Labour caves in to Union demands

I could make things worse by throwing bus drivers in to the mix. They have an average pay of around 25 -30 grand if I remember rightly, hold the same responsibility for peoples lives and face the general public in a way train drivers dont.

I think you'll find train drivers do indeed face the public and often their venom.

They are more insulated from them. I have just travelled across country, three trains, never saw the driver once, and to be fair I wish I had had the opportunity not to meet most of the passengers I travelled with

twinnytwin

This thread isn't another one about causing of inflation - it's about Labour caving into their union paymasters within such a short time in power with nothing in return.

It cost the last govt more to cover the strikes (£75m/day) than it would have done to improve junior doctors' wages (£1bn total).

Surely, we, as grandparents appreciate what NHS has done for our grandchildren (who were either born in NHS hospital or delivered by staff trained by NHS), and for us and our friends at our stage of life.

I have never understood why supply & demand works for everyone except NHS, education etc. We need to keep medics, teachers etc, who the UK public have paid to train.

I don't understand why public sector workers are not more appreciated either. We would not be a decent functioning society without them.

Plus, their wage increases will help the economy and small businesses.

Galaxy

I could make things worse by throwing bus drivers in to the mix. They have an average pay of around 25 -30 grand if I remember rightly, hold the same responsibility for peoples lives and face the general public in a way train drivers dont.

They're probably underpaid, too, Galaxy.

But I really don't see why every improvement to working people's pay is met with vociferous objections in some quarters.

I bet no-one posting on this forum has ever turned down a pay increase on the grounds that they didn't deserve it. 😁

The Unions are the main donors to the Labour Party so it was glaringly obvious their demands would be met.

Pensioners are supposedly the Conservative party's chief supporters (actually, not the ones I know) so they must be punished.
Glaringly obvious.

As are a few more things about Starmer.

Politicians of both the major parties have talked about wanting a high wage economy. I don't see why there is so much opposition to raising the pay of people who do the sort of jobs that most of us depend on.

eazybee

The Unions are the main donors to the Labour Party so it was glaringly obvious their demands would be met.

Pensioners are supposedly the Conservative party's chief supporters (actually, not the ones I know) so they must be punished.
Glaringly obvious.

As are a few more things about Starmer.

Pensioners might be the Conservative parties main supporters but I doubt if they are their main donors. I wonder who that might be? And how they are rewarded?Of course unions are the main donors to the Labour party; it's what the party was based on. And the important thing was to make working conditions for everyone better and safer. Which is a huge part of what the strikes are about.

eazybee

The Unions are the main donors to the Labour Party so it was glaringly obvious their demands would be met.

Pensioners are supposedly the Conservative party's chief supporters (actually, not the ones I know) so they must be punished.
Glaringly obvious.

As are a few more things about Starmer.

Neither the BMA, nor the teachers Union, give money to the Labour Party nor are affiliated with them.

What is not generally known is that trade union members can opt out of the bit of their union payments that go to the Labour Party.

So the money coming from Union Members is made by *individual choices*: most remain opted in.

Freya5

Luckygirl3

Junior doctors, trained by the UK in the UK have been leaving the service for years because their pay and working conditions have been so bad. Whilst at the same time ignoring this problem, the Tories have been denigrating and trying to limit the very immigrants who now dedicate their lives to running the health service in our clinics and hospitals.

Were Labour to do nothing? .... to let the situation continue as their predecessors had?

I think you'll find it's "helping run," not running.!!!

I have been in hospital a lot recently!!!

eazybee

The Unions are the main donors to the Labour Party so it was glaringly obvious their demands would be met.

Pensioners are supposedly the Conservative party's chief supporters (actually, not the ones I know) so they must be punished.
Glaringly obvious.

As are a few more things about Starmer.

You’re behind the times eazybee. Trade Unions are not the biggest donors to the Labour Party, and haven’t been for several years. From opendemocracy:

‘Of the £21.5m in cash received by the party in 2023, just £5.9m came from the trade union movement, compared with £14.5m from companies and individuals – a huge increase on the previous year, and indeed more than in the three previous years of Keir Starmer’s leadership combined. As trade union contributions have dipped slightly, from around £6.9m in 2020 and 2021 to £5.3m in 2022, donations from businesses and individuals have soared: they totalled £2.3m in 2020 and rose to £3m in 2021 and £7.6m in 2022 before nearly doubling last year.’

Are those people moaning about pay rises happy with the strikes? The government stopped in to halt the action , which is actually more cost effective than continual never ending strikes.

Just think we could return to life under the Tories, where no one benefited but the very wealthy who by gifting to the tories, including Russian oligarchs are now sitting in the house of lords influencing our politics or buying huge yachts, and sailing off into the sunset.

I was only thinking this morning that, if she hadn’t crashed the economy, Liz Truss would still be PM. The very Liz Truss who sneered at Macron and was recently in America supporting Trump.

Just to be clear the government has not settled the pay increase with junior doctors yet. The vote to accept the offer opens on the 19th August and runs for some time.
The junior doctors may well decide not to accept…….. who knows?

As this debate shows, there are two ways of looking at this - either the government has "caved in to the unions" or it has" settled the dispute ".
The desirable outcome will have been achieved - people back at work, and really, our perspective on how this has been achieved is just that - our perspective. Neither view is " right".

And, hopefully, the safety issues will have been resolved too.

Maybe wait and see how the junior doctors vote?
If the 22 percent offer is declined and the original request for 35 percent is reinstated that will be interesting.

Balancing the disingenuous OP headline.

“Public sector pay has fallen by 2.5% in real terms since 2010, while private sector pay rose by just under 4% in the same period. Nurses’ pay fell by 6.5%; teachers’ by even more at 9%. These are the facts that underpin the chancellor Rachel Reeves’s decision that public sector workers will get an above-inflation pay rise this year, in line with the 5.5% recommended by the independent pay review bodies.
These increases are needed not just as a matter of fairness for teachers, nurses and doctors but because falling real rates of public sector pay are compounding the recruitment and retention issues facing hospitals, schools and other public services”

Wwm2 and how to handle 35 percent demands?

ronib

Wwm2 and how to handle 35 percent demands?

The last Conservative government sought to make fiscal savings by suppressing public sector pay.

But all they succeeded in doing was to create a massive bottleneck as a result of their bad management of public worker pay, particularly after the level of inflation we have all been subjected to over the past couple of years.

What you are seeing now is the result of the suppression of public workers pay, and the inevitable pushback.

If these demands are not met, recruitment which is existential at the moment will become totally untenable.

I don't know what the government should do ronib in those circumstances. The junior doctors had quite a lot of public sympathy before. I think they will settle as "Best option".

The leaders have accepted it, which is as good a sign as we'll get.

Interesting points. My local hospital is whizzing up the league tables with faster times for treatment in A&E. The excellent staff hail from the four corners of the earth. Recruiting hospital staff from abroad is becoming increasingly common. Consultants from Romania are content with their pay here…. Well two were, I couldn’t find any more to ask!
Some consultants are more approachable than others…..