WTF?! Those of you that voted them in need to hang your heads in shame

[cricketballs]

So a couple of days after his sexist views are aired apparently public sector workers are overpaid link

How can he be so out of touch?

Sorry - working link

I'm assuming he doesn't consider himself as part of the public sector then!

Awful.

He is part of the public sector and he is definitely overpaid.

I don't think there will be a majority Tory government in for a long time now. Thankfully.

3 year pay freeze started 2010 and 1% per annum since then.

Unbelievable.

Apparently he said in the Andrew Marr show that teachers had a 3.5% pay rise last year. Such a liar!

PH has damaging comments leaked, and BJ is mentioned as standing up for the workers along with TM. Leadership competition machinations begin.

Some public sector workers are overpaid. Some aren't.

Train drivers are overpaid compared to nurses for example who have had to complete a 3 year degree

Public sector workers at senior levels are overpaid. Pensions contributions for those still on final salary schemes can be over 50% of their salary. That is significant.

Those at the bottom of scale are underpaid. The multiple of the highest earner to the lowest earner needs to be addressed.

The majority are underpaid but there are some issues that need to be sorted.

This is also inflammatory journalism. I'm not clear what it was he actually said, in what context.

Train drivers are overpaid

twitter.com/BBCNews/status/886515200920215552

honeysuckle quite this is the Tory leadership battle you're seeing played out. PH has I understood denied saying it (or at least in the way reported).

ANd no, I'm not a Tory voters but I wish people would stop letting themselves be so manipulated by the press so easily.

And I thought it was common knowledge that public sector workers are paid on average about 10% more than private?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-40480766

How can he be so out of touch?

Leaving aside the Treasury's denial that he thinks that, I suspect his definition of overpaid is more accurate than yours. (Not that you've revealed that, but I've seen on other threads how many people here think.)

In my view, workers are overpaid if they can't get a job paying the the same working for someone else. Similarly, workers are underpaid if the employer can't get the quality and quantity of staff they want at the rates of pay they are offering.

Whether a worker can live on what they're paid is irrelevant in deciding if they being paid the right amount. Similarly, what the government can afford to pay is irrelevant in deciding what nurses or teachers should get. The government needs to pay whatever it takes to get staff, and if they think the don't have the money, turn around to the voters and tell them they will be reducing the extent of free education/healthcare.

What the government thinks they can afford and what workers think they need to live are equally irrelevant in determining correct pay.

The ONS disagree and say private sector workers are paid 5.8% more than public sector workers www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/articles/analysisoffactorsaffectingearningsusingannualsurveyofhoursandearnings/2016#main-points

Sorry OP, I've attributed a belief I disagree with to you without any evidence. Even if I turn out to be correct, that's a wrong thing to do.

Leaks from cabinet are such transparent leadership shenanigans. The sexist train driver thing was utterly ludicrous. It just makes the person doing the leaks look like an unprofessional backstabber more concerned with manoeuvring against their colleagues than actually getting on with running the sodding country.

Boris then.

Train drivers are overpaid compared to nurses for example who have had to complete a 3 year degree

Train drivers are employed by the private sector so the comparison with nurses isn't valid. They're paid what the market values their skills (and train driving takes considerable skill and training).

Under British Rail, train drivers were very poorly paid. With privatisation, suddenly it went from one employer to 30 odd potential employers fighting for the services of a limited pool of drivers and most companies were reluctant to invest in training drivers from scratch (as it was cheaper to poach drivers from other companies by offering improved terms and conditions)

I earn a six figure salary currently. Recently got offered a public sector job that doubled it. I didn't take the job because I'm at the cutting edge of my field but maybe when I'm a bit older I will take the increase. Hammond is talking about the senior guys, the heads of hospital trusts etc, not the front line.

cricket

Not sticking up for him as he is a lying twat but i think the overpaid comment is that once you take the pension into account that the gap is bigger

However

I always thought that was the point kf public sector jobs, sometimes not well paid for the position but the pension made up for it

I have a solution.

Those people who cannot get sane employment in private sector get the pay rises. The nurses, fire fighters, teachers etc.

Those who work in public sector but doing a private sector job (i.e. Administration, finance, HR, IT) don't get the 'public sector' pay rises. They have the freedom to work in either sector so can more easily vote with their feet. Their salaries are often better than market rate anyway.

This means actual frontline staff get the pay rises.

I know as a teacher that my real salary has gone down from 2009. Same pay grade (top of scale) but hugely increased pension contributions means I take home less.

But many public sector workers ARE overpaid when their very generous taxpayer funded pensions are included.
Sure public sector workers fund their pensions but so do private sector workers and receive far less generous payouts at retirement. On top of that they fund public sector workers' retirement benefits from their taxes.
I do think we need to spell out to public sector workers how generous their retirement benefits actually are, when compared to the private sector.
I absolutely don't believe in a race to the bottom however.
As a progressive society we should be paying nurses, teachers and the like a good salary with pay rises of more than a derisory 1 per cent and a good pension.
However were I to get a job as a Government press officer or the like - I fail to see why the taxpayer should fund my retirement - when the majority of private sector workers could not dream of receiving anything similar. Although I would of course be delighted to receive such generous benefits!

In fairness it was New Labour who caused the rise in payments for public sector CEOs and such like, Blair thought those very senior should be paid that much.

And I was disappointed that Corbyn didn't reference it in his manifesto. I believe he'd would try and get more salaries to increase among the coal face staff but whether or not he will actually try to change the salaries of those now massively overpaid, I don't know. It's not just about tax, it's about overpaying in the first place.

And look what you get for £180k at Kensington & Chelsea council.

I never understand on these threads why people argue for other people to be paid less, when now the majority of people living in poverty are actually working. Surely we should be arguing we should all be paid more, including in the private sector where large corporations are making big profits on the back of our work yet still paying so little that people have to rely on state subsidy through tax credits?