In Reply to: re: street protest by the unemployed. posted by Mairt on November 24, 2009 at 16:41:02:

That's true, but the problem is that the public sector is one amorphous blob that anyone with a barstool can have a shot at, whereas the private sector is made up of individual companies and businesses that you can't really generalise about.

Banking/construction are completely separate to the 'private sector', in my opinion- in fact I'm not sure there's any one thing that can be labelled the 'private sector', unless you mean SME's run on a local basis (which we need to do a lot more to encourage and support, to be honest).

Most of everything else is either multinational in nature (which is fine as long as we don't have to rely on it being around in tough times) or based on nothing more than short term gain (construction, banking classic examples).

So there's not really an equivalent target for us to aim back at, which makes it frustrating- It's certainly not fair to paint everyone out there with a private job with the same brush as the bankers or builders, so I try not to do that.

But on the other hand nobody in the private sector would feel compelled to listen to the advice of those that hold them in complete contempt, while we apparently should hang on the every word of Ray D'Arcy (a bleeding heart expert on everything, and well he should be for his coupla hundred thousand a year) or (for instance) the multitalented entrepreneur that is mike van dyke.

Sure, we're run on taxpayer's money- but every private sector firm out there relies on capital from some source, and I don't know of any firm that would tolerate the abuse from a customer to a member of staff that we are expected to absorb from any member of the public that needs an easy target whenever they feel like it.

There's no doubt that now is the time to press home reform in the public sector, and I don't think that anything should be off the table- up to and including pay reform and decentralisation.

I don't agree with these strikes, I'm losing 20% of a week's pay every time it happens, and it's not achieving anything.

But with that said, the lazy strawman argument I'm hearing as fact day in day out would honestly get to anyone.