The Nation's Pulse
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.
