We are all in this together, well not if you are in a union.

geoffgeofftygeoff

marklv wrote: »

Because many public sector jobs do not have private sector equivalents...

There's a good reason for that.

22225

didn't i read somewhere that MPs have given themselves a payrise? Are they public sector workers? If they had the same pay and conditions as me I would be happy.

marklv

chewmylegoff wrote: »

i am directly affected. i work in the public sector and have had my pay frozen this year - not even the "brutal" 1% payrise.

OK, so you are happy with this then? If so, you are in a minority.

chewmylegoff wrote: »

a large part of this is because the lower paid jobs have been outsourced to private sector companies, taking the jobs (but not the cost) outside the public sector.

your theory is that these people (who are unlikely to have had anything better than a pay freeze in the last couple of years) should be taxed more than they need to be so the better paid people remaining inside the public sector can continue to have payrises which the lower paid staff are no longer entitled to. presumably you don't think this is unfair.

I never said that private sector should be taxed more, but that everyone should be taxed equally. You're just making assumptions that most low paid people in the private sector have had pay freezes, which is plainly wrong, and there is such a thing as the minimum wage, which has certainly not been frozen.

chewmylegoff wrote: »

sorry, but the reality is that they cannot. savings need to be made everywhere, we cannot afford to borrow money unnecessarily so that the public sector can be paid more.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

chewmylegoff wrote: »

yes, and the real losers from the strikes will be the workers, who will lose money and benefits, and have to return to work eventually. the unions don't have the financial resources to pay meaningful strike pay for long periods to large numbers of workers.

ironically, any strike will actually save the government money as they won't have to pay the striking workers. further, it would only be a week or so before the cost of striking to the individual workers outweighed the benefit they would hope to gain from going on strike.

as usual, the people whom the unions persuade to strike will be the ones who lose out.

Well, I'm certainly up for a fight. The impact of strikes is not the length, but the disruption they cause, hence the reason for several short and sharp strikes. And there is also such a thing as 'working to rule'. In short, there are lots of ways to cause hassle for the government through industrial action.

marklv

misskool wrote: »

But if your public sector job is getting a pay cut and you don't accept it, you should be able to do as you advise the private sector worker to leave and get another job then?

What's the problem?

What skills are so specific to the public sector that they can't be transferable? You moved from one to another so clearly the skills are not mutually exclusive?

I'm not saying that it is impossible for a public sector worker to move to the private sector, but the nature of the work is totally different. For example, what private sector job can an employment service adviser do? Or a social worker? Or a manager in the Department of Transport?

What you also have think about is that by devaluing the jobs of public sector workers and forcing many to leave you will damage the entire delivery of services that the public sector offers.

PrivatisetheNHSnow

marklv wrote: »

People who work in the public sector do pay taxes, you idiot.

no they don't.

where does your gross income come from? Answer - taxes from the private sector. Therefore where does your tax come from?

the public sector is just an extension of the benefits system, with a few exceptions (doctors, nurses etc). it's to stop people that aren't clever enough to get a real job from causing trouble. it's to give them a 'job' to occupy their time, just like how labour have increased the number of students doing degree which are useless. they don't produce anything.

marklv

The_White_Horse wrote: »

actually, i think the best way to deal with public sector workers is to introduce a special 60% public sector paye rate. they won't mind.

You need a psychiatrist - urgently. I'm seriously concerned for your mental health.

bendix

While I admire marklv's strenuous attempts to justify his self-interested position (lest we forget people, he is a recent joiner of the public sector so his vehement argument that they should be treated as special is understandable), shouldn't he be working for us during the day instead of wasting his time on an internet forum.

Me? I work in the private sector. If I slack off, it's noone's fault but my company's.

marklv, you work for us. Your salary is paid for by us.

Stop !!!!ing around on here and do some !!!!ing work.

marklv

The_White_Horse wrote: »

public sector = entitlement attitude

you are performing a service which generates nothing. the tax paying public (yes you pay tax but it is meaningless as you don't create any wealth, so its just the same money we have already paid) have a right to pay as little as possible. If we feel you get too much, then you get too much. you all need mass paycuts, and if you don't like it, leave and go to the private sector.

leeching cretins.

you pay tax hahahahahahahahahaha and I am a farmer when I sit on the toilet - oh, look at all that produce falling out my !!!.

So the public sector generates nothing? OK, what do teachers, doctors and police generate? They provide a service that morons like you would whine like pigs about if you had to pay for directly, that's what! :mad:

And what's all this crap about 'creating wealth'? Not everyone is an entrepreneur and not every job requires this, of course. Public sector jobs offer a service - that's all. Yes, the service is paid for by taxpayers, that's why it doesn't create wealth - got that, brains of Britain?

marklv

bendix wrote: »

While I admire marklv's strenuous attempts to justify his self-interested position (lest we forget people, he is a recent joiner of the public sector so his vehement argument that they should be treated as special is understandable), shouldn't he be working for us during the day instead of wasting his time on an internet forum.

Me? I work in the private sector. If I slack off, it's noone's fault but my company's.

marklv, you work for us. Your salary is paid for by us.

Stop !!!!ing around on here and do some !!!!ing work.

I'm not working because I'm on holiday, you nutcase!

N1AK

From an economic perspective, public sector pay cuts (whether in real or absolute terms) isn't going to be sufficient to solve our deficit issues.

We have too many public service employees as a proportion of our workforce. If someone works for the private sector they are not paid by government and they pay tax to government. Every potential private sector employee who instead works for government ceases to be a revenue generator and becomes a cost.

I don't want to see mass unemployment among public sector employees, or long periods of pay freezing applied to them. I would like to see our government look seriously at how they expect the ever decreasing proportion of the country who actually generates money to cover the increasing number of pensioners and public sector employees, and if it can't be done work out how to transition to a lower level of public employment in a controlled manner that doesn't ruin 1,000s of peoples lives