This is a scary one

7% is only a bit more than is usual - but according to article their pensions are "unusually lucrative".

Or have I missed something?

Nope,

but I think he was referring to the implications of why they are doing it.

Personally, I don't see any problems for the UK should this bring down the Euro!

tim

That it's 7% on top of what they were previously contributing. I.E a 7% pay cut?

FoFP

>

They were not contributing anything.

That would indeed be the case if it was a pay cut but it is not, it is a contribution to a pension scheme - which means they will see a return.

And presumably they are exempt from the contribution if they decide to exempt themselves from the pension scheme.

>>

A pension which they were entitled to before the were asked to contribute.

Apparently they might not.

No, it's compulsory. It's a pay cut in all but name. But given that the country is (apparently) up **** street, a pay cut that they are going to have to accept.

tim

>

But that's no different to what loads of private sector pension schemes have done - ie up the employee conts or cut the benefits.

Well it's not much different to the UK govt putting up NI - except that that affects every employee not just public sector.

In Ireland that is almost every worker :-(

tim

>>

Right, and seven minus zero equals what?

Any economist will tell you that it's the total deal that people look at, booth employer and employee. So a lower salary plus an non-contributory pension is much the same as a higher salary where you punt the difference into a pension fund.

Indeed at our University we recently moved to a non-contributory pensions scheme and cut the salaries by the exact amount of contribution. This saved NI contributions for both staff and employees.

By your analysis, we'd now be non-contributory employees and if they demanded the 7% already cut as another cut, then that wouldn't be a pay cut. Then presumably they could do it again and again until all our salaries wre done, without us ever having had a pay cut.

They were already seeing that return.

I wonder...

FoFP

[snip] [snip]

Almost all were indeed contributing, urban legend notwithstanding.

Looks like you have more knowledge than most. Would you care to enlighten us?

FoFP

Yup - 350,000 out of a population of (IIRC) 3 million (which includes children, unemployed, pensioners, housewives etc) does seem an incredibly large public sector, probably close to 20% of employees!

That's the same as the UK average (20%).

Is that not what I just did ?