Comments by "TJ Marx" (@tjmarx) on "Nurses vote to strike over pay for first time in union history" video.

  1. Watched the entire video, not once for even a single question or passing observation did this story discuss the implications on inflation if NHS nurses were to be given a 17% pay rise. The closest this came was a question to Leanne Lewis about whether she recognises that everyone else in the UK also has real wages falling. But no mention that real wages falling is the nature of inflation. It's in a sense what inflation really is, at least as ordinary people experience inflation and importantly you can't simply raise wages to combat that. Indeed raising wages creates more inflation. More importantly it contributes to structural inflation which is something any economist will tell you is to be avoided. Unions need to settle down, yes times are tough right now and you're going to have to make sacrifices whilst everyone struggles. It's the nature of inflation, but if you start trying to do stupid things like raise wages to combat inflation you just make inflation worse, harder to control (so interest rates go higher) and longer term in the economy. Not to mention the UK budget is in deficit, there's already cuts on the way to try to balance it, where exactly do union bosses think the government is going to pull £9B from? I don't blame nurses for this for a second, I blame greedy union bosses whom have no understanding of reality let alone what they're doing. If the NHS nurses alone got a 17% increase, the UK as a whole would be looking at a 1.25% increase in inflation and that could leave millions homeless. I would urge all union members across all sectors to really familiarise themselves with what inflation actually is, what causes it and how industrial action impacts upon it for everyone. Because all the union bosses are looking for a pay rise for themselves so they're all going to go to their members asking if you want to demand one too. This is not the time for industrial action, it's the time for restraint. We must be meager now so we can prosper later, else our children will only know austerity.
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