[BBC News] Manx Telecom staff back walkout

[Dr Gonzo]

I was listening to Manx Radio this afternoon and heard Grace on about how her members were unhappy at Manx Telecom's proposed pay rise of 4.2%

 

Er... 4.1%

 

They feel that this is not enough because the rate of inflation on the Isle of Man stands at 6.6%.

 

Er... 6.5%

 

Months before this Manx Telecom had announced that they are putting up their line rentals on domestic phone lines by 37.5% if you don't pay by direct debit and receive an ebill.

 

...a decision taken by senior management, no the bloke who works in the shop.

 

These charges are hitting low income families and pensioners.

 

...just as it hits the bloke in the shop who's working for something not much shy of minimum wage, who doesn't get a free TV licence, who's still paying tax, who doesn't get housing benefit, income support, state pension, free prescriptions, free eye tests, etc, etc

 

Your workers asking for a further pay rise will mean further increases in line rental in the future

 

...not if the company were willing to absorb some of the costs. Again, a senior management decision.

 

Pensioners and low income families have to meeet these costs and they don't get any help until April 2009.

If they do get help, it is lucky if it is £5 per week.

 

...I don't know where you're getting your £5 a year figure from - the air, probably. The bloke in the shop doesn't get any help - last year if his job was worth £200 a week, this year it's apparently only worth £192 a week.

 

Whilst your members are squabbling over a pay rise of 6.6% i had a pensioner some weeks ago come up to me, and say "She is worried about how she can afford to heat her house this Winter" and further added "She thinks a lot of pensioners will die this Winter"

 

...the bloke in the shop is worried about how he'll heat his house, get to work, feed his family, pay his phone bill, etc. He doesn't get a winter heating allowance, and his taxes are paying for pensioners to get theirs. Pensioners aren't the only people affected by fuel poverty.

 

 

It makes me sick that your people who are on decent salaries are not grateful for what they have!

 

...those decent salaries pay your pension. Be a bit more grateful, although that's increasingly unusual in the elderly.

 

 

The Pensioners and low income Families are now hit with a 16.5% increase in Electricity commencing September 2008.

 

They have seen rises in oil prices

 

April 2007 £345 for 900 litres of Central Heating Oil

February 2008 £450 for 900 Litres of Central Heating Oil

July 2008 £616 for 900 Litres of Central Heating OIl and rising daily.

 

These are now the costs of heating homes.

 

These are the costs that Low Income families and Pensioners are hit by.

 

This does not include fuel and food prices.

 

...did I miss something or did all the utility companies waive the increased charges for people who work? Those are the costs ALL people are hit by, regardless of their ability to pay. And for those of us out earning a living, you can add mortgage costs and high interest rates to that, too.

 

 

They get very little help, so therefore i think you should accept Manx Telecom's Offer of 4.2%. This is only a small sacrifice compared with what Low Income Families and Pensioners have to sacrifice.

 

People like yourselves on decent Salaries do not need these rises as it is only passed on to these vulnerable people to pay for it.

 

...low income earners don't get decent salaries, they get as little as a company thinks it can get away with. And then it's cut by below-inflation pay rises.

 

What's more important:

 

A pensioner warm in his or her house?

Or you squabbling over a few percent wage rise?

 

Remember it's the less well off that you are making suffer.

 

...the union isn't making anybody suffer. If you're blaming MT for putting its charges up, do you think they had a staff referendum? "Hands up all those who'd like us to rip off pensioners this year". I don't think so.

 

Why doesn't your Union help these people?

 

...because pensioners don't pay their bloody union fees.

 

So, to sum up your email. Barely literate, highly ignorant, misdirected. Good going, though. Perhaps tomorrow you can help improve the image of pensioners as bingo-going, mild-drinking, selfish old goats by writing to the police to complain about the fact the buses never run on time.

 

Could you PLEASE post the reply? I'd be amused to see what somebody with half a brain made of it.

[Albert Tatlock]

So, to sum up your email. Barely literate, highly ignorant, misdirected. Good going, though. Perhaps tomorrow you can help improve the image of pensioners as bingo-going, mild-drinking, selfish old goats by writing to the police to complain about the fact the buses never run on time.

 

Could you PLEASE post the reply? I'd be amused to see what somebody with half a brain made of it.

That's you banned from the 'Old Mills Tea Room' and Onchan Community Centre for life.

[keyboarder]

Are MT putting up the price of white sliced yet again? Eeee, I'm eighty-three you know...........

[Albert Tatlock]

Are MT putting up the price of white sliced yet again? Eeee, I'm eighty-three you know...........

Your IQ has nothing to do with this.

[Miss Take]

I plan never to be 'a pensioner'. I don't want to have younger people looking at me thinking 'why don't you die so some of your pension money can be kept for my own pension'. I don't want to live in a cold house and be forced to wear things that I've knitted myself just to keep warm. I don't want to be so desperate for company that I invite dodgy men into my home only for them to burgle me while I'm making them a nice cuppa tea. I don't want to lose my faculties, especially my memory. I don't want to be incontinent. I don't want to lose my memory.

 

However, I think I'm already lost. I really like battenburg cake and Yorkshire tea and I've started to assume that all youngsters (even calling them youngsters is a bad sign) are up to something bad.

[We Like The Moon]

Oh how I wish the Police had the right to strike.......the fight they had to get 2.5%........

[P.K.]

Thanks to Dr Gonzo for putting in loads of time and effort on a monster post just to let us all know that pensioners aren't the only ones on the island with limited disposable income.

Oh how I wish the Police had the right to strike.......the fight they had to get 2.5%........

Well, they could have "Worked to Rule" you know. But unfortunately that would have meant pounding a beat in the pissing rain protecting the publc at large as opposed to sitting in front of a pc in a nice comfy warm office drinking tea and complaining about the amount of admin they have to do interspersed with short breaks consisting of sitting in a patrol car nicking motorists i.e. "Working to Rule" would have meant doing the job we pay them for which is clearly not an option they wished to entertain. BTW, would you just run past me their t&c's, retirement age, pension rights and so forth to give me an idea of parity - thanks.

[Newsbot]

Workers from Manx Telecom are to stage a one-day strike next Friday in a row over pay.

 

Source : http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/world/...man/7560825.stm

[We Like The Moon]

Police have to do 30 years before they retire and for their pension they lose around 12% of their salary (just over £21K starting - for a 40 hour week of shifts - and then your lucky if you get an annual payrise) ***

 

It pisses me off the slagging they get all the time - the majority of the Police work fucking hard - I admit there are a few who let them down, it's a shame that they all get tarred with the same brush - they should be better rewarded for their efforts - I mean the fire brigade get loads of support and to be honest with you they have got it pretty cushy over here compared to the UK.........

 

 

I'm not going to turn this thread into a Police argument - but it must piss them off to see pen pushers who more than likely get paid more than them turning down an offer like that

 

so any way back to telecom.............

 

edit to add - ***they don't get rent allowance any more either

[When Skies Are Grey]

Well at least that makes it a nice long weekend for them...

[P.K.]

Police have to do 30 years before they retire and for their pension they lose around 12% of their salary (just over £21K starting - for a 40 hour week of shifts - and then your lucky if you get an annual payrise) ***

edit to add - ***they don't get rent allowance any more either

The word disingenuous springs to mind here. The Islands' Finest get guaranteed payrises of around 5% pa for their first 10 years of service, nice one. After that it's by annual review. So the basic is £21k but that rises in 10 years to around £33k (I think!) so making the target 30-30 can be done. That's not to mention the shift (up to 30%), the overs (lots!) plus all the rest. They can also retire early at 50 on two-thirds pay whereas poor old Vader in the MEA would have to keep going for a further 15 years to go at 65 just for parity. Also the 12% they supposedly pay in is bs. Public Servants have a non-contributary scheme so the amount their pay is allegedly reduced by to make up for it is basically pick a number.

 

If the MT business plan needed a line rental rise of 35%+ then there is something seriously wrong at the top of the organisation, never mind the folks at the coalface getting shafted....

[triskelion]

There are a couple of major things the government could do here to cut inflation IMO. The first is to ensure 25% (the gov and all the civil servants) of the working population have wage increases below inflation, which does send a clear message to other employers and encourage them to try to do the same. The second would be to reduce the impact of some of the major inflation drivers as much as they could e.g. build a major windfarm so we import less energy, a major item in our inflation figures, and subsidise our farmers to gear up to produce as much food as is possible locally at cheap rates (not at the rates they charge locally now). Another thing they could consider is paying temporarily (one or two years) the fuel surcharges being added by the SP and airlines - for business freight and business travel only - instead of dumping the costs on business who will then dump it in turn on customers and further fuel inflation - this would also help IMO, and should at least be looked at.

I don't really see how any of these proposals would have much impact.

 

From what I can see, the main reason for the growth of inflation (ie. the rise in the RPI) is increased oil costs, not only at the pumps, but in transporting food, heating business, domestic and retail buildings (Greggs will have to spend an extra £7 million on heating this year, which is a lot of sausage rolls), creating agricultural chemicals etc. Add to this increased demand and reduced supply over the last year in the food market.

 

As a result, insisting that civil servants get a below-inflation pay rise (which they probably will anyway), is unlikely to do much to solve these problems as they are caused by obviously international factors, rather than the amount of money in circulation on the Island.

 

Similarly, whilst importing less fuel would indeed reduce inflation, building a wind farm wouldn't achieve this aim, firstly because wind energy is more expensive per unit to produce that that from gas, and secondly because electricity prices are of less significance than heating and transport.

 

Subsidising Manx farmers to maximise production at cheap rates would probably be disastrous unless you planned to nationalise Manx farms, compel their former owners to work them and then banned imports. The Island is simply not currently set up to produce for the whims of residents, and could not be changed sufficiently in the short-term to deal with the current inflationary problems. Worldwide Governments are moving away from a production-based subsidy framework, and the chances of that being over-turned so that Island residents can get 40p off a loaf of bread are nil, thankfully.

 

As for Government paying the fuel surcharges on transport, how on Earth will that help? Unless fuel prices reduce to evens in 2 years time, all we are doing is adding to the strain on Government spending as growth slows, whilst storing up inflationary problems for the end of that period.

[Fizzy]

Whilst your members are squabbling over a pay rise of 6.6% i had a pensioner some weeks ago come up to me, and say "She is worried about how she can afford to heat her house this Winter" and further added "She thinks a lot of pensioners will die this Winter"

 

It wouldn't be 6.6% as that is the current inflation not that dating back to the beginning of the financial year. which was much less I belive.

[pongo]

From what I can see, the main reason for the growth of inflation (ie. the rise in the RPI) is increased oil costs ... a below-inflation pay rise ... is unlikely to do much to solve these problems as they are caused by obviously international factors, rather than the amount of money in circulation on the Island.

 

The initial spark is not really the issue. Increasing the amount of money in circulation at a time of high inflation (whatever the cause) is dangerous and has previously resulted in 'spiraling inflation'.

 

It will be far better if businesses and traders in general are exposed to a market in which their customers have relatively less money to spend. Businesses and traders will then be forced to offset their own increased costs by competing harder for smaller profits.

 

In the same way - as employees, consumers, customers etc ... we just all have to budget better and find ways to reduce our costs. So we get out our bikes - or share the car to work - or get the bus - or put on another jumper - cancel Sky - stop going to the pub - etc

 

Doshing out more and more money will make matters much worse for everyone in the end.

[Twitch]

As far as I know there are quite a lot of staff not part of any union at MT.

 

If the CWU have a picket line at MT premises over their "long weekend" then perhaps we will see a bit of picket line breaking and potential for "scabs"..how exciting!!