On Wednesday, many of the NHS workers went on strike. Seven thousand of the day’s 30,000 operations were cancelled.
Why are workers striking? One reason is pensions. According to a new government plan, workers would be required to increase their pension contributions 3.2 percentage points without seeing an increase in the value of their pensions. Additionally, the retirement age is being shifted to age 68.
Worker unions are now coming back to the bargaining table. It will be interesting to see if there is s speedy resolution to this labor strife.
Trying to solve a short-term deficit problem with a permanent hit to people’s pensions is pretty illogical and destined for failure.
A speedy resolution seems very unlikely.