I’m going to be outspoken like bumface, and good for you bumface for speaking out. The reason most people don’t want junior doctors to strike is this, they simply want the doctor to be there just exactly when they require them to be there. If we want that, an on demand service pretty much whenever we want it, we need to be prepared to pay for it and to employ sufficient doctors. Don’t pay doctors enough and there’ll be fewer doctors here. It’s called supply and demand.
Re the pensions, how many people know that the terms of doctor’s pensions have been radically changed/reduced in recent years? Probably not many, because doctor’s pensions aren’t a topic of conversation very often. Incidentally, as a matter of interest, teacher’s pensions have also been devalued by government, so the professional pension I retired on as a teacher, which was based on my final salary, is no longer available to teachers retiring today, instead my niece, also a teacher, has much less favourable terms when she eventually claims her teacher pension. Exactly the same has happened to doctors pensions. Judges however, have a very beneficial pension after some twenty years of service, also paid out by the public purse. Judges of course, have extremely specialised knowledge. What? Doctors have extremely specialised knowledge too? Well who knew?