Junior doctors abandon strikes and accept new contract

strtdv

A5D5E5 said:

Lots to agree with in your post.  Pity you ruined it by going all hyperbolic at the end.  Nobody is asking them to work for the same pay as a shelf stacker.

Actually they are. Night shift shelf stacker gets around £10 an hour. F1 and F2 doctors work around 48-50 hours per week (excluding the many unpaid hours they do, it's normal in surgical jobs to be in an hour early and out 2 hours late) for around £25k per year. Works out roughly at £10 an hour.

the_twin

No-one is going to believe medicine is a poorly paid career. 

ICBM

the_twin said:

No-one is going to believe medicine is a poorly paid career. 

No-one believes music is a poorly-paid career either, for the same sort of reason - they're mostly aware of the stars at the top and not of the much larger number of unknowns who struggle in the bulk of the profession. OK, a bit too extreme a comparison, and more junior doctors eventually 'make it' than musicians do.

Handsome_Chris

ICBM said:

the_twin said:

No-one is going to believe medicine is a poorly paid career. 

No-one believes music is a poorly-paid career either, for the same sort of reason - they're mostly aware of the stars at the top and not of the much larger number of unknowns who struggle in the bulk of the profession. OK, a bit too extreme a comparison, and more junior doctors eventually 'make it' than musicians do.

@ICBM is bang on the money here.  When there is strike action announced for people who work on the tube (not Jools Holland and Paula Yates), the talk is always about how much the drivers get paid.  There will be little, if any, mention of how much the maintenance, admin or gateline staff get paid. Those figures do not work in the interest of the management when it come to fooling the common man. Also, offers get misrepresented in the press to make the staff look greedy.

There is a lot of ignorance about what actually happens before strike action is even thought about. 

TimmyO

Would it not be more accurate to say that the BMA abandoned asking its members about whether they want to continue the dispute? 

capo4th

These people who think it's fine just to go on strike because they want a new pay deal?

Really fucks me off no end. If I went on strike from my job I wouldnt have a job to go back to. 

If you don't like your job, pay and conditions create a CV and go and get a new one! 

#strikewankers

ToneControl

Handsome_Chris said:

ICBM said:

the_twin said:

No-one is going to believe medicine is a poorly paid career. 

No-one believes music is a poorly-paid career either, for the same sort of reason - they're mostly aware of the stars at the top and not of the much larger number of unknowns who struggle in the bulk of the profession. OK, a bit too extreme a comparison, and more junior doctors eventually 'make it' than musicians do.

@ICBM is bang on the money here.  When there is strike action announced for people who work on the tube (not Jools Holland and Paula Yates), the talk is always about how much the drivers get paid.  There will be little, if any, mention of how much the maintenance, admin or gateline staff get paid. Those figures do not work in the interest of the management when it come to fooling the common man. Also, offers get misrepresented in the press to make the staff look greedy.

There is a lot of ignorance about what actually happens before strike action is even thought about. 

apparently many tube worked get paid loads
I met a guy whose Dad does tube maintenance work on  £60k, and whose brother was doing it  on  £40k at 20 years old

ToneControl

ICBM said:

the_twin said:

No-one is going to believe medicine is a poorly paid career. 

No-one believes music is a poorly-paid career either, for the same sort of reason - they're mostly aware of the stars at the top and not of the much larger number of unknowns who struggle in the bulk of the profession. OK, a bit too extreme a comparison, and more junior doctors eventually 'make it' than musicians do.

do you know the unemployment rate for medical graduates?   0.4%
https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/jul/18/graduate-employment-by-university-and-subject
I'd guess the musicians' employment rate is less than 0.4%

the salaries for GPs look OK to me. 
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/11856441/Average-GP-pay-dips-below-100000-for-first-time-in-a-decade.html

http://www.gmc-uk.org/doctors/register/search_stats.asp
There are 281k doctors
specialists:  89k (~= consultants)
GPs 68k
Not all are practising. About 34k GPs currently practise I think
I think few consultants get less than £100k

I agree that "junior" doctors should get more, but I  am not sure how much more

ToneControl

I think the doctors realised they'd lose  support massively if they went ahead with those strikes
Not sure if they had some polls done

mr-mac

strtdv said:

I don't think they need to strike. Doctors are voting with their feet.
Training posts are unfilled, locum numbers are ever increasing, consultant posts are unfilled. There is no incentive whatsoever to take up a training post in England. Even Scotland, which isn't imposing the contract, struggles to fill posts. Last year 1 out of 8 posts in acute medicine was filled in Scotland.

Ironically the cost to the government will be higher under the new contract as a locum costs about 4-5x what a permanent staff member costs.

The demoralisation has reached the stage where doctors no longer care if the NHS collapses. In the long term they'll all be better off under whatever private system replaces the NHS. The strikes were about ensuring that rotas were safe for patients and that medicine was still a viable career option for the best educated, most motivated people coming out of university.

You don't want them to walk with their feet... That's last thing you want... We should stick behind them 100% they aren't asking for more just not wanting a new contract that gives them a lot less.

and why should we be behind them??? Cos if they vote with feet guess what happens. NHS unable to provide the care required. What happens then? Private companies get contracted to provide the services... Fast track to no NHS.

And you wonder why cons did the contract and refused to talk. Well voting with feet is just what they want