The betrayal of a public sector pay freeze

[Ori3]

Yes, we're facing the biggest economic crisis since peacetime. Yes money has to be found. But as a first measure, why instantly freeze the pay of teachers, police, firefighters, council staff and civil servants; key-workers who have risked so much during the pandemic.

These are the people holed up in a room looking after 30+ kids per day, supporting vulnerable people in social care, helping businesses access the furlough scheme, supplying universal credit, dealing with household emergencies, and tackling an increase in demand for urgent care services.

And their reward for helping to keep the show going? The certainty of a pay freeze for the next however many years and a conciliatory pat-on-the-head as added bonus. It's a joke.

And the awful irony of it all is that these are the sectors that protect most vulnerable and disadvantaged in our society, alongside looking after the nation's kids. They're the ones gluing it all together. Shut the schools and you've got a crisis. Stop social care and you've got a crisis. Get rid of the police force = crisis. Oh and firefighters? Who needs them? Council workers? Well all they do is push pieces of paper around and refuse to answer calls?! Get rid of them too.

In the words of Fight Club's Chuck Palahniuk:

“Remember this. The people you're trying to step on, we're everyone you depend on. We're the people who do your laundry and cook your food and serve your dinner. We make your bed. We guard you while you're asleep. We drive the ambulances. We direct your call. We are cooks and taxi drivers and we know everything about you. We process your insurance claims and credit card charges. We control every part of your life.

We are the middle children of history, raised by television to believe that someday we'll be millionaires and movie stars and rock stars, but we won't. And we're just learning this fact. So don't fuck with us.”

They also receive substantially fewer holidays, inferior pensions, etc

Evidence, please?

@notheragain41 - I used to live in the US and I never met anyone who was jealous of the NHS. Healthcare in the US is expensive and the system is wasteful but the care is vastly superior.

Ha festering in my bitterness, what exactly am I bitter over? I'm not on here complaining over public sector vs private sector having worked in both. Pros and cons to both.

If you don't like your working conditions go work for a company that gives you what your looking for rather than just loaning. If you think your hard done by then come join public sector.

Oh and its not just people in public sector who take additional breaks ive seen it in private sector too.

There are hardworking and lazy incompetent ones in both sectors.

Healthcare in the US is expensive and the system is wasteful but the care is vastly superior

Unbefuckinglievable. :o

@echt

They also receive substantially fewer holidays, inferior pensions, etc

Evidence, please?

Most companies provide the minimum paid leave, which is 20 days plus 8 public holidays. Many private employers have people on zero hours contract with no guaranteed paid leave. Many people don't take their leave. Public sector tends to start at 25 and increase with time, and when I was working in it, everyone took it (I'm trying to get back, my pay will drop and the bureaucracy was mindnumbing but everything else was so much easier)

ONS data shows that public sector workers take more sick leave also.

Pensions are far higher given the numbers still enjoying final salaries, and the contribution is much higher too, many private employers contribute the minimum.

There's tons of data on this, just check out job ads. Or have you always been public sector?

[quote CayrolBaaaskin]@notheragain41 - I used to live in the US and I never met anyone who was jealous of the NHS. Healthcare in the US is expensive and the system is wasteful but the care is vastly superior.[/quote]
You get what you pay for, basically.

@cyclingmad

For all of you saying nasty things about public sector workers..how prepared are you then if we privatise all these services eh?

Are you prepared to pay separately for bin collections, fire brigade, police protection, social care, libraries, education, medical care

Cos guess what it'd cost you heck of a lot more, only have to look to America to see cost of medical care alone. Most of you canf even afford private education either

Infact I say lets do stick two fingers up to you who think us public sector workers are lazy. Pay for it yourself and let's see how happy you are then

Yeah, I’d like the chance to pay for some of those separately. More choice, cheaper bills and better service, generally.

Speaking of the US, school choice is raging now because of the lazy teacher’s unions shutting down the public schools for the slightest of pretexts (private ones generally haven’t) and now parents are fighting for school choice. A bit late though. Wish we could’ve seen that a few years ago.

[quote CayrolBaaaskin]@notheragain41 - I used to live in the US and I never met anyone who was jealous of the NHS. Healthcare in the US is expensive and the system is wasteful but the care is vastly superior.[/quote]
You obviously only met people with insurance then. Those that weren't jealous had also obviously never looked at the figures as outcome data suggests that despite the fact they pay about seven times more for treatment the outcome isn't any better.. The NHS is imperfect and many countries have better healthcare systems but the US certainly isn't one of them.

Yeah, I’d like the chance to pay for some of those separately. More choice, cheaper bills and better service, generally.

And yet when anything is privatised, the opposite happens.

A pay freeze for a year is hardly a big deal. I really don't mind. Doctors were hit in 2009 when we weren't. I have friends who have lost their private sector jobs because of the pandemic and one (approach 50) with long Covid who may never work again. Our finances haven't changed at all. We are both still in work and paying the mortgage while friends are being forced to downsize. Count your blessings.

They also receive substantially fewer holidays, inferior pensions

Depends on the company. My husband's company give unlimited holiday, flexible hours, flexible working days, 10% pension, bonuses, company paid Friday drinks, free tea, coffee and soft drinks every day, paid for Christmas party for spouses/ partners as well and a company paid for trip abroad for the family (destination of your choice) when you've worked there 3 years and another after 5 years. Pretty damn good! They also have a beautiful office in the city centre with more than adequate facilities and a break room with a pool table and games consoles.

I on the other hand work for the LA, and whilst I also get a 10% pension, I get 26 days leave, have to provide my own tea and coffee, we don't even have a water cooler. Our Christmas do is in our lunch hour and we pay for ourselves. Recently the kettle broke and we all had to chip in for a new one. We have no break room so have to eat at our desk or stood up in the carpark (which we pay to use).

Those unlimited holiday contracts are a total red herring. Firstly they’re very rare. Secondly, research consistently shows that people take less holiday than they used to under them, not more.

Having said that, there’s a lot of variation in private sector holiday allowance. Some of it is dire, some very generous. I expect it’s hard to make comparisons there.

Pension set up is a different story. The difference between direct benefit and direct contribution is really significant.

I work in the public sector - TA in a primary school. My pay is rubbish on the whole for what I do, but I can’t complain too much about the unpaid hours I put in, as no-one is making me do it, I do it because I care about the children and the effect that chronic underfunding is having on education. So that’s one side - but the other side is that is spent 5 months on full pay this year while off sick, followed by a couple of months on half pay. Since starting back in September, I have been on a phased return so am being paid as if full time whilst still doing part time hours; although I am gradually increasing my hours I have ‘permission’ to manage myself if I feel it’s too much at the moment. I really don’t feel hard done by, to be honest, I feel lucky. However, not all public sector roles are so lucky, and I don’t think you can generalise this to all public sector staff, any more than you can generalise about the private sector - both are a broad spectrum.

Oh, and regarding the NHS - they’ve been amazing, both in terms of hospital inpatient and outpatient treatment, but also my gp - it can’t be generalised across all healthcare staff.

I worked in public sector (civil service) the pay was so bad that staff on the lowest grade received a pay increase when the national minimum wage came in, getting promoted to the next grade only generated £20 a week increase for a much higher level of knowledge & responsibility & the top of that pay grade was only £5k higher than the lower grade. The branch of the Civil Service I worked in has cut staff to the bone, regraded work so that now things that were done by managers are now done by staff two grades lower for half the salary. Staff have only received performance related pay increases at the top of the grade, lower down the grade staff have received 1% increases which have shortened the pay grade meaning that instead of it taking five or six years to reach the top of the grade now it only takes 3 years, the performance related pay increases were given in the form of a one off payment that was not applied to pensionable pay & often worked out at less than £2 a week. The equivalent grade working in a bank would receive £5k a year more at the lowest grade & £15k a year at the next grade up with cheap mortgages, loans & private health insurance as part of the package as well as the same flexible working & leave as a Civil Servant. Next time you are on hold for over an hour trying to speak to HMRC or waiting months for a tax refund, just remember it is because these services have been cut back by the government Instead of invested in.

Personally I think MPs pay and allowances should be linked to public service pay increases so that the increase in their pay and allowances should no larger than the average percentage increase among the publuc services

@puzzledquiz

Personally I think MPs pay and allowances should be linked to public service pay increases so that the increase in their pay and allowances should no larger than the average percentage increase among the publuc services

Now this I can get behind!

A lot of the carers you have all been out clapping for during the first lockdown only get paid national minimum wage because councils who fund at home care will only pay national minimum wage for each funded hour which then means clients get sub standard care because the carers are not suitably qualified & are rushed off their feet which in reality can mean more clients end up in hospital costing more money than if they had received better quality care at home. Clients getting left on the floor because carers haven't enough time to stay until paramedics arrive to get them up simply because the carers haven't completed manual lifting training or simply are unwilling to lift clients because they may be liable if anything goes wrong. Clients surviving without hot food & only being allowed one bath or shower a week because the council won't fund enough hours so carers can do a proper job. Clients not being got out of bed until 11.00am & then being put back to bed at 6.00pm simply because the carers finish work at 7.00pm. Unless we fund things like care properly then this will continue to happen, all care should be brought back under either the umbrella of the council with them employing the carers instead of carer companies or under the NHS.

Public service usually have decent pay, very good pensions and perks like sick pay and properly paid holidays. Grips me tbh when they are all wailing and I work in public service

Whenever I see posts claiming the public sector has better pay, better pension, more holidays, and security of tenure I find myself wondering what it is about private sector jobs that makes those people want to stay in the private sector rather than move to the public sector.

Healthcare in the US is expensive and the system is wasteful but the care is vastly superior. Well, yes, I expect we could get better care if we paid for it. But at least everyone in the UK can get medical care, no matter how poor they are or how much care they need.

The difference between direct benefit and direct contribution is really significant. that is true. But when defined benefit pensions were widespread in the private sector the increment was more likely to be 1/30th rather than 1/40th in public sector, which made a big difference to the pension accrued after 40 years. If you want to see a really good pension scheme, have a look at the MPs one.

Public sector are benefitting pension-wise at the moment by public sector inertia meaning they're lagging in the race to the bottom. But they'll get there.

instead of it taking five or six years to reach the top of the grade now it only takes 3 years That can be a positive thing. The problem with long pay scales is they tend to overlap and that locks in inequalities. For example, there's a tendency (which I hope is decreasing now) for women to be less forceful than men in negotiating entry point. With overlapping scales, even if everything is equal from then on, the person who came in at a lower point moves to a lower point on the next scale on promotion, and so on until retirement when they end up with a lower pension.

Be careful what we wish for. The government will use the pandemic to continue to decimate the public sector anyway. Council cuts before the pandemic were huge and now the added costs of COVID.

Public sector jobs are not secure. I've been through three 'restructures' in the last four years and I'm facing another. A team reduced from 120 initially (2013) to 15 now.
These are professionals who are supporting your children to achieve, ensuring they are safe, making sure your children have a school place (unless private schooling), supporting schools to improve, advising schools about how to best use their very limited resources. Two out of every three of our schools had a deficit budget before COVID, can you imagine what that looks like now? LA education staff and teachers/TA's will lose their jobs. Is that really what you want, huge classes, no support, children not safe...