Where do you stand on the Junior Doctors' strikes ?

Steffo

UnclePsychosis said:

Steffo;1039654" said:

Hunt hasn't covered himself in glory, pretty poor, but...I have a massive problem with all this striking business. If you work in the private sector and you don't like it you either take it (and shut up) or leave. Why is it so different for people working for the NHS, public transport etc.? Don't like it? Go find a job somewhere else like everybody else. If I was a junior doctor I would do exactly that. Supply and demand.

I work in the private sector, am in a union, and have voted on strike action in the past.

I find this whole "I let my employer shaft me, so everyone else should let theirs shaft them" attitude utterly bizarre. It's not a race to the bottom.

You're right, though, that many junior doctors will leave if this goes through. The point is that they're fully aware of just how shafted the NHS will be if that happens and are doing what they can to prevent it. Surprisingly enough lots of Doctors actually believe in the principles of the NHS and would like to protect it.

The issue is that a lot of people in the private sector don't let their employer shaft them, they have no choice. If I squeak I'm gone. 

 I agree that in some cases striking workers are getting a rough deal and are justified but more and more often the unions have used strike action to force through completely unreasonable demands.

Junior doctors are not getting treated nicely but why is Joe public getting it???

tabbycat

Steffo said:

The issue is that a lot of people in the private sector don't let their employer shaft them, they have no choice. If I squeak I'm gone. 

 I agree that in some cases striking workers are getting a rough deal and are justified but more and more often the unions have used strike action to force through completely unreasonable demands.

Junior doctors are not getting treated nicely but why is Joe public getting it???

re "The issue is that a lot of people in the private sector don't let their employer shaft them, they have no choice. If I squeak I'm gone."
then sort it out. stop whining and get unionised. get your union recognised by a bigger union and draw clout from that relationship. that's how it works. do something constructive. but to say 'why should other people have the opportunity to fight for their rights when i don't?' is just trying to drag others down to your powerless level. totally negative. better to try to get those same rights yourself rather than seek to deny those who have them their chance to use them.

re "more and more often the unions have used strike action to force through completely unreasonable demands." i don't see any unreasonable demands in this case. which unreasonable demands?

re "Junior doctors are not getting treated nicely but why is Joe public getting it???"
there is full emergency cover. they are not just doing this for themselves but to protect the quality of the service for its users. that's you, your children, your parents, etc. if you want to know what 'getting it' feels like, try having a heart attack in the states when the small print in your insurance scheme says you are not covered if you do.

mellowsun

Steffo said:

The issue is that a lot of people in the private sector don't let their employer shaft them, they have no choice. If I squeak I'm gone. 

 

Yet at the same time employers are saying they are struggling to recruit good staff.

You'd think no employer would be stupid enough to sack good staff who stand up for reasonable working conditions, and have to go to the expense of finding new staff, but they do, unfortunately.

Drew_TNBD

I'm so fed up and unhappy with my own shitty little life that I don't have time to worry about what junior doctors are doing.

Gassage

I absolutely support them.

It is farcical city hedge fund dealers offer society fuck all benefit yet earn millions.

Junior Docs are on c £10 an hour.

No-one could ever justify to me that gulf in pay. It's impossible

lloyd

Gassage said:

I absolutely support them.

It is farcical city hedge fund dealers offer society fuck all benefit yet earn millions.

Junior Docs are on c £10 an hour.

No-one could ever justify to me that gulf in pay. It's impossible

I get what you're saying but the gulf between what junior doctors and hedge fund dealers earn are totally unrelated. I support their strike BTW I just think that the powers that be would LISTEN to people before it getting this far. Work out an equitable solution for everyone.

skankdelvar

Both parties in the dispute piously maintain it's all about 'protecting the NHS' and 'looking after the patients'. 

But look at the detail. It seems Hunt and the BMA both agree that the main sticking point is whether Saturday afternoon / early evening should count as normal hours or overtime for the purpose of calculating pay rates. That's where the last lot of talks broke down.

At root it's just an old-fashioned public-sector pay dispute but - as is the case in such disputes - both sides are trying to pull the wool over our eyes for their own benefit. Who suffers? The rest of us.  

Steffo

Gassage said:

I absolutely support them.

It is farcical city hedge fund dealers offer society fuck all benefit yet earn millions.

Junior Docs are on c £10 an hour.

No-one could ever justify to me that gulf in pay. It's impossible

Absolutely. But it's the gulf between edge fund dealers and 99.9% of the workers that is totally unjustifiable. Even what most "normal" bankers earn is mostly unjustifiable.

TimmyO

It's the first public sector strike that I have supported 100% 

Evilmags

How much does it cost to train doctors? These guys will go on to 4× national salary and a gold plated pension, having received millions of pounds of free training (including degrees which are heavily subsidised by 10 hours a week arts students). They are trainees their to learn who have the opportunity to become senior consultants on 350,000 plus. A few years hard graft in your 20s doesn't seem too much for all of that.

quarky

Firstly, Labour initiated the privatisation of the NHS, not the Tories.

Secondly, the rate of privatisation in the NHS has SLOWED under the Tories compared to Labour.

But for some people, none of that matters, and the Tories will be wrong whatever they do.

I have very little sympathy for GPs. High wages and they get paid for more having more patients on their books, which makes it more difficult to see one. In what other industry would you be paid more to provide worse customer service?

As for junior doctors, it is difficult to know the truth because so many people would blame the Tories regardless of what they did. I haven't received overtime pay for decades though, and I think NHS management needs to take a large share of the blame for problems in the NHS.

Chalky

Its really about a 7 day health service. And yes Junior Doctors should be paid the extra for the Saturday.

scrumhalf

A plague on both their houses.

But the doctors should have been all over the media with detailed analysis of what they percieve to be their beef with the new contracts. I haven't seen/heard that yet, just intermittent whining which is easy to bat away.

guitarfishbay

scrumhalf said:

A plague on both their houses.

But the doctors should have been all over the media with detailed analysis of what they percieve to be their beef with the new contracts. I haven't seen/heard that yet, just intermittent whining which is easy to bat away.

I have noticed at least the last two times there has been a strike it hasn't even been the no1 news article on the BBC health page. 

TimmyO

Evilmags said:

How much does it cost to train doctors? These guys will go on to 4× national salary and a gold plated pension, having received millions of pounds of free training (including degrees which are heavily subsidised by 10 hours a week arts students). They are trainees their to learn who have the opportunity to become senior consultants on 350,000 plus. A few years hard graft in your 20s doesn't seem too much for all of that.

Is that what you actually think the strike is about or is this a more deliberate attempt to derail the argument?  :-D 

littlegreenman

Evilmags said:

How much does it cost to train doctors? These guys will go on to 4× national salary and a gold plated pension, having received millions of pounds of free training (including degrees which are heavily subsidised by 10 hours a week arts students). They are trainees their to learn who have the opportunity to become senior consultants on 350,000 plus. A few years hard graft in your 20s doesn't seem too much for all of that.

Simple then, don't train any, just import qualified Consultants.

Quids in.

Ah, hold on. You need all of the tiers below Consultants to support the work going on don't you? The Clinicians, Doctors, Junior Doctors, etc that are needed to allow the £350K Consultant to be able to function satisfactorily. Without them, they're just a qualified suit with "Mr" as a title and no back-up to do their job? So we need the Juniors to function effectively, both as a pool of talent for the future Consultant positions, and also as the intermediaries doing a massive part of the frontline duties that a Consultant can't. 

What % of Junior Doctors go on to Consultant positions? Probably not many I'd guess from the ones I know as there's a) only so many positions available and b) not too many who qualify.

I'm of the opinion that judging the Medical profession by metrics from other occupations is not only unfair, but entirely misplaced. And yet the consensus is often that they should be held to the same % based standard. Diseases do not follow market forces, unfortunately.

If my pizza is late, I get a free one. If my bank shafts me, I get my cash back (if I'm lucky). If I die, tough shit.

PolarityMan

So I think Junior Doctors proabably have grounds to be pissed off about their conditions. I personally don't think the working culture around medicine is likely to be optimal either so for me the hours are the critical thing....but...having said that.....I think that if workers of any kind are free to strike then their employer should also be free to exercise their option to fire them. The idea of front line staff holding their employer to ransom, especially if it's the government doesn't sit well with me...even if..as in this instance I actually agree that those striking have a genuine grievance.

thermionic

Steffo said:

I have a massive problem with all this striking business. If you work in the private sector and you don't like it you either take it (and shut up) or leave. Why is it so different for people working for the NHS, public transport etc.? 

Don't like it? Go find a job somewhere else like everybody else. If I was a junior doctor I would do exactly that. Supply and demand.

Err... No. If you work in the private sector and are being screwed by your employer, don't lie back and take it. Get organised with your fellow workers and demand some respect.

I started work in the public sector, went to the private sector and am now back in the public sector. I was never able to be in a union when I worked in the private sector (their attitude was "if you don't like it, shut up or leave") and I was shafted at least twice. Ever wonder why workers in the public sector are not subjected to this attitude? It's because of unions and the right to withdraw your labour.

jonnyburgo

As an aside, my wife who is a nurse went on march during the nurses strike a few years ago in London, whilst passing through the financial district they were jeered by the bankers who were holding up "get back to work" signs at the windows.

Totally support any strike by public sector workers that continue to get shafted by the multi-millionaires that run this country and decide our futures for us.

thecolourbox

TTony;1039682" said:

thecolourbox said:

This is a genuine question and not meant to be as sarky as it will sound, but where else can junior doctors get a job in that line of work after investing their time and money to get to that point?












Abroad.

Oh right OK, simple then! Especially with the investment put in by successive governments to ensure all our school leavers have proficiency in foreign languages! Ahh.

They'd better hope the EU In vote is successful then...