We are planning to take industrial action at our GP surgery. We’re unanimous about the blatant inequity being thrust down our throats by Mr Lansley and the anger we feel is palpable. We weren’t completely in agreement about what we’d be prepared to do about it—but when the date was announced, we realised that the […]
Tag: pensions
Peter Bailey: Striking for a duck island
A few days ago I was asked by a local radio station to give an opinion about the strike action being planned by the medical profession over pensions. I told them that in view of the fact that I was already retired and drawing my pension, I was perhaps hors de combat and should leave […]
Edward Davies: Call for the spin doctor—this pension strike will need the mother of all PR campaigns
This strike is not going down well. Or to quote the Daily Telegraph, this “unseemly spectacle” is not going down well. And it’s not just the Telegraph. “There is no gold left and the doctors need to recognise that this applies to them,” says The Times. “Doctors should be ashamed of themselves,” says the Independent. […]
Rhys Davies: 21 June—is there a medical student in the house?
Yesterday, the BMA announced the results of its members’ ballot on industrial action. Tens of thousands of doctors across different branches of medicine responded, coming out strongly in favour of industrial action. With a mandate to move forward, the BMA have scheduled a day of industrial action on 21 June. Doctors will perform only urgent […]
Helen Jaques: NHS pensions: the saga continues
One story has dominated my first year as news reporter for BMJ Careers: pensions. And what a compelling story it has been. The issue kicked off way back in March this year when Lord Hutton set out a raft of changes to public sector pensions, which included ending final salary schemes in favour of career […]
David Payne: Jeremy Clarkson and public sector strikers
The eurozone is in crisis, Britain’s embassy has been stormed in Iran, youth unemployment is above a million, and the US Republicans are struggling to field a presidential candidate whose grasp of foreign policy extends beyond being able to see Russia from their back garden. So guess what the top question was on BBC Question Time […]
Edward Davies: Cuts, pensions, and perspective
Walking to the NHS Alliance’s annual conference through Manchester this morning, the streets were peppered with small pickets. University staff, civil servants, transport workers, all sorts of folk objecting to public sector cuts in general and in particular to their potentially diminished pensions. One chap thrust a leaflet at me deploring the effect that cuts […]
Edward Davies: Sex scandal
Sex and pensions do not comfortable bedfellows make, but I feel I must write something about this. While most of the current talk on UK pensions is about increased contributions and longer working lives, there is an actual scandal passing by barely reported.While I’m not a central pillar in the UK’s feminist movement I am […]