Public sector workers were not arrogant

I AM responding to a letter written by M Ward of Moorgate regarding public sector pensions. I would like to point out to this person that nobody just gave us these pensions, we had to work hard to develop them.

During the late seventies and early eighties the government of the day told us that we had to provide pensions for ourselves as they could for see that the state pension would not be sustainable. And through good negotiations with our unions we set up the now pension schemes.

At the beginning they were not good but throughout the years they have got better and better, but it is only through the workforce sacrificing part of their wages. Now let me tell you what the private sector did. They accepted higher wages and fantastic bonuses, they bought big houses and big cars and swanned off all over the world not giving a care about the future, live for today was their motto (Yuppies was the name we gave them) and then all of a sudden the bubble burst, the Thatcher years were over and the high wages stopped and the bonuses dropped.

They lost their homes and their big cars and holidays and guess what, no pensions for retirement. And where were we in the public sector? We were still bobbing along on our low wages, hardly any bonuses and still paying part of our low wages into our pension scheme, and that my friend is where we are today.

And I think my friend that you owe all the people in the public sector a very big apology for calling us arrogant, so do not blame us for being smart and sacrificing part of our meagre wages so that we can retire with a little bit more going into the bank.

Keith Lockley, Rotherham