Me and my fellow postal workers are being called upon to vote for strike or not over this years pay-deal and the strings being attached to the present Royal Mail offer . Needless to say - a Yes vote must be returned .A grassroots response to the pay offer is here
Headline figures put out by Royal Mail about "crazy" union demands for 27% pay-rise should be ignored . The 27% rise is to be implement over 5 years - a much more modest 5.4% rise a year and i have no doubt that the union would have negotiated some sort of productivity deal and costs savings agreement to off - set it all , per usual .
Inflation figures released states it currently stands at 4.8% . A 0.6% gain in our spending power a year . Woweee!!
Interest rates which effects our mortgages rose to 5.5% and is expected shortly to rise to 5.75% according to those in the know . Some analysts believe rates could reach 6% by the end of the year. (Each quarter of a percentage point rise raises the cost of a £100,000 repayment mortgage by between £15 and £20.)
Now to Agitate , Educate and Organise .
4 comments:
Alan, your mathematics is a little out.
A 27% increase over 5 years is equivalent to (a little less than) a 4.9% increase each year (it is a geometric rather than arithmetic progression). Assuming inflation remains at 4.8%, that is a less than 0.1% gain each year.
An alternative way to look at it: 4.8% inflation over 1 year is equivalent to (slightly more than) 26.4% inflation over 5 years. You gain (a little less than) 0.6% after five years, not each year!
Even more reason for strike action!
many thanks for the explanation and arithmetic lesson . I am appropriately chastised .True to form , i keep reading management bandying about the 27% figure to divert attention and mislead the public .
Erm, as an SPGBer aren't you against strike action?
'Baffled of Brooklyn'
Only if you were to believe those on the Left and the many anarchists who repeat the cliche , Mr Baffled of Brooklyn .
What we do say though is that the decisions should be made democratically by those involved , so you wont see the SPGB trying to influence the vote , or down on the picket lines , peddling the Socialist Standard , laying down the party line from up high on the best "revolutionary" tactic to conduct an industrial dispute and deciding which union official is the favourite (flavour)of the day , or not , as the case may be .
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