Public sector pay rise demands unreasonable?

[stickershock]

I’m a nurse and outraged that we’ll only be getting (most likely) a 3% wage increase. I’m fully in favour of a strike action. But I’ve also just read that the junior doctors are planning a strike if they aren’t awarded a 22% increase 😮

We have all been losing wages year on year but 22% seems unrealistic. AIBU or have they got brilliant bargaining tactics?

@Nellodee

That is a stark graphic. I’ve been on UPS3 for about six years now and have had either 0.5 or 1% pay rises for all that time. It is really starting to bite this year. My petrol to school is now £50 a month more expensive so it has totally eaten any pay rise from Sept. And that is before you look at food/bills.

I love my job but this is not sustainable. Our ECTs are really feeling the pinch as they are mostly single and cannot afford to live closer to school as the area we are in is so expensive.

Just because they public sector, doesn't mean that they should be less impacted by the current cost of living crisis.
Why should teachers be subsidised over other employees of similar or much lower wages who are also impacted?
As I said, public sector has had it good for a long time in terms of comparable pay, for their qualifications, pensions, job security and annual leave etc. Now some may have to do what millions of workers do and cut their cloth accordingly.
The teachers in the school that I am a governor for, are all still going abroad this year, still hosting parties and planning days out to Alton Towers etc (which will cost hundreds in fuel atm). Does that sound like a school of staff struggling?

@Legrandsophie
Gosh, that £41,604 must be hard to live on compared to those on low salaries!

What do you think the pension package is? It is no longer that great. It’s not final salary for any but the ones quite close to retirement. I have been teaching for nearly twenty years and my pension is not final salary the cut off for that was people who started the year before me. Most teaching staff are contributing 9% to their own pension and it is now career average, which is a massive saver for the government because teaching is an overwhelmingly female profession I.e- so many of us go part time for a stretch when we have kids that it means our pensions are screwed.

They aren’t gold plated and do not make up for the fact that between food, fuel prices and relentless abuse from parents and kids it is becoming an unattractive prospect for my young people picking a career. The remuneration package my sister gets from her private company is miles better.

Private sector I reckon can negotiate wages and/or has more mobility within the field?

They may be less formalised, but of course every job title has its market worth and you aren't going to get more than that no matter how much negotiating you do. Then once you max out you need to chase a promotion to get that and often that can't be done without upskilling. So I don't think it's very different in reality.

What do you think the pension package is? It is no longer that great.

Most public sector pensions are direct benefit, which are still much better than direct contribution, which is what most private sector pensions are.

Go and read up on it. It's astonishing how little people understand this.

I’m part time prorata 0.4 so it’s not £41,000.

And that’s not because I’m some Uber posh yummy mummy. It’s because I cannot afford to work full time. Between the increased cost of childcare for my DC and employing carers to take over looking after my elderly parent I would be much, much worse off.

I can’t go back to full time work until it is financially viable.

So maybe stow your envy. You have no idea what other people’s lives are.

I’ve been noticing that it’s a lot of the groups who were shrieking for more lockdown, more furlough, “staying safe!” etc who are now looking for pay rises, and seem surprised that there’s no money snd the world’s gone to shit. What did people think would happen?

That was really rude. I understand a lot of pensions, actually. And a lot about the different remunerations in my field on the private sector. Do you know anything about teaching or teacher’s pay beyond what you read online?

I’ve been noticing that it’s a lot of the groups who were shrieking for more lockdown, more furlough, “staying safe!” etc who are now looking for pay rises, and seem surprised that there’s no money snd the world’s gone to shit

Well quite.

And in fairness, people were telling them that the economic consequences would hit at some point, but they didn't want to engage with that at the time.

That was really rude

It @isn't rude. The ignorance about this is staggering.

I understand a lot of pensions, actually.

Then you'll understand what a great option your direct benefit is compared to most private sectors direct contribution.

True

Although anyone talking about economic hit was attacked fairly roundly so I guess there’s that

Here's a good starting point

www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/032415/how-does-defined-benefit-pension-plan-differ-defined-contribution-plan.asp

No, it’s not. In a job directly comparable in the private sector the pay and benefits are nearly a third higher and negotiable.

I’m not going to list all the comparable jobs and benefits packages for a someone similarly educated and experienced in the private sector but suffice to say they are all better paid with better benefits packages over all- not just pensions but bonuses and access to private healthcare.

To be clear- doctors, nurses, the police and teachers are trained, experienced professionals, not minimum wage works. Comparing their pensions to someone who is working admin for a large company is not a fair point. Because that is not who you have to compete with to recruit. It is not the same pool of workers. You are competing with big tech companies/ large well paid industries. If the public sector can’t compete then they will not recruit.

@MamanDeChoix

20% to 30% of public sector workers (I presume the lowest earners) dont even pay into a pension so I'm sure they would gladly have it scrapped in favour of a pay rise

You cant afford to prep for the future if you cant pay your bills now.

And why should public sector workers bear the brunt of this economic crisis when the richest have made trillions just in the last 2 years and keep getting richer?

If you could guarantee that every single person in the private sector would also be worse off, I'd say sure. 'We're all in it together'

But we all know that's bullshit

Are you facing a pay cut out of interest? Will you be choosing between heating and eating?

If not your comments come off as patronising at best

Thanks, I don’t need schooling in pensions and economics by you.

@Legrandsophie

The arguments are bizarre.

How dare professionals in the public sector ask for a pay rise!!

Mw workers in the private sector dont get one and they dont have a pension!!

Yeah but professionals in the private sector do. Dont see them giving up their higher rate for pay and pensions to give their mw colleagues more, huh?

but suffice to say they are all better paid with better benefits packages over all- not just pensions but bonuses and access to private healthcare.

Do you have any evidence to back up your assertion that these jobs offer direct benefit pensions?

Because that's very rare in the private sector, so I'd be keen to see the evidence.

*Thanks, I don’t need schooling in pensions and economics by you.

Sure 😉

"It @isn't rude. The ignorance about this is staggering."

"Then you'll understand what a great option your direct benefit is compared to most private sectors direct contribution."

What is staggering is that you are lecturing others about pensions ignorance when you don't understand the difference between defined benefit and defined contribution.....

when you don't understand the difference between defined benefit and defined contribution

what don't I understand?

As I said, public sector has had it good for a long time in terms of comparable pay, for their qualifications, pensions, job security and annual leave etc. Now some may have to do what millions of workers do and cut their cloth accordingly.

”Now” public sector workers may have to cut their cloth? Did you miss the post pointing out the real terms pay cut over more than a decade? We’ve been cutting our cloth for years, just like everyone else. We’re not immune from stagnant wages and rising prices, once in post we have no opportunity to negotiate a pay rise; many CS departments have scrapped incremental pay progression points to save money so increasingly you start on the pay scale minimum and stay there unless you secure a promotion.

The attitudes here are not necessarily surprising, but they are depressing. The race to the bottom mentality. The references to “taxpayers subsidising public sector workers”, as though public sector workers aren’t taxpayers too, and as if the reason for our existence wasn’t to provide services that everyone needs and benefits from, free at the point of use. The quickness to criticise those services without the ability or willingness to join the dots to see that if you systematically downvalue a profession, if you successfully demonise it so that pay freezes and removal of some of the rewards that made it attractive to workers are seen as “justified”, if you support endless cuts and recruitment freezes when they’re badged as “trimming back a bloated Civil Service” then you get the public services you deserve, delivered by exhausted, demoralised, overworked staff who are constantly expected to do more with less.

Yes, this. I worked in critical care previously so did two ICU redeployments. Worked to the bone, 14, 16 hour shifts day after day after night and never compensated for any of it, not in overtime or TOIL. Helplessly watching people die in the first wave and new junior doctors and nurses in charge of patients they never should have managed (sometimes a newly qualified nurse with four level 3s (the most critical) all just dying in front of her eyes whilst she sobbed, or a F1 overseeing six covid ICU beds and hardly knowing how to cannulate someone, watching them all die too). We were all helpless then and many still suffer the trauma of it all. The second wave was worse because patients now had paranoias and beliefs about covid and how it was all "fake," patients telling me to sod off after being extubated, telling me that covid is a conspiracy and they just want to get out of the bloody hospital, shouting racist epithets, families shouting down the phone at us not to test their intubated and unwell person for covid because it was all a lie...etc etc... This is of course in addition to the already strained system and pressures and abuse we face from patients daily, angry about waits, racism and verbal abuse directed towards staff, etc. (And to counter the argument pre-emptively, NO, this is not what I signed up for when I trained as a nurse!)

Looking at other countries in Europe, their healthcare staff were given raises, one-off bonuses, or even in the case of France (I believe), foreign nurses received citizenship. Here in the UK we got claps in the first wave and nothing after, just Rashid Javid saying there's no money for the NHS and an NI increase that is going...where?

I recognise there are private healthcare services but the reality is that there aren't any real alternatives for the vast majority of NHS staff. I cannot believe that anyone thinks the work private sector employees do is anything close to what the healthcare staff do, especially since 2020.

"what don't I understand?"

There is no such thing as "direct" pensions for a start.
Maybe try reading that link you sent

There is no such thing as "direct" pensions for a start.

ive said direct benefit or direct contribution.

if I missed that out it was a typo.

anything further?