BY ‘eck, times is hard!

All over the country families are struggling to make ends meet.

The property market is fluctuating, food prices are growing quicker than crops, fuel bills are rising faster than the fuel companies’ profits, drivers are aghast every time they pull up at the pumps, pension schemes are closing and even the air ambulance is struggling.

This cherished service says increased fuel bills are putting it under pressure, and it hopes the ever-generous public will dig deeper to help out. Of course we will, but one also hopes it will be tightening its belt, for example not flying out to relatively minor injuries such as broken ankles, as it has done in the past. But we digress.

To many people in Tendring, all this economic gloom and doom will be a little easier to bear than for some people as they did not have too much cash to start with.

The increase in petrol prices is not the end of the world to many of our residents because they cannot afford a car in the first place.

As for high-salaried bankers worried about their bonuses – our hearts bleed.

However, the proposed strike next month by some council employees who have rejected a 2.45 per cent pay rise, could have ramifications for us all.

With inflation above three per cent such a rise would effectively be a pay cut.

Of course, Tendring Talk supports a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work – especially for us!

However, with the country already deep in the red, even with our extremely vague grasp of mind-boggling macro-economics, we can see if above-inflation pay rises are given out, inflation will rise and where will it end?

Tanker drivers could end up being given rises of seven per cent and traffic wardens could be paid more than soldiers in Afghanistan! That would be ludicrous!

However, one thing we do understand is that it is you and me and Joe Bloggs’ uncle who will end up paying the price, either through suffering the effects of industrial action, paying for wage rises through our taxes or through services being cut to pay for them. We entirely sympathise with hard-working council employees who do not deserve a pay cut, but our thoughts are also with the lowest paid who work in shops, building sites, factories and the like.

These people often earn very little, cannot afford a car and do not have strong union representation.

When they go their bosses and demand an above-inflation pay rise, they get a simple response – “on your bike then mate, if you won’t do it for this wage we will find someone who will.”

Spare a thought too for the pensioners who always struggle more than most.