The Nation's Pulse

Doctors are not officialy taking part in next week's planned strike, but their trade union - the BMA (British Medical Association) - has sent a public message of support and solidarity.

Yet the BMA's position is not the same as all the other trade unions - as a quick visit to their web site shows.

First and foremost - the BMA is trying to hold on to a 'final salary pension scheme' - which favours higher paid groups of public sector workers.

Here's what the BMA says on its web site:

"Delegates at the BMA annual representative meeting in Cardiff in June voted 87 per cent in favour of giving the BMA a mandate to ballot its members on all forms of industrial action ‘in the event that there is a government plan to halt the final salary scheme and replace it with an unfavourable career average scheme for doctors."

Now I'm in favour of all public servants being well paid - as well as the country can afford - but I'm not in favour of some groups being 'more equal' than others.

And that's what a final salary pensions cheme is all about.

Why should a doctor's pension be based on £150,000 a year - if they haven't actually been earning that salary throughout their working life?

Not only is the final salary scheme arrangement monstrously unfair - it's a hidden tax on the low paid - who help subsidise the much better pension arrangements of their higher paid colleagues.

On this issue I'm afraid the BMA does not have its finger - on the nation's pulse. 

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