Public Sector Pension Strikes – A JOKE !

The_Angry_Jock

real1314 wrote: »

Yet another one falls for the myth of "higher average wages". You might as well say that stockbrokers have higher than average wages, doctors have higher than average wages; all compared to the private sector average.

Almost every single low paid job formerly in the civil service has been out-sourced to the private sector. Messengers, Security guards, cleaners etc.

Now I'm confused, I've been hearing all this stuff about public sector workers being fantastic value for money and doing the job for the love of it yet here it is farming out jobs. All the low skill menial jobs too, this basically leaves us with a large number of middle managers, how lovely.

real1314 wrote: »

Public Sector pay is compressed into a limited range. No-one is paid over £500k;

No one in the PS should be paid that amount, there's no reason for it.

real1314 wrote: »

relatively few are paid over £100k.
How many are paid over £100k in the private sector?

Percentage-wise I'm struggling to find information, from memory a year ago the figure was roughly 0.6% of public sector and 0.4% of private...but as I say I'm struggling to find that document. This I beleive is because of the ratio of highly paid (and highly skilled) jobs such as GPs, surgeons and head teachers.

atush

you are paid for double shifts- it isn't free.

Backbiter

The_Angry_Jock wrote: »

Now I'm confused, I've been hearing all this stuff about public sector workers being fantastic value for money and doing the job for the love of it yet here it is farming out jobs. All the low skill menial jobs too, this basically leaves us with a large number of middle managers, how lovely.

The point real 1314 is making is that Government policy has moved most of the low-paid jobs out of the public sector to the private, by contracting out services like cleaning. This has had the effect of raising the average pay of public sector worker, without necessarily raising the pay of those who remain in the public sector.
When you compare equivalent jobs (e.g.private school teachers v state school teachers, private consultants v NHS consultants) it is simply not true to claim that the public sector pays more.

J_i_m

Howee... If you think teachers have same holiday as the children then I'd like some of what you're taking. Classes aren't simply make it up as you go you know... Much of the "holiday" time is spent planning the terms ahead and training.

At no point have I inferred that private sector workers do not work hard, I have not hinted that they shouldn't have better pensions, yet there are all too often wildly inaccurate assumptions about the public sector coming from the private sector.

I shall continue to rediculule them as long as they're made.

real1314

The_Angry_Jock wrote: »

Now I'm confused, I've been hearing all this stuff about public sector workers being fantastic value for money and doing the job for the love of it yet here it is farming out jobs. All the low skill menial jobs too, this basically leaves us with a large number of middle managers, how lovely.



No one in the PS should be paid that amount, there's no reason for it.



Percentage-wise I'm struggling to find information, from memory a year ago the figure was roughly 0.6% of public sector and 0.4% of private...but as I say I'm struggling to find that document. This I beleive is because of the ratio of highly paid (and highly skilled) jobs such as GPs, surgeons and head teachers.

Just because the lowest paid jobs are farmed out doesn't mean the majority are not actually doing work: processing benefits / tax / rebates / grants (like processing insurance) ; dealing with customers (like banks, but the call centres are not in dehli) ; delivering healthcare (at a lower cost than private) ; and education (again lower cost).
How many opt for the "better value" of the private sector for health and education? Why isn't the public sector just a small fraction of provision if the private sector is so much better?
(Clue - on health it's almost purely salary)

as for pay, well, I can readily find details of a single individual within the uk on a package of £10m ; and it's not someone you're likely to heard of not sports or entertainment) ; you might say "they earn it" as it's private sector. I'd say "how?".
Do they do all the work? Invent the concept, Design the product and make it too?
Or do they exploit others to do most of it for them at low pay and poor conditions?

The reality is that those best rewarded are those that produce nothing at all. They just "trade" with others.
Nothing more than glorified retailers. At least middle managers actually "manage" something. The best rewarded are just middle men taking a cut of ordinary people's investments. And do they really add any value?

Maybe if no-one was getting more than £250k (and that was rare) and only a few were getting £100k plus in the private sector, most of the Private Sector employees would be better off?
But most of you seem to like this concept that you "earn" what you get.

How much of the "private sector" is really just "service sector" ; not creating any real wealth, just re-cycling the money moving round the economy?
What happens if the money stops moving around?

Keep !!!!!ing about the public sector; it's what you were meant to do.
:cool:

The_Angry_Jock

real1314 wrote: »

Just because the lowest paid jobs are farmed out doesn't mean the majority are not actually doing work

Where did I say that?

The_Angry_Jock

real1314 wrote: »

as for pay, well, I can readily find details of a single individual within the uk on a package of £10m ; and it's not someone you're likely to heard of not sports or entertainment) ; you might say "they earn it" as it's private sector.

How about this scenario...the founder of the company I work for was paid £5 million last year. This is a man who started a small contracting firm and took some personal financial risk. 25 years on this company now has 30,000 employees and a turnover in the billions, worldwide. Now, if his salary was capped at £100,000 or whatever arbitrary figure do you think he would've tried so hard to create a such a successful company? Probably not, as there's no benefit to him. He'll just do the bare minimum to maintain his salary.

Who's that equivalent in the public sector?

atush

Jim I did a teaching degree to convert from being a biolgist/IT. You are being disingenuous in your estimates of time worked.

you dont spend as much time as you are saying for lesson plans and for marking. Lesson plans need updating and tweaking, but you don't need a 100% new one for every class of the year as you might teach more than one class of the same, and a basic lesson plan may only need tweaking from year to year and add in info, subtract other info. If a whole new subject is introduced one year in GCSE or A levels then more work is requried but this does not happen every year at all so those basic plans are there for 3 or more years until the next change.

Teachers not only have 13 weeks off year, but also have free periods during the day and sometimes choose not to work then and socialise instead as my 2 6th formers do on occasion. In fact sometimes they stay on late on a friday after school to play footie with the students. No one is paying them, but they choose to do so to have a bit of fun. And I am sure they are better teachers for having a bit of fun with their pupils ancolleagues now and again.

But please do not take us for numpties thinking you are working every day extra plus your hols dping the extras as that is not the case.

BobQ

ILW wrote: »

Most public sector workers are not fireman or police. Many are just pen pushers and admin types.

The dismissive way you say this conveys some kind of contempt for those in such roles.

Are there no similar admin jobs in the private sector? When you ring your insurance company and speak to customer service advisors are these not people doing a very similar ad min job? Does someone taking sales orders for a private company not do a similar job to someone arranging appointments for patients at an NHS hospital? Is someone photocopying course materials to enable teachers to deliver lessons not doing a similar job to those providing a copying service to those running a double gazing firm's sales campaign?

Be nasty if you wish but such people are doing jobs they have been recruited to do by by their managers. Would you rather they turned the jobs down?

BobQ

The_Angry_Jock wrote: »

Now I'm confused, I've been hearing all this stuff about public sector workers being fantastic value for money and doing the job for the love of it yet here it is farming out jobs. All the low skill menial jobs too, this basically leaves us with a large number of middle managers, how lovely.

.

You speak as if its only the public sector that outsources. Many successful private sector enterprises outsource certain types of jobs if it can be done more efficiently. You know by people on minimum wages who cannot afford to pay for pensions while their employers compete for more such contracts.

The public sector is a very diverse group of organisations but surely it is obvious to you that if you outsource low skilled jobs to save money it will increase the average salaries in what remains in the public sector. Such outsourcing does remove managerial jobs too, but you also need more contract staff to manage these contracts and compete their replacement on a regular basis. And the same thing happens when private companies outsource work.