Unions vote yes for co-ordinated strikes over spending cuts

What gives the TUC the right to decide Government policy? The population decided at the General election that Their Party was not to run the country.

It's called the right to strike when their jobs or salaries are at risk.

Individuals who choose not to take a job with an employer where there is no Trade Union do not have any back-up and just have to accept what is dished out bto them.

I am no longer working but the majority of years I did work (both public & private sector) came with union membership and my job conditions were protected.

The unions did not go on strike when the government was hiring rear ends to polish seats for doing no real job at all. Why should they now go on strike because the civil service and local authorities are being required to make sure that their workers are needed and give value for money, work full-time, as opposed to part-time but take a full-time salary?

They are happy to take the benefits, and when things need to be balanced, they cause problems for everyone because in reality what is being proposed is that the union funds are going to be severely affected by the loss of union dues and the larger pay packets that the bosses of the unions would get because of the higher membership.

The strikes are an attempt to hold the people of this country to ransom, to continue to pay salaries for those who are really non-productive. When you carry too much lard, you need to reduce the intake and work harder to get rid of the lard.

The public sector is not merely obese, it is grotesque and needs to slim down and be able to do a full and proper day's work, rather than taking the frequent rests they do because there is not enough work to do so they are lazy, and get overly fat. The more fat the lazier they get, so they get fatter.

The plain facts are that the banks got the country into this mess and they should pay the price - not ordinary working people who were, to all intents and purposes, mere spectators in the financial debacle - at the end of the day, the banks should have been allowed to fold, like Lehmans.

The Unions should remember that they are not elected to run or run down the country. labour messed up our finances and when the previous government allowed rampent additional public spending the Unions did not object.now they have to get into the real world help to be balance the public finances.

Hopefuly the government will have the steel to sort out ANY union that takes any form of secondary industrial action. The people have voted for the government not the Highly paid TUC/union leaders.

I find cant instead of thought and judgement so sad.

David Chapman prefers to forget that the last government, in bed with the banks, relaxed the rules under which the banks operated. The result was that the banks could lend economically unjustifiable amounts to folks who had little real chance of ever repaying the debt. Ever heard of 120% mortgages without security - it was quite common. The bust happened because the borrowers could not pay (perhaps no job, too many cards etc), the banks had too little back up finance and bingo. Who suffers? We all do. If Mr Chapman were IC and the banks all folded who would finance and control the economy then?

As to those against repaying our Countries debts. Is no one else old enough to recall what happed when the Germans just went mad and printed money willy nilly in the 1930's. That was the time when a loaf of bread - if you could find one - cost a barrowload of Reichmarks. The end result of that process was--I guess you know.

The current Government were elected on the platform of correcting overspend. We have all in some way benefited from the spendthrift years so we should all should expect to help to repay the debt; but with a touch of care where possible.

The TUC should reserve their cant, which harks back to the good old days; which lost them millions of members, and will loose them more if they continue to fight democracy. Gentlemen, If you do represent 'workers' (everyone who works), then behave like workers are expected to please.

The problem is that the cuts will come at the work face and not in those unnecessary middle layers who always manage to protect themselves.

The police force is just one example with twice as many 'civvies' and hideaway coppers bumbling about at HQs than there are bobbies out on the streets and yet the latter are the ones we will lose.