why aren't public sector salaries linked to how well the country does?

DevilsAdvocate1

ruggedtoast wrote: »

Your husband needs to look for a better job, and if he cant get one look at why.

I'm not going to sit at the top of a paygrade going nowhere so every job I've had has been a diagonal move upwards. I've had to skill myself up in my own time for every move so far.

So far I've survived 5 rounds of redundancies in various places and been picked off once. I just got on with it.

I now have a relatively decently paid job with a pension that I have worked and studied very hard to get into. I'm not going to apologise for that because someone in a private sector company doesnt have the same.

If you think the public sector is so cushy then go and work in it.

He's happy where he is and life is more than about money. However, it really gets on my nerves when I hear friends who work in the public sector whinge about how badly paid they are and how bad their conditions are. Once upon a time, the public sector was low paid compared to the private sector, but this is no longer the case.

I remember chatting to a friend about 7 years after we both graduated. She had become a social worker and I had become a computer programmer. She whinged about how low paid she was and how well paid I was in comparison. Eventually, I asked her how much she earnt. I was gobsmacked to realise we were on exactly the same salary, yet she considered herself poorly paid and I considered myself as having an excellent salary. She had a pension and I did not, so overall, her package was better than mine, yet she thought I was well off compared to her.

Mind, that conversation did shut her up and she hasn't gone on about how poor she is since :rotfl:

CLAPTON

It could be observed that over the long term public and private salary increases are out of syncronisation.

So in the good times, private sector reacts quickly and tends to lead with pay rises (need to recruit, retain good staff etc).
The public sector is slow to react; needs endless negotiating committees etc and in general waits until the newspapers are full of stories about nurses leaving to become bar people, newly trained teaches choosing other professions etc etc.

Eventually the public sector wakes up just as the economy is going into a down turn but awards large salary increases nevertherless.

So now the papers are full of stories about private sector redundancies, wage freezing, short time working etc etc and of course how overpaid the public sector is.

This time it's somewhat different because the recession has been longer than 'normal' and private sector is continuing to suffer.


One might take the view point that the counter forces as work tend to reduce the size of the boom while mitigating the depth of the recession.

daveyjp

Eellogofusciouhipoppokunu wrote: »

I think public sector salaries should be linked to their equivalent in the private sector. If they then wanted to keep their final salary pensions they would have to accept a lower salary. As used to happen in the old days.

I'm not paying my local City solicitor upwards of £500,000 a year and the CE is not worth a few million a year.

ILW

DevilsAdvocate1 wrote: »

He's happy where he is and life is more than about money. However, it really gets on my nerves when I hear friends who work in the public sector whinge about how badly paid they are and how bad their conditions are. Once upon a time, the public sector was low paid compared to the private sector, but this is no longer the case.

I remember chatting to a friend about 7 years after we both graduated. She had become a social worker and I had become a computer programmer. She whinged about how low paid she was and how well paid I was in comparison. Eventually, I asked her how much she earnt. I was gobsmacked to realise we were on exactly the same salary, yet she considered herself poorly paid and I considered myself as having an excellent salary. She had a pension and I did not, so overall, her package was better than mine, yet she thought I was well off compared to her.

Mind, that conversation did shut her up and she hasn't gone on about how poor she is since :rotfl:

oddly, if you ever end up chatting to a bunch of social workers, the word that seems to come up most is "career". Care is barely mentioned.

Andy_L

CLAPTON wrote: »

It could be observed that over the long term public and private salary increases are out of syncronisation.

So in the good times, private sector reacts quickly and tends to lead with pay rises (need to recruit, retain good staff etc).
The public sector is slow to react; needs endless negotiating committees etc and in general waits until the newspapers are full of stories about nurses leaving to become bar people, newly trained teaches choosing other professions etc etc.

Historically the public sector had its pay rises held down in the good times in an attemt to control inflation & set an example to the private sector.

droiderm

Salaries should be based on individual performance.
I shouldn't be punished for the incompetence above.
That applies to both public and private sector.
If everyone performs well and the company or organisation does poorly then questions need to be asked what people are being asked to do

The_White_Horse

sorry i wasn't clear - the public sector salaries and pensions should solely come out of what is raised through income tax and adjusted accordingly. therefore, if we say in year one £1bn is raised in income tax, then public workers get x. If in year two, £900m is raised, the public sector get an equivalent reduction. If it goes up, then so does their pay. easy.

BobQ

Eellogofusciouhipoppokunu wrote: »

I think public sector salaries should be linked to their equivalent in the private sector. If they then wanted to keep their final salary pensions they would have to accept a lower salary. As used to happen in the old days.

I think you will find that they still do, if you compare like for like jobs rather than the average salary of each group. So compare a nurse in the NHS with one in a private hospital.

Note that most public sector workers will not be on a final salary pension scheme after 2015 and some are already on a career average pension.

Oldfatgrumpy

So you reduce public sector wages - for the ones getting more than minimum wage, I presume - and as a result, the amount received by the Treasury in income tax from those workers (a large proportion of the working population) is reduced, thereby lowering the figure to which their salary is pegged, so their wages are reduced...

Naf

This should apply to MPs, though.
I think they ought to be made to live on the pittance they call 'minimum wage'; no expenses and made to spend their own savings before they receive any state benefits. Then see how quickly they reform the system.