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.”

Both public and private sectors are going to feel a vast amount of pain over the coming decades. I don't think anyone is going to escape this unscathed unfortunately. This lockdown is going to have to be paid for and there's no easy solution (well there is - cancel HS2 to start with but apparently that's off the table).

Private sector generates the revenue that’s taken as tax receipts to fund everything else.

Thank you for summarising the ideas of a number of posters, that (in my words) the public sector consumes a portion of the weatlth produced by the private sector.

I used to believe this too.

It is wrong.

Ask yourself this: if a private school is nationalised, but nothing in its finances and operations changes, so it continues to educate exactly as it did before, charging the same fees, has nationalisation decreased GDP, because the school is no longer in the private sector? And if the school is privatised again, does GDP then increase?

Both private and public sector activities contribute to GDP. It is a myth/misunderstanding that a private sector is necessary so that it can be taxed to pay for the public sector.

I believe Communism didn't fail because it's impossible in principle for the whole economy to be in the public sector. It failed in part because putting it there led to misallocation of resources, due to lack of market pricing mechanisms.

I do agree on principle but yes, the public sector in comparison to the private sector is rather "safe".

A third of the private workforce have been furloughed but govt guidance has stated that as the public sector gets public money, these organisations/departments etc should use that money to continue to pay staff in the usual fashion – and correspondingly not furlough them. So, unlike those in the private sector who have either lost their jobs, or are coping on less money coming in, that doesn't apply for the public sector.

Then you have the extra benefits of being a public sector employee - let's take pensions as an example. My DH worked in a public sector role for less than 2 years, 10 years ago. His pension contributions for that short period of time are going to result in a proper sum of money every month when he retires in x years times (not soon). Of course, this doesn't even compare to the pensions that civil servants, teachers etc get. We now both work for ourselves and the money we have to personally put aside to match is extrordinary.

But everyone will whinge when a benefit/rise doesn't help them. Just look at the threads that complain someone else is getting a discount or whatever, but not them. It's all about what everyone can get for themselves as opposed to looking at the bigger picture,

Public sector tax isn't worth the paper it is printed on.

What about when huge sums of public money are passed to private sector organisations that (when they’re done avoiding tax) pay employees who pay tax? Is that worthless too? That might come as a surprise to the care industry.

I've worked in both public and private sectors. Several family members were/are self-employed. I don't need any lessons in where salaries come from, thank you, but I hope it made you feel better to lecture me and others, and denigrate the taxes we pay.

We're (almost all) going to be poorer after Covid. Public sector can't expect to avoid the fallout unfortunately.

@GingerAndTheBiscuits

Public sector tax isn't worth the paper it is printed on.

What about when huge sums of public money are passed to private sector organisations that (when they’re done avoiding tax) pay employees who pay tax? Is that worthless too? That might come as a surprise to the care industry.

Yes.

all getting v heated?

I'm private sector - no pay rise for 5 years and we've all been forced to accept a 10% cut with this crisis. There will be redundancies once the furlough ends on march.

Against that backdrop, i find it hard to see why all public sector workers should get an increase? ultimately that will drive up the tax bill for us all - and we really cannot afford that right now?

enough of the GP blaming by people whose DH is a consultant on here btw...

The reason Sunak talked about the private sector when announcing the public sector freeze was so we would do just this, turn on each other, rather than look at the government. It's worked, always does. Divide and conquer.

@notheragain41

Spot on. People aren't just lazy thinkers, they're yellow bellies too. Oh look dear, it's that nice Mr Sunak on the telly box again

YABVU.

Hundreds of thousands of people in the private sector earn less and/or lost their jobs, and you want a pay rise? Quite apart from the unfairness of this, who do you think is going to pay for it?

The opening post can be summarised as

Yes, we're facing the biggest economic crisis since peacetime. Yes money has to be found. But as a first measure, give payrises to people who kept their jobs instead of those who lost their jobs because the people in jobs did loads of important work so they deserve it and anyone who lost their job was obviously a pointless waste of space.

I don't think public sector getting pay rises would go down particularly well right now tbh. The funding the government has used to get through this crisis will absolutely need to be paid back, and will mean tax rises in the near future too - so the private sector will be hit once everything is back open.

However, I also think that it is really tough for public sector workers when a lot of them had a pay freeze throughout austerity (2010-2018).

@notheragain41

The reason Sunak talked about the private sector when announcing the public sector freeze was so we would do just this, turn on each other, rather than look at the government. It's worked, always does. Divide and conquer.

Yea, I couldn't agree more.

The public sector pay should be assessed on it's own merits independently of the private sector. What the private sector does is irrelevant.

This is how we get the race to the bottom - the government tightens up on public sector pay because it is outpacing the private sector, then a couple of years later the private sector uses the same argument to curb its costs.

This divide and conquer technique has been used by the Tories to demonise the unemployed - they get the working poor to view the unemployed as lazy, feckless etc to drive down benefits. The real enemy of the working poor isn't the unemployed it's the wealthy tax dodging elite.

@shropshire11

I think most people value front-line workers, but public sector pay has to bear some relation to private sector pay (i.e. the people whose taxes actually cover the costs).

In the private sector, millions have lost their jobs or been furloughed, and very very few will be getting pay rises. They also receive substantially fewer holidays, inferior pensions, etc.

In this context, there has to be some fairness, or else you have a two-tier economy where people working for the government enjoy safe well-paid jobs and everyone else works hard for less money to pay for them. That isn't sustainable.

Funny how before all this public pay bore no resemblance to private sector pay and no one was suggesting we get a pay rise then were they? I have worked for the CS for years and for the last 10 we have had 1%. Unfortunately 1% of crap is crap. I have - in real terms - had a 20% pay cut, due to inflation over those years. So I am working 5 days for 4 days pay. This year we got (WOW!) 2%. 2% or crap is still crap. I am one of the low earners, there are a LOT of us under £24k - so next year we will get about 1% whereas those on over 24k won't get anything. I don't understand why it is a 'them and us' why pit public sector against private sector? What does that gain, except to piss off those is the opposite one. For the first time in my life I will use the MN phrase 'it boils my piss'

@BuggerBognor - no there have been a few posts on here re GPs. Just grates. Clearly you can feel what you like but this thread is not about GPs and felt it needed balancing.

'What the private sector does is irrelevant'?! The health of the private sector is fundamental. The whole economy has taken a nose dive. Tax revenues will fall - so spending does need controlling.

To allow public sector rises across the board now just wouldn't make sense. We don't have the money.

@RandomLondoner

Private sector generates the revenue that’s taken as tax receipts to fund everything else.

Thank you for summarising the ideas of a number of posters, that (in my words) the public sector consumes a portion of the weatlth produced by the private sector.

I used to believe this too.

It is wrong.

Ask yourself this: if a private school is nationalised, but nothing in its finances and operations changes, so it continues to educate exactly as it did before, charging the same fees, has nationalisation decreased GDP, because the school is no longer in the private sector? And if the school is privatised again, does GDP then increase?

Both private and public sector activities contribute to GDP. It is a myth/misunderstanding that a private sector is necessary so that it can be taxed to pay for the public sector.

I believe Communism didn't fail because it's impossible in principle for the whole economy to be in the public sector. It failed in part because putting it there led to misallocation of resources, due to lack of market pricing mechanisms.

Your example doesn't make much sense. You assume is that is is and will remain profitable, so can be self funding or even return its profit to government funds (though it it continues to charge private fees then you could argue that no good Communist would let it continue that way anyway). Most of our public services are not in any way profitable, and nor should they be - even if they deliver a net benefit to the nation overall. Given this, we absolutely do need to think about the tax burden. Sometimes it's worth it - e.g. having a working universal healthcare, as well as being a moral argument, also helps build a flexible and productive population and results in less money being diverted to healthcare so perhaps does pay for itself. Other things that are necessary, like perhaps carbon capture, are important but going to take more tax dollars than they make, so we need to ensure we can pay for them without leaving ab impossible burden on our childrens' shoulders, or having to inflate our way out of it in the short term and deal with all the challenges of that.

Or if the fees It's almost certain that in your example GDP would decrease, on the basis that currently international students will be paying to come in (a net inflow) as opposed to having the state pay fees. There's also a productivity point - many parents currently work in high earning sectors in order to

Oops somehow lost and regained a last paragraph there!

@shropshire11

I think most people value front-line workers, but public sector pay has to bear some relation to private sector pay (i.e. the people whose taxes actually cover the costs

You do realise that all the nurses, doctors, foreman, police council workers etc all pay tax and NI as well dont you?

Often private sector pay for comparable jobs is the same or even more

And redundancies are being made in public sectors as well

[quote ChnandlerBong]@BuggerBognor - no there have been a few posts on here re GPs. Just grates. Clearly you can feel what you like but this thread is not about GPs and felt it needed balancing.

'What the private sector does is irrelevant'?! The health of the private sector is fundamental. The whole economy has taken a nose dive. Tax revenues will fall - so spending does need controlling.

To allow public sector rises across the board now just wouldn't make sense. We don't have the money.[/quote]
You've taken my quote out of context.

Read properly what I wrote.

I'm saying that what the private sector does regarding staff pay is irrelevant in deciding what the public sector pay.

I'm just grateful to have a job in all honesty

Your argument holds no weight at all, as you can see from the private vs public wage growth attached here.

I've been expecting this backlash from the public sector, the ones who were quite happy to let businesses go under and people lose their jobs.....and now it has turned to them....different story