State workers still enjoy advantage over private employees

chewmylegoff

perthperson wrote: »

Did you work where I work??? This is pretty much a description of what happens here - except I would say that pretty much all the ordinary troops are in the incredibly busy understaffed bit n. We've just gone through a restructure that played out exactly as above. (public sector)

Having worked in private and public sector and also voluntary organisations, there's good and bad in all - this public v private is just part of divide and rule that's going on now.

all public sector restructures end up working in the same way, i believe because existing local management are appointed to carry out the restructuring. they have just gone through this where my OH works, so basically instead of having, say 2 senior managers, 6 middle managers and 20 "coal face" staff, they now have 3 senior managers, 5 middle managers and 10 coal face staff. given that it's a social work department, it seems that their priorities may have been somewhat wrong (although fine for her as she is a middle manager who now has half the number of staff to manage...).

the public sector appears to employ (by employ, i mean waste money on) consultants for all sorts of things (mostly making new logos and designing training courses called things like "dignity at work"), so why can't they employ a management consultant who doesn't have a conflict of interest (i.e. they won't lose their job as a result of making the most obvious rationalisation decisions) to save money by sacking all the needless managers whilst retaining the staff who actually deliver the front line services.

Loughton_Monkey

N1AK wrote: »

This is a pretty ignorant response.

I'm glad you admit it.

For convenience, I quote the rest of it below:

N1AK wrote: »

That small public sector you grew up with was the one paying for hospital care and pensions for your parents (who did make do with very little). Now that Boomers are getting old the costs of providing them with the healthcare and pensions they've voted for (but not paid for) mean the cost has increased.

Boomers have treated the public purse as a ponzi scheme and are relying on the current generation to continue the con and try and pass it on to their children.

Point 1. The word 'boomer' was coined to represent a generation of children born between 1946 and 1964. Not a single one of those children had a choice about being born.

Point 2. On average, such a person would have spent 17/18 years growing up, supported by parents (and state) followed by 40/50 years earning, paying taxes, and contributing to the public purse.

Point 3. As anyone knows, the spending of a government in any one year is a complete mixture. It pays the high costs of health (with emphasis on the very young and very old), the costs of education (for the young), pensions (for the old), defence, infrastructure, security, etc. for all citizens.

Boomers have not therefore treated the public purse as anything other than something that has had to be contributed to - over a period in which the proportion of wealth collected by the state has increased out of all proportion.

In my own case, for example, I was paying the bulk of my UK tax up until the late 90's. It was generally not decision makers of my own age making taxation/spending decisions, but the generation before me.

Individuals (who themselves would have been boomers) did not tend to assert taxation/spending decisions until mid 1990's and later. I do not detect any conspiracy or the manufacture of a 'ponzi' scheme. Instead, I saw governments who dramatically increased state spending, resulting in dramatic increases in taxation, which even then was not enough and so resulted in dramatic increases in borrowing.

Those 'boomers' (like myself) did not all become rich. I expect you find a 'normal distribution' of wealth from poor to rich amongst this generation. I cannot speak for the whole of my generation but as one who "did well" by being (a) raised in a 'low cost' public spending regime, and (b) a tax-paying career in which tax burdens increased massively, I would strongly advocate reverting back to far lower tax burdens, and consequent reductions in benefits/pensions as well as lower state costs.

If there are any differences between the generations in wealth, then you need to look primarily at behaviour of those generations, and the political climate in which they grew up.

What is the difference between (a) current generation workers paying taxes to maintain an increased number of 'boomers' in state pensions and health care, and (b) the current very young generation who might have fewer wrinklies to 'support'. but boy! will they have to pay a lot to do so because they didn't save, and so cannot contribute to their care/pensions....?

Jamie_Carter

chewmylegoff wrote: »

i think there is an element of truth in it, having worked in both public and private. in either sector, you need to be able to demonstrate that you are not fit for work in order to not go to work, i.e. you will need a doctors' note for any continuous absence longer than a few days, usually 5.

however, my experience is that the public sector has much better sickness pay. in the private sector, i had 20 days paid sick leave a year, plus another 20 at half pay. in the public sector i could be off for a year at full pay before any reduction kicks in.

obviously, if you know you are going to get paid, you are more likely to go and sit in the doctors surgery and say that you are not fit to work - at which point they will sign you off work to make you go away. if you're only going to be paid for 20 days, and then SSP, you're more likely to make an effort to go to work on crutches than hop to the doctor's surgery to get signed off.

but as you say, there are plenty of people in the public sector who don't take the p!ss, but there are plenty who do.

Things have changed over recent years, believe me.

Jamie_Carter

A._Badger wrote: »

Self-respect? The need for a challenge?

So being a doctor, nurse, police officer, firefighter, paramedic, teacher, or soldier, doesn't give you self respect and a challenge then?

chewmylegoff

Jamie_Carter wrote: »

Things have changed over recent years, believe me.

i believe my own experience if you don't mind, rather than just a dismissive comment, as i am still working in the public sector now, and i can look at my organisations sick pay policy and see the results in real time.

Jamie_Carter

FTBFun wrote: »

Given that the fire-service never has any trouble finding recruits, they can't be paid that badly.

According to this £28k amounts to quite a junior position in the fire service:

http://www.hantsfire.gov.uk/salary

And you think that because kids grow up thinking that firefighters are heros, and so want to do the job, is a good excuse to pay a low wage to people who put their lives at risk on a daily basis to save others???

You also shouldn't assume that all those that apply for the job are suitable. My mate was telling me about a recruitment campaign where 4000 people applied for 20 jobs. And out of that 20 that got onto thr training course, only 5 passed out at the end of it.

He has also told me about career firemen who loved the job, and intended to stay in it until they retired, who left to become train drivers, due the the many changes for the worse over recent years.

andyroberts1967

Conrad wrote: »

My own experience is that for example a broken leg for a private sector employee, results in just a few days off and then managing on crutches to do ones job, whereas you can really push the envelope in a public sector setting, and get weeks, even months off.

I believe that is decided by the GP in question, isn't it?

FTBFun

Jamie_Carter wrote: »

And you think that because kids grow up thinking that firefighters are heros, and so want to do the job, is a good excuse to pay a low wage to people who put their lives at risk on a daily basis to save others???

£28k isn't a low wage - it's more than the national average for starters. And it can't be that low if they have sufficient numbers of willing recruits to join the fire service.

You also shouldn't assume that all those that apply for the job are suitable. My mate was telling me about a recruitment campaign where 4000 people applied for 20 jobs. And out of that 20 that got onto thr training course, only 5 passed out at the end of it.

800 applicants for each position - don't think I need to say anything further then.

He has also told me about career firemen who loved the job, and intended to stay in it until they retired, who left to become train drivers, due the the many changes for the worse over recent years.

What changes were these?

FTBFun

Andy_L wrote: »

Seeing as how the Infantry makes up about 25% of the Army & the MoD (made of of both Millitary & civillians) supports all 3 services thats a true, but a fairly meaningless factoid.

Fair enough - however there are about 220,000 active duty personnel plus 180,000 reservists, with 60,000 odd MOD civil servants.

Do we really need 1 civil servant for every 3/4 serviceman or woman?

ruggedtoast

perthperson wrote: »

Did you work where I work??? This is pretty much a description of what happens here - except I would say that pretty much all the ordinary troops are in the incredibly busy understaffed bit n. We've just gone through a restructure that played out exactly as above. (public sector)

Having worked in private and public sector and also voluntary organisations, there's good and bad in all - this public v private is just part of divide and rule that's going on now.

The team I worked in actually had all the support level posts wiped out in the restructure, and was left being a team of five managers with no one to manage.

Within the organisation, the few support level posts that survived had all their job specs merged into one absurd job description printed in tiny writing double sided over about 10 pages of A4, so you have IT workers who were meant to have reception duty in their job spec.

I was really sad about it because I had worked hard for that team and really believed in what they were doing. They kept promising to give me a permanent job if I stuck around, but in the end I got three days notice and a handshake.

Then the (married) manager gave one of the other temps a fixed term contract because he wanted to sleep with her, even though she openly said to him that she had no intention of staying and wouldn't be seen dead with a man who earned a pitiful public sector salary.

C'est la vie, I had another job interview on my way home that day and walked right into another job that paid a lot more, but I never got the same job satisfaction again.