Public Sector workers laughing all the way to the bank

Techno

My OH works in an independent school - they have had a pay freeze and 6 days cut off their annual holidays. He starts work in the school at 8am and finishes at 6 to 7pm (11pm one night), rarely gets a lunch break, works 3 weekends per term and has, on average 2 - 3 hours of marking and prep to do each night after he gets home and he gets paid about the same as state school teachers.
However, he doesn't get assaulted, stabbed, abused, accused of sexual abuse or have to deal with a bunch of ferral children who often start school with none of the skills we had as children (like being able to eat with a knife and fork, or being toilet trained) and for whom it is the first time they have ever heard the word 'no' and who can have parents who are worse than the children!!
As for GPs - why shouldn't someone who has done 10 years of training and who daily makes life and death decisions get paid as much in a year as a professional Premiere division footballer gets paid in a week? Or do the uncouth louts who seem to frequent this 'profession' contribute more to society? Obviously they must do as they work for the 'private sector'.

carolt

They may have had a pay freeze, but any half-way decent private sector school will pay better. Plus all teachers have extra hours of work to do; that's hardly unique to private schools. :rolleyes:

worldtraveller

carolt wrote: »

Do bother to read my answer before replying.

My point was that the Daily Mail missed out the relevant bit about bankers - clearly too complicated for its readers to understand... :rolleyes:

So, do you mean the bit about the ONS giving a warning that the survey, based on a 1 per cent sample of records held by HM Revenue & Customs, could have been skewed by a decision to reclassify private sector staff at banks that were bailed out by the taxpayer — Lloyds TSB, Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS — as public sector workers?

Had those banks remained in the private sector, the median weekly pay of full-time public sector employees would have been £537 — a 2.7 per cent increase, rather than a 3.1 per cent rise. For the private sector, the figure would have been £468, not £465 — a 1.6 per cent rise instead of 1 per cent.

Same difference IMHO!

carolt

Hardly the lovely 3 times figure you quoted - twice.

Congratulations on having now actually read the article.

worldtraveller

carolt wrote: »

Hardly the lovely 3 times figure you quoted - twice.

Congratulations on having now actually read the article.

Thanks, but I feel I have to take umbrage at the first statement. Unless I'm missing something here, where do I mention a 3X figure?

macaque_2

Social services employ huge resources to rescue a small number of cute children from outrageous abuse and cruelty. They don't have so much time for the armies of less cute teenagers who end up unemployable, chronic alcoholics, drug takers, thieves or mentally ill by the age of 20. The older human wrecks who spend their lives going in and out of prison score even less on the cuteness scale and get almost nothing. As for old people, well they are just not cute at all and they can have have a helper for 17 minutes a week.

We all know the formulae for reducing childhood misery: stable marriages, close links with grand parents, stable jobs, good teachers and well brought up parents. So why do government policies systematically undermine these values. Part of the problem is that the state has convinced itself that it is better qualified at bringing up children than parents.

The child services director of a local council can earn up to £200,000. There are much better ways of using this money to reduce the sum of childrens' misery. My first option would be to take money off local councils and give it to schools.

SGE1

macaque wrote: »

Social services employ huge resources to rescue a small number of cute children from outrageous abuse and cruelty. They don't have so much time for the armies of less cute teenagers who end up unemployable, chronic alcoholics, drug takers, thieves or mentally ill by the age of 20. The older human wrecks who spend their lives going in and out of prison score even less on the cuteness scale and get almost nothing. As for old people, well they are just not cute at all and they can have have a helper for 17 minutes a week.

We all know the formulae for reducing childhood misery: stable marriages, close links with grand parents, stable jobs, good teachers and well brought up parents. So why do government policies systematically undermine these values. Part of the problem is that the state has convinced itself that it is better qualified at bringing up children than parents.

The child services director of a local council can earn up to £200,000. There are much better ways of using this money to reduce the sum of childrens' misery. My first option would be to take money off local councils and give it to schools.

Oh come off the cliche train. Obviously you believe that your own values are the solution to all the world's problems, but you should at least be aware of our blatant bias. Lots of kids with single parents turn out just fine, for example - it's not the domestic situation that makes for a good upbringing, it's parental attitude. A dedicated single unemployed parent will do just as well, if not miles better, than a married couple with stable jobs who just couldn't get to the abortion clinic in time, even with the help of the grandparents. :rolleyes:

And stop blaming the Government all the time. One minute people are moaning about the nanny state, and another minute they want the Government to force couples to stay together because of some anachronistic idea that only a traditional family set up will make for 'balanced' children. Make your mind up.

Guess what, humans have been evolving over hundreds of years, and so has the social set up. We can adapt, the 1950s lifestyle isn't the only one that will enable us to succeed.

Techno

carolt wrote: »

They may have had a pay freeze, but any half-way decent private sector school will pay better. Plus all teachers have extra hours of work to do; that's hardly unique to private schools. :rolleyes:

I was actually sticking up for state school teachers and the awful behaviour many have to put up with must disagree though about extra hours as the amount of extra work that independent teachers have to do is usually higher because of the pastoral aspect, particularly if it's a boarding school.
There is something called the recession that is also affecting even halfway decent independent schools and although they used to pay significantly more, quite a few now pay according to teachers pay scale with an additional responsibility allowance which is about the equivalent of threshold payment - good article on the TES website http://community.tes.co.uk/forums/t/290674.aspx
Going back to the public sector 'gold plated' pensions - most of us public sector workers have to contribute to our own as well as everyone else's via the taxes we have to pay too but don't worry you won't be paying teacher's pensions for long - according to actuarial figures, if a teacher works til 65 they will, on average, only live for another 18 months to 2 years and even if they only work til 60, their life expectancy is about 2 years less than the average

macaque_2

SGE1 wrote: »

Oh come off the cliche train. Obviously you believe that your own values are the solution to all the world's problems, but you should at least be aware of our blatant bias. Lots of kids with single parents turn out just fine, for example - it's not the domestic situation that makes for a good upbringing, it's parental attitude. A dedicated single unemployed parent will do just as well, if not miles better, than a married couple with stable jobs who just couldn't get to the abortion clinic in time, even with the help of the grandparents. :rolleyes:

And stop blaming the Government all the time. One minute people are moaning about the nanny state, and another minute they want the Government to force couples to stay together because of some anachronistic idea that only a traditional family set up will make for 'balanced' children. Make your mind up.

Guess what, humans have been evolving over hundreds of years, and so has the social set up. We can adapt, the 1950s lifestyle isn't the only one that will enable us to succeed.

I agree that lots of single parents do a fantastic job. If however, you take 1000 single parents and 1000 married couples, the children from the married parents will, as a group, do better in lots of ways. That is just a fact.

Of course I blame the government. They had done much to undermine the institution of marriage and family life. In doing so, they have put ideology above the interests of children.

Good friends have divorced and I don't judge them (these things happen). If you ask me whether the children would be better off if the parents had found a way of patching things up, I'm afraid there is only one answer. The government should do everything in its power to support the institution of marriage. It is good for children and what is good for children is good for society.

The hostility in your response makes me suspect that your views on this subject might be influenced by guilt or doubt.

Old_Slaphead

Techno wrote: »

Going back to the public sector 'gold plated' pensions - most of us public sector workers have to contribute to our own as well as everyone else's via the taxes we have to pay too but don't worry you won't be paying teacher's pensions for long - according to actuarial figures, if a teacher works til 65 they will, on average, only live for another 18 months to 2 years and even if they only work til 60, their life expectancy is about 2 years less than the average

How does that work then? Teacher retiring in good health at 60 - life expectancy is around 20 years

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1567252/Why-accountants-live-longer-than-builders.html

whereas if they retire at 65 then life expectancy is (according to you) just 18 months to 2 years.


What's your source for this startling info ?