Anyone else fearful that the 5% pay cut given to Cabinet ministers will be passed down to all public sector workers?

The first of many I guess

I do agree with Meita though that it is daft to compare ourselves
but some of the comments about how we have to pay blah blah when we already have been irk me

But beenbeta in my sector we've been through three staff reviews with many redundancies and forced early retirements , and had pay freezes in the last five yrs

Public sector- Our budgets are determined on only 90% staff wages as they expect to be understaffed. Maternity not covered,sickness not covered, no bonuses, xmas parties. We have limited parking but only because we are essential car users (not enough spaces for us all to be in the office at once-actually not enough desks/phones etc either).

AuntieMaggie after that last comment perhaps we do!

£10 was before my time, best we got was £2 per head when we got awarded Investors in People.

We are the worst paid per grade in DEFRA!!!

We on acres and acres of land hence free parking even though there isn't enough IYSWIM

We used to have tennis courts, football pitch and a goat paddock

For any in the private sector complaining about the public sector being better off, and vice versa:
Please keep in mind that the lower end of the public sector and the lower end of the private sector are equally struggling, whereas some in the private sector are doing very well, just as some in the public sector are...

Highlighting the perks of those in the "other" sector compared to your own really only distracts from the real issues. Such as increasing pay gaps within both the public and the private sectors.

I can't completely shake the feeling that playing off the workers against the workers (public vs. private) is at least partially a conscious strategy to distract from such issues.

The private sector has taken the bulk of job losses and pay cuts so far. The public sector has to take its share.

It is well known that in the 1970s it was the private sector that took the pain too and unionised labour in nationalised industry and the public sector were protected.

The pain has to be shared and especially at the top of the pay scale where senior public sector salaries have gone up a lot.

There is deflation in wages already in the private sector and this will now spread to public sector wages. This will inevitably result in a fall in all prices of goods and assets. This will mark the beginning of the deflationary spiral that will inevitably end in a huge Depression as asset values plunge below the value of the debts secured on them.

Keeping your job on a lower salary in a deflationary depression is your bonus.

Moving services into the community puts extra pressure on front line staff who are expected to do more with less. There is already a bed crisis - I dread to think what will happen if even more services are moved into the community. In my job it will mean more deaths. The NHS may not be as efficient as it could be but any effective stategies to make it more efficient need to be really carefully considered. You can't just cut services without putting contingency measures in place. The politicians/senior management who make these decisions are hopelessly out of touch with how the systems work and imho stack up debt/problems for the future.

:O he got biscuits riven?

See now I'm jealous

Lots of scientists/very highly qualified people in my area of work and a lot of them are on the same grade as me!

Oh yes never ever had a Xmas do, we always pay for it ourselves, and because we're a public service we have to work Xmas eve, new yrs eve etc, we don't get to close early and have a do down the pub
don't get free parking or gym either
I love competitive crap jobs !!

Ditto cargirl - do you work in my office?

We used to have a whole 10 quid per person for a xmas do but they scrapped that

And the way we have to fight to get the heating on!

.

the mod, the home office, defra...

We don't even get a christmas do, never mind a bonus , have to pay for own drinks etc etc etc Our boss wouldn't even let us buy tea towels out of petty cash!

Won't ever be made redundant either will get offered a post elsewhere and if you can't take it then it's voluntary!

On our publicised list of "perks" there is listed the free parking (but there aren't enough spaces), the subsidised canteen (see above) and the gym (er 3 machines in a hut)

Yes only my friends in private sector have had bonuses, I've never ever had a bonus
they don't happen if you work for the council

Oh here we go - the over-priced public sector.

I have never had a bonus EVER - not something that many in the private sector can say. I get no privarte health insurance (as many in the private sector do).

The public sector are nurses, teachers, dustmen etc etc etc. You choose where the cuts should fall.

dp and I both work in the NHS and I was assuming we'd get a 5% cut from the next financial year - have already worked out what it would be and therefore mean to mortgage payments etc - which is coming up for renewal in Feb 2011... I think it's going to be a tough 3 - 4 years in the NHS. We've got a recruitment freeze now on all jobs for the forseeable future - I'm covering 3 jobs at the moment and the organisation definitely expects us to do more for less...

We've got civil service pensions, we've already been told that they've changed the terms and it'll be back dated IYSWIM so we've put up with rubbish pay for years and now no longer get the benefit of a fab pension at the end!

We don't even get many more days holidays than the legal minimum now that's been increased. It does upset me when joe public doesn't realise that the lower paid public sector workers have had their pay, pensions, and "perks" eaten away for years already.

The "subsidised" out sourced canteen is more expensive than the pub!

Agree entirely with auntiemaggie

But it pees me off when private sector workers say 'yes well we have had cuts' etc etc
well so have we in the public sector!
Feels like head is banging against brick wall

exactly riven

not all public sector jobs earn more than their private sector equivalents - in our part of the public sector our pay is a lot less than the private sector. the pensions thing is a myth too as the majority of us are in our 30's so don't benefit like our older colleagues from old pension deals. no bonuses here either and other benefits such as cars went years ago.

and not all parts of the public sector are overstaffed - we've had a recruitment freeze for ages, and even before that we had problems recruiting because of the rubbish terms compared with the private sector.

we've had job losses too

it makes me so cross when people think we've got it easy when we haven't