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?

Yes let the tax payer's throw even more money at public sector employees. Unions love to strike, love the destruction; it justifies their champagne socialist lifestyles.

@Callingoccupants
We've had a tory govt for the majority of the last 50 years and for the last decade

You're right wing dream land ideology has fucked it.

Would have been a real joy to have seen how spend spend spend Labour would have steered through the pandemic! Furlough wouldn't have even been on the table. Public money would have been thrown around like confetti.

Ask yourself why the Tories have dominated so long. Nice own goal there.

@Callingoccupants

Because the kind of people who are more likely to vote are more likely (by a tiny margin) to be tory. And because of the divide between north/south/England/Scotland.

Its not a rousing reinforcing of right wing ideology.

And it doesn't change that the tories have fucked everything up.

Including the pandemic

Public money would have been thrown around like confetti.

How terrible. It wouldn't have been round to line the pockets of Boris Johnson's mates!

Which party was in power during the two miners' strikes? If you have forgotten, I will give you a clue, it wasn't Labour.

There is a huge swathe of pensioners who were responsible enough to try and save for an extra pension in retirement, only to find their efforts have put them marginally above the Pension Credit level.

There are large numbers of women pensioners who aren't entitled to a pension in their own right, having paid what was called the married woman's stamp, which didn't accrue pension benefits. Large numbers were either not in employment or in low waged jobs. In many cases Employers pension schemes were not open to lower paid workers, or even open to women at all, until various sex discrimination acts got passed. So they haven't had the chance to accrue a decent pension.

However, I will admit that those pensioners with good employer's pensions can be comfortable if not rich.

The thought of all that 💰 in the hands of Labour, squandering it on proles, makes my blood tun cold. Thank heavens it's found its proper purpose, lining the pockets of BJ and mates. What's the point of having all that free cash at your disposal if you cant put it to good use? Thanks taxpayers.

It's time to stop thinking of public sector workers as some other sort of person. The public sector worker is one who makes sure that the railway track is maintained so that the train taking you to work doesn't crash and kill you. The public sector worker is the person teaching your children. The public sector worker is the person staffing hospitals. So are MPs, although a certain number of them do appear to have forgotten this.

@Peregrina

Its pretty depressing to think people view public sector workers as a drain or even worse as ripping them off/stealing from them.

The utter contempt and lack of value placed on these roles that most of us would be fucked without is really sad

Public spending has been high in the pandemic, demand was high for it, opposition was weak which wasn’t great

It won’t necessarily get better with strikes, more inflation, interest rates up, more people needing cash pay outs

I saw a thing yesterday saying that to tackle inflation we need a period of high unemployment (it was American)

5 years above 6 %

Is that what people want? They'd rather have a long period of unemployment and lots more people in poverty and reliant on the state?

I think another issue is that in the last 70 years UK population increased by 15 million people. Previous models on funding public sector jobs don't work anymore - we have more people, more salaries to pay, we have benefits to pay. Unfortunately a lot of the population still rely on this benefits, and don't put enough money into the system. Therefore there is simply not enough money to properly fund public services, let along "gold plated" pensions.

No but is that the only way? Re unemployment

Or other methods too

At least we have high employment now tg

To Top

@MarshaBradyo

Its the only way if we don't tackle wealth inequality

The public sector needs a complete overhaul. It’s not efficient and there’s too much waste. It should be streamlined and recruitment targeted where’s its really needed. Pensions, sick pay, benefits, pay and working conditions brought into line with the private sector. We can’t afford big pay rises whilst it’s running as it is now, but they are needed.

Ok I’d have to read up tbh

i did study it ages ago - too far back now

My concern is wage spiral and interest rates rocketing, the 70s pretty much with inflation spiking high and strikes

@MarshaBradyo

But you weren't concerned by the top 1 % spiralling wages prior to this?

Top I’ve thought a fair bit about the difference between countries that I know well and I’d say I prefer a Gini coefficient around a certain point and not to US levels but I don’t think we’ll get to Scandinavia levels (oddly it was higher at end of Blair but on face value only haven’t read more on it)

I’ve lived in Aus, US and U.K. and choose here but I can see others prefer a different model, which is up to them

iirc inequality increased from 70s to 90s then steadied late 90s, there was were a few periods of difficulty in those decades which imo can benefit the 1% - like the response to the pandemic did

The public demand stuff that makes it worse for most - lockdowns for example and there’s a risk a wage spiral, strikes etc on top will do the same again

@MarshaBradyo

Wealth inequality may have steadied in the 90s but its been increasing ecer since and has gotten worse since (weirdly as they caused it) the 2010 crash.

There's no justification for it

Asking for a fair wage in comparison to what the top 10% are taking isn't a demand.

The public sector needs a complete overhaul. It’s not efficient and there’s too much waste.

Do you speak from experience, or is it what you have read in the Daily Mail?

I ask, because until I retired I had worked in both sectors. There was just as much waste in the private sector. The major difference was that in the private sector the silly inflated salaries mostly seemed to go to a bunch of not terribly bright men. Women slogged away conscientiously in the lower paid jobs.

What exactly brought on the period of austerity from 2010 if it wasn't the private sector banking crash of 2008? How can that be said to be efficient?

It peaked at 38.6% in 2007 / 2008 and now is 34.4%

Yes, my public sector department is already operating at 73% staffing because people don't want to be public sector employees when they can get better pay elsewhere. Those of us that can do better elsewhere are doing so. Me included. Unfortunately it's the vulnerable in society that are suffering because of it.

No carers available for anyone (private or LA funded), long NHS waiting lists etc.

Every single study shows its getting worse.

I dont know where your figures are from

equalitytrust.org.uk/scale-economic-inequality-uk

www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/04/economic-inequality-wealth-gap-pandemic/

www.oxfam.org/en/5-shocking-facts-about-extreme-global-inequality-and-how-even-it