — means nothing to them.

Our fault, really. We have brought them up wrong.

But then there’s this. We lavish our shared money — through tax — on ever-increasing benefits for the perpetually idle.

“Something odd is going on in Britain’s job market,” said Richard Partington in The Guardian. We’re in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis, and heading into recession, yet growing numbers of people are giving up work and becoming “economically inactive” – not in a job, and not looking for one.

Across the world, Covid disrupted employment patterns. In other advanced economies, employment levels have since bounced back. In the UK, by contrast, 630,000 people are “missing” – they left the workforce some time between February 2020 and August 2022, and haven’t come back. In total, there are now nine million 16- to 64-year-olds who are economically inactive – one in five of the working-age population.

Some of these people will be better off fifty-somethings who have decided that they no longer want or need to work; but for others, economic inactivity will have been forced on them, by the lack of affordable childcare, or support for elderly relatives, or by their own poor health. It is this last group – the long-term sick – whose numbers have grown the most, to a record 2.5 million.

This trend is “troubling” in various ways, said Emma Duncan in The Times. Aside from the human cost, it’s depriving the Treasury of tax revenue; leaving businesses short of the staff they need to grow; stoking inflation; and putting pressure on the government to loosen immigration rules. More people entering the workforce, and staying in it longer, has been an engine of prosperity for decades. Yet now that is going into reverse.

The blame game

The question is, why? Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, blames malingerers, and of course if there were no benefits, more people would have to work or they’d starve; but Britain’s rules for claiming disability and sickness benefits are already among the strictest in Europe, and the surge has been too steep and sudden for malingering to be a significant driver.More likely, what we’re seeing is the impact of a long-standing trend towards poor health, exacerbated by long Covid.

Pinch points to address

“Whatever the causes, there are some obvious pinch points to address,” said the FT. Tackling NHS waiting lists would surely help; as would better local access to training and job support. But employers must do their bit too, by offering more job security, flexible working arrangements, and workplace support.

What we can’t do is sit back and hope the problem solves itself. The longer people are out of work, the “more their skills and confidence atrophy”; and with baby boomers set to retire in droves in the next few years, finding people to fill vacancies is only going to get harder. One way or another, we need to entice the “missing” back into work.

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World Cup Qatar 2022 football

 

World Cup: England to play France in mouthwatering quarter-final tie

Jude Bellingham, England midfielder, celebrates at the end of a World Cup round of 16 victory against Senegal in which he turned in an imperious performance defying his teenage years. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

England have a long history of disappointing their fans at major tournaments – losing to teams they should beat or managing to be less than the sum of their parts. But since Gareth Southgate took over as manager they have been oddly competent, reaching the semi-final of the last World Cup and the final of last year’s European Championships, where they were a penalty shootout away from victory. And that trend has continued in Qatar. On Sunday they faced Senegal, a team they might have struggled to beat under previous managers. But they took their chances ruthlessly and eased to a 3-0 victory. They’ll now face France in the quarter-final. The reigning champions played Poland in Sunday’s early game and survived a few early wobbles before completing a 3-1 victory. Two of their goals came from Kylian Mbappé, who already looks the player of the tournament. Both of his goals were stunning finishes, the work of a man who looked like he scored simply because he wanted to. France will be the slim favorites to advance to the semi-final when they play England on Saturday.