This post is not (just) about today's public sector workers' strike.

[nanila]

There are a lot of things that I find repugnant about the statements jeering at the public sector workers' strike happening in Britain today, but the one I find most baffling is the argument that "because private sector workers have terrible pensions, so should public sector workers". Do people really want their definition of equality to be "making things equally bad for everyone"? Don't we all want decent pensions? Shouldn't the aim be to let all people retire in a reasonable state of health and comfort, and not die in poverty?

Why bother to exist if the only thing we do with our existences is to sustain the crap conditions we were born into? Is there anyone left who wants a better future for all of humanity, rather than to just goggle at one another while we cling hopelessly with our fingertips to the tiny pittance we've been allotted? How did we all get so defeatist and so short-sighted in our aspirations? Why does it feel like it's now not only uncool to aspire to change the world, it's unacceptable?

I bet the wealthy and powerful just love watching us peons squabble over what little we've got. It certainly seems to keep us from doing anything to genuinely threaten their grip on our fortunes.

Comments

[crystalpyramid]

This is what drove me nuts about the discourse surrounding the Verizon (cell phone company) strikes, and the whole thing in Wisconsin. People who'd had their benefits dramatically cut arguing that others had to right to expect anything decent. "If I have to pay for my own health insurance, so should you."

But there's been a bunch of social psych research on this, right? People will refuse to do a task that pays them a dollar, if they know it'll pay someone else $10? We really don't want others to get things we don't have. Or if they get things we don't have, we don't want to know about it.

[nanila]

People will refuse to do a task that pays them a dollar, if they know it'll pay someone else $10? We really don't want others to get things we don't have. Or if they get things we don't have, we don't want to know about it.

This makes me more confused, because that is how the private sector works. The people below do tasks that pay the people above x times more. The people below know this, but it doesn't stop them from doing their jobs. Is it just that the resultant profit of the people of above is seemingly less straightforward than "I get $10 for your $1 job?" Is the presumption that the person above is doing more financially valuable tasks really enough to overcome the deterrent?

[miss_s_b]

"The people below know this"

No, they don't. Or rather, they sort of do, but they also don't know how to fight against it without massive cost to themselves (and I include myself in that sentence). I work hard in my minimum wage job, and quite regularly watch my boss (who does little) go and piss my hard word up against a wall. But what else can I do? I have to pay the rent somehow.

Unlike a lot of people, I don't begrudge public sector workers their massively better pay and conditions; if they were lucky enough to get the job then good for them. I'm not one of those who thinks that because MY taxes pay YOUR wages you are subservient to me and should be treated like shit, either. But I DO begrudge their total ignorance of exactly how much better their pay and conditions are, and it winds me up that they piss and moan about things which would be a paradise for me.

However, I agree with you that levelling the playing field by bringing the public sector down, rather than the private sector up, is counterproductive and just makes EVERYONE miserable.

[nanila]

No, they don't. Or rather, they sort of do, but they also don't know how to fight against it without massive cost to themselves (and I include myself in that sentence). I work hard in my minimum wage job, and quite regularly watch my boss (who does little) go and piss my hard word up against a wall. But what else can I do? I have to pay the rent somehow.

It seems to me what you're saying here is that the only motivation to overcome the instinctive opposition to the "I'll do this $1 job so you can make $10" principle is the purely the need to survive. Which is really, really depressing.

Also, where do people get the idea that public sector workers don't pay taxes, too? They help to pay their salaries...with their salaries. Now that's irony.

[miss_s_b]

Yes, it is really depressing. It's even more depressing given the level of qualifications etc that I have. But given that all job applications for non-minimum wage jobs I have ever done have been unsuccessful, I suspect that I am not really qualified to comment too much on rarefied elites which I have never experienced. And, like I said, I have to pay the rent. It's amazing how much of one's energy goes into panicking about that when you are on the sort of income level that I am on, and I have no idea whatsoever how to escape. I just have to keep slogging on, because if I don't, I sink.

"where do people get the idea that public sector workers don't pay taxes, too?"

I honestly, genuinely, don't think that people have thought about it that far. I don't think they care whether public sector workers pay taxes or not, they just care that THEY pay taxes and this money goes towards someone else living a far better life than them. They don't stop to think about the services those public sector workers provide, without which their own lives would be immeasurably more difficult.

It's the same rationale that leads to all those daily fail stories about benefit cheats. "I pay MY taxes and then these people WASTE them on things which don't necessarily directly benefit ME."

[purplecthulhu]

This is why I think that the German system, where the supervisory boards of all companies (above a certain size) have to have workers representatives on them, as well as representatives of management and shareholders. It means that the purpose of a company is not solely driven by shareholder value, and that the companies must take a more reasonable attitude to their workers because they do have some level of power and influence short of damaging strikes.

And guess what - the German economy does better than ours, especially in manufacturing where you need a lot of motivated workers.

[nanila]

It sounds like a very good idea. How did they bring this about?

[purplecthulhu]

I'm not sure...

It may have been something that emerged after WW2 during the reconstruction - a lot of sensible things got imposed by the occupying allies at that point that they wouldn't be able to do in their own countries - but I'm not sure.

I wonder if wikipedia can tell me...

[purplecthulhu]

Okay - this describes the structure - I've actually remembered it better than I had thought!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supervisory_board

I've not been able to determine when it started though. The two references I've found suggest early 1960s, or maybe the end of the 1800s...

[weaverbird]

I bet the wealthy and powerful just love watching us peons squabble over what little we've got. It certainly seems to keep us from doing anything to genuinely threaten their grip on our fortunes.

Word. It's proof their efforts at misdirection and distraction are working.

[nanila]

I don't understand why more people aren't infuriated by the way the government addresses its people, either. The tone is patronizing in the extreme. Look at this quote from David Cameron.

"I say to you these strikes are wrong, for you, for the people you serve and for the good of the country. It is the changes we propose that are right, right by the taxpayer but, above all, right by you."

You could put almost any word in there other than "changes" - cuts, bailouts, chilli pepper in your eyes - and the sentiment would be the same. We know what's good for you and you don't. None of us would have stood for being talked to like that when we were five years old. Why are we OK with it now?

[lark_ascends]

Agreed.

[nanila]

It's maddening. And sad-making. And frustrating.