270,000 Civil Service Workers To Strike For 2 Days

Pennywise

dori2o wrote: »

Re my income, no my GROSS salary is nowhere near the national average, as I said my GROSS salary is over £7k less than the national average. As it is for the majority of front line civil servants

Do you understand the difference between gross and net. You originally said your "take home" was over £7k less but now you're saying that your gross is over £7k less. Which is it?

lemonjelly wrote: »

In response to the 2nd 2 paras, well that is their own fault.

An employee makes numerous decisions based upon the terms of the contract offered by the employer. These will include where to live, house to buy, school for kids to go to, lifestyle etc. That contract is legally binding. If private sector employees are so naeive that they're happy to assign away numerous rights and principles held within their contracts, then more fool them. The employer does not have the employees best interests at heart. The employee is no more than a statistic, a functional cog, an expense. No more. If the employer wishes to change the employees contract, it is only for the benefit of the employer.

But if the employer goes out of business, the employee faces nothing but statutory redundancy pay. That's the big difference - private firms can (and often do) go bust leaving the contract null and void, whereas, so far at least, govt bodies havn't gone bust (yet) as there is perceived to be a bottomless pit of money, but sadly that's about to end as the belt tightens.

dori2o

Pennywise wrote: »

Do you understand the difference between gross and net. You originally said your "take home" was over £7k less but now you're saying that your gross is over £7k less. Which is it?

My GROSS is less than 17K, i.e before tax, NI, pension, Union etc, etc.

Therefore I am a long way from the national average, and with pay freezes on the way for those earning 18K and over, I'm not likely to get much closer to it am I.

Pennywise wrote: »

But if the employer goes out of business, the employee faces nothing but statutory redundancy pay. That's the big difference - private firms can (and often do) go bust leaving the contract null and void, whereas, so far at least, govt bodies havn't gone bust (yet) as there is perceived to be a bottomless pit of money, but sadly that's about to end as the belt tightens.

So because we have relatively good job security when compared to the private sector, we should just lay down and take what is forced upon us?

Kohoutek

lemonjelly wrote: »

Nonsense idea.

Many many private sector employees have contractual rights within their contracts which grant them entitlements to payments well above the statutory minimums in respect of sick pay, paternity/maternity pay & leave, redundancy pay, notice pay & periods etc. Particularly when you get to management levels.

Your comparison isn't valid.

If you want to compare people earning £30,000 or less in the public sector (the people supposedly worse off as a result of this change) with their equivalents in the private sector, why are you talking about people at 'management levels' or those with generous contractual benefits?

If you want to compare the people that are supposedly worse off as a result of this deal with their private sector equivalents, then you should be looking at people like graduate trainees, apprentices, junior employees in the retail sector, factor workers, clerical staff in office based jobs etc. On the whole these people do not get generous contractual benefits or huge redundancy packages.

In any case, you're conflating a perceptions of private sector employees in big business with all private sector employees. Most of the private sector is small businesses, which don't make million pound profits to pay bonuses or benefits to staff.

What about the self-employed? I hope you agree that electricians, plumbers, builders, or people who operate restaurants, hair salons, small shops, garages etc provide a valuable service to the public, but these people who pay the same taxes as the public sector get no redundancy pay if their businesses suffer as a result of economic factors beyond their control, and are not entitled to claim unemployment benefit. The public sector's absurdly generous redundancy pay which is many multiples of the statutory minimum comes out of taxes from these types of individuals too, not just bankers and directors of FTSE 100 companies.

carolt

Personally, I see the problem being that it's retrospective - ie if you have someone who for 30 years worked on a relatively low wage in the public sector, but chose to do this and accepted this precisely because they were secure in the knowledge that they did not need to worry about pension/redundancy - to then take away the rights that wee part of the package they accepted is just stealing from them. The redundancy rights are good - but they were agreed a long time ago between bot parties and were what workers signed up to when choosing to take the job.

I don't think anyone would have a problem with changing conditions for new entrants to the public sector (I think most of these benefits, good pensions etc are already closed to new entrants in the public sector?), but it seems unfair to do this to those who have been working under these conditions for some time.

DaddyBear

They can go on strike more often as far as I'm concerned. Less traffic on the roads and other than that, no difference noticed.

Kohoutek

But they're not taking away any rights per se, they're just reducing the redundancy payout to a capped maximum of two years pay or £60,000, whichever is lower.

It's not retrospective, it only applies to people taking voluntary redundancy or made redundant in the future. Variations in employment contracts happen all the time, it's not stealing, it's just part and parcel of the reality that as a result of economic conditions, sometimes businesses (and now governments) do not have enough money to maintain their employee's pay and benefit levels. They've probably reacted like this because unionised public sector workers are only used to variations to increase pay and benefits, not reduce them.

If redundancy payoffs were completely eliminated, I could see the merit of the industrial action. I can't see any merit in protesting against a contractual variation caused by a multibillion pounds deficit which still leaves workers with £60,000 in redundancy pay. Everyone will be asked to make sacrifices in the future to pay off the deficit, and this is not a big sacrifice, it's just reducing public sector redundancy pay to fiscally realistic (but still very generous) levels.

kabayiri

One way to make significant savings. Filter down a 10% (or whatever figure it is) budget reduction to every department, and let them decide how they achieve it.

If that department chooses to scrap the bosses bonus, ditch the company cars, its up to them.

As long as we cut the spending bill I don't mind.

Sir_Humphrey

kabayiri wrote: »

One way to make significant savings. Filter down a 10% (or whatever figure it is) budget reduction to every department, and let them decide how they achieve it.

If that department chooses to scrap the bosses bonus, ditch the company cars, its up to them.

As long as we cut the spending bill I don't mind.

Do you seriously think that Civil Servants get company cars?!?!?

What planet are you on?

Graham_Devon

Pennywise wrote: »

Re contractual rights, you can't really expect there to be no changes over the average person's working life can you? The entire economic landscape has changed and so must contracts. In the private sector, employees have been working for reduced pay and reduced hours just to help keep their employers afloat and hoping to keep their jobs for the long term. Why on earth should the public sector be immune?

This is a retrospective change.

Changes people can deal with. So long as they know about them and they can make a choice based on the change at the time.

Retrospective changes are somewhat different.

This isn't really a public / private argument. Don't think may private sector workers would be too happy about retrospective changes to their contracts.

Above goes for this post too:

Pete111 wrote: »

Also what you usually find when private sector companies change the rules re various benefits, redundancy pay etc (which they do from time to time) is that the level of hissy fit thrown by the workforce is usually far less than our colleagues in the public sector.

Most people in the private sector will accept changes, pay freezes etc as they understand its tough out there and the company needs to adapt to avoid mass redundancies or even going under. Most public sector workers don't seem to have twigged this yet by the looks of it and it will not stand them in good stead when the Govt finally runs out of credit and has no choice but to close entire Departments instead...

kabayiri

Sir_Humphrey wrote: »

Do you seriously think that Civil Servants get company cars?!?!?

What planet are you on?

I never mentioned civil servants. You did.

I am one that believes every area will need to make a cut, and that does include NHS. And they do have company cars in the NHS.

Cuts have happened in my industry. We all have to face up to reality.