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?

Many Civil Service departments have scrapped pay scale increments as an efficiency saving. So you have an opportunity to negotiate a higher-than-minimum starting salary on entry if your skills justify it, then the only pay rise you receive is so-called cost of living, usually around 1%, or nothing at all if there are pay freezes (of which there have been more than there have rises over the past 20 years), which equates to a pay cut in real terms. For many Civil Servants the pay scales are meaningless, as they’re never going to move beyond the minimum. Once you’re in post there is no mechanism to negotiate any kind of individual rise, the only way to increase salary is to gain a promotion.

Many Civil Service departments have scrapped pay scale increments as an efficiency saving. So you have an opportunity to negotiate a higher-than-minimum starting salary on entry if your skills justify it This will widen the gender pay gap.

So once you are appointed to a salary starting position is there a bracket / ceiling - with no increments and only
Inflationary increases will there be more onus to apply realistic inflation as at 1-2% it's just not going to cut it?

Anyone have more insight on this?

They had one for Test and Trace😁

They had one for Test and Trace

And fraudulently claimed furlough payments, or PPE contracts to their mates, for PPE which didn't work, is now going out of date and will be burnt.

Accountants call these sunk costs, so once the money is gone, it's gone, but it very nicely illustrated that if the will was there, the money could be found.

@stickershock I moved into the pharma industry. When working in a specialist field, the reps get to know us over the years and managers often approach with opportunities. I resisted for a long time as patient care came first but there came a point where my family took priority.

All those who sit there from afar judging salaries and saying that it is a decent amount for newly qualified/doctor etc have no idea that they need to incur costs before they can do any work. When qualified, I paid half of one month's take home salary each year in subscriptions and indemnities which were essential to practice. This amount went up as I became more senior and took on more qualifications which I managed when I was FT but when dropping to PT hours, it was not sustainable.

From 2010-2018, pay was not just frozen. It was cut in every way possible. We used to have a small allowance for some of these professional fees (only about £50 towards £700+ in fees but it was something), on call payments were reduced from around £2500 annually to less than £1000, they changed how they paid our weekend work so we got less than half of that we originally received, the list goes on... As mentioned, the 2018 payrise was funded by removing increments within the band therefore saving paying people as they get experience. The original idea that the top of the band is the market rate of the job has long been forgotten and you must start at the bottom and now stay at that pay for a while, even with years of other experience

They have cut everywhere they can, screwed staff in every way they can, used up every last drop of goodwill in COVID and turned the money tap on for their friends yet nothing left to pay staff a decent wage for hard work. I may no longer work in NHS but fully support all public sector staff in wanting an inflationary increase - it still would not bring them even close to where they were 15 years ago. I have absolutely no doubt they pulled similar dirty tricks on education, civil servants and anyone else in public sector

They have cut everywhere they can, screwed staff in every way they can, used up every last drop of goodwill in COVID and turned the money tap on for their friends yet nothing left to pay staff a decent wage for hard work.

This is the crux I think. If we had all been in it together - if they had not been giving bungs left right and centre to their mates then we might be more willing to accept pay restraint.

It's a bit like one of those war time posters, which I think got pulled ' Your sacrifice, your hard work will give us victory.' To which a majority of people thought F* that for a game of soldiers -we have made sacrifices, we now want our share.

Who really brought the downfall of the miners with the unions greed and stubbornness? I will give you a clue, it wasnt Conservative.

Ah, I'm not on Agenda for Change so that explains it. I don't get the 3% but I have had a increment every year at least!

This is the crux I think. If we had all been in it together - if they had not been giving bungs left right and centre to their mates then we might be more willing to accept pay restraint

I’m pretty certain unrest could have been avoided by tougher strategies to tackle rising fuel bills (like temporary measures to lower or scrap VAT which would have had knock on effects on other goods). They still could do but there’s a time limit because prices that have gone up rarely return to lower levels and are forecast to rise again, which is why pressure for pay rises become inevitable.

There are lots of good reasons for strikes around job security and conditions, but I think household budgets have just smashed the remaining shreds of peoples patience. We’re heading into a winter where debt and all the longer term problems associated with that are inevitable for lots of people.

carefullycourageous
Many Civil Service departments have scrapped pay scale increments as an efficiency saving. So you have an opportunity to negotiate a higher-than-minimum starting salary on entry if your skills justify it This will widen the gender pay gap.

So once you are appointed to a salary starting position is there a bracket / ceiling - with no increments and only
Inflationary increases will there be more onus to apply realistic inflation as at 1-2% it's just not going to cut it?

Anyone have more insight on this?

Who really brought the downfall of the miners with the unions greed and stubbornness? I will give you a clue, it wasnt Conservative.

If you are talking about Scargill, he was never an elected politician. It still doesn't alter the fact that the strikes happened under Conservative Governments, even if you wish it did.

The pity of that whole episode was that a more far sighted Government could have been way ahead of the curve in promoting cleaner energy.

Yes, increments have been gone for years. So, you join as say a EO. The salary band is advertised as £20-£30k.

New joiners are expected to join at the minimum of the band. In exceptional cases, you can make a business case to start somewhere within the band but no higher than the £30k. This is usually based on extra qualifications, current salary etc.

Once you join, you stay on the same wage. It does not increase, you do not move through the band. The only pay changes are as a result of 'pay awards' which are signed off by Ministers. The Civil Service had 0 for 10 years and 0.5% in most depts last year. This doesn't apply if you start at the top of your salary band.

If you move to another dept within the Civil Service (e.g HMRC to DWP), you stay on your same wage if it's a level transfer and there is no option to negotiate.

If you get a promotion, you automatically go to the minimum of the next band with no option to negotiate.

Civil Service wages are stationary. They are slammed in the media and by politicians almost daily. The concept of ministerial accountability is disappearing. While the pension is good, (but no final salary pensions have been in place for over 20 years), the Civil Service is fast becoming unattractive and the view that Civil servants have an easy life is part of that problem.

That's really interesting I didn't realise that you get appointed to a salary and then pretty much stay there - if you're in the the same post for 10 years you'd have all that experience and possibly more qualifications but no further ahead in terms of salary - that wouldn't happen in the private sector surely?!!

I'm flabbergasted by this.

Yep! It's losing the CS a lot of talent and while I understand the pay considerations are different in the private sector, we do need to ensure there are talented people to run our country's infrastructure otherwise benefits aren't paid right, taxes aren't collected properly, justice isn't served and all the other essential things we rely on the Civil service for.

Heartcare beat me to the fuller explanation of how pay scales operate now.

Hopefully that gives a little more insight into why many public sector workers feel absolutely shafted. A 'gold-plated pension' is of no benefit if you have to opt out of the scheme in order to pay current bills because you've essentially taken a pay cut year on year.

And yes, of course we could look for another job, transfer to the private sector (and many do) but what's wrong with professionals asking to be renumerated for their skills, knowledge and experience at a rate which keeps within striking distance of the cost of living? Every time a Civil Servant thinks fuck it, I could get at least half as much again in the private sector and afford to pay more into a private pension that's a little bit of corporate memory gone, and the service being delivered gets that little bit worse until you can train up their replacement and they develop that corporate knowledge...and if you can't recruit a new starter because the pay is shit and doesn't attract the calibre of employee you need, what happens to our public services then?

This is the slow drip, drip, drip of talent leaving and either not being replaced at all - leaving the colleagues left behind to pick up the slack somehow - or being replaced by someone from a limited pool of candidates which doesn't include the best and brightest because they can be better rewarded for their talents in other sectors.

Uh no, private sector workers should join unions and organise.

Private sector workers aren't afforded that entitlement.

I think there are two deeper issues in this. The first is the broad brush definition of "public sector". There are, no doubt, public sector jobs where people are overpaid and others where they're underpaid. That then reflects in recruitment. Ultimately, a private sector employer has no choice but to pay the wages they need to recruit sufficient staff to operate their business with, as seen in the huge incentives given last year to truck drivers, etc. Otherwise they'll collapse. Public sector doesn't work like that and the long NHS waiting lists are at least in part the result of the job not being attractive enough to recruit people. Treating all public sector as though they are the same is illogical.

Public sector pay (and budgets) being determined by the government also means that a particular organisation finding it difficult to recruit can't offer incentives to candidates to attract staff from other businesses. In professional occupations, that competition for candidates happens all the time.

Secondly, this has been going on since 2010. That's twelve years of below average pay increases, due to austerity, Brexit, pandemic, etc. There's always another reason to offer below inflation pay. That isn't the norm in the "private sector" figures as a whole - there have been good years and bad years when it's all averaged out. Public sector has consistently been below inflation. And given that our employers are the ones managing the economy into this mess in the first place.

And yes, I agree that doctors shouldn't get 22% when nurses get 3%.

Private sector workers aren't afforded that entitlement.

This isn't true.

Um, private sector employees can join Unions and I'd very much encourage you to do so if you haven't already!

And not forgetting their own mps 11% payrises, expenses , 2nd homes, 10k bonus to work from home during covid, discounted food and drink in the parliament bar, jobs for their girlfriends ....need I go on

I am sure that the government will be along shortly to take away that right.

Private sector workers aren't afforded that entitlement

this is worded in a way that suggests that the writer thinks this is a ‘perk’. So not actually a bad entitlement to have.

And anyone can join a union.

Shocking how many people don't know about their workplace rights but complain when others exercise theirs!?