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?

Plus it's going to get worse due to an ageing population

@Topgub I honestly don't have a clue.
The system is completely broken and needs to be radically overhauled because we can't keep borrowing more and more money with no real plans for paying it off

Ok let’s put it differently then.

The magic money tree….sorry, the magic money press has been running non-stop since 2008. And during Covid, to pay for the lockdown largesse, including furlough pay for healthy adults sat at home, that press was putting in a double shift.

That is a big reason for the mess we are in.

So sure, go shake the tree, sorry press some more. See what happens.

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them”, said someone far smarter than me.

@Kathleen

Cleaners are band 2s.

Band 1s were phased out a while ago.

I guess its hospital dependent but fyis are ward or Ed allocated here and certainly not responsible for 100s of pts

They are definitely underpaid but I'm not sure the 14 per hour thing is accurate

What is unreasonable, is that this runaway inflation was completely avoidable. Let’s hope that all those asking for higher pay and not getting it didn’t support Covid lockdowns. If they did, then they asked for this.

Disagree this was coming regardless as we didn't recover from 08 & had all that QE. Then Brexit & covid to top it off.

@Hoardasurass

Interesting that we're so broken that we automatically assume more borrowing rather than more income

What would you think of a flat rate increase for public sector staff - so within sectors, the lowest paid get a much higher percentage than the highest paid. It's happening in my industry now (private).

Defence barristers are also interesting, part of the issue is the backlog

We had a rousing speech from a judge on jury duty recently that jury duty was stopped for the first time, not even in the world wars. We had a case next to us that was meant to take 8 weeks and took 7 months due to Covid interruptions. The impact has been colossal.

We’re seeing sick kick back now from all these decisions

@Topgub the government doesn't have a magic money tree so could you please explain where you expect the money for the double figure % pay rises?

seems this government has a magic money tree when it wants to reward their cronies. The only time people think about certain public service workers is when they withdraw their public service.

That old crap about 'saddling the young with debt' was one of the tropes Cameron and Osbourne used to justify the busted flush that was austerity.

We can't actually hit income taxes any more particularly when young people have had decades of wage stagnation & ridiculous house prices. It will lead to brain drain & we need more young people than we have now.

@Topgub

those figures are accurate.

Covid and QE are one and the same thing. QE was a choice made. The other choice was not to lockdown healthy people while giving them QE money.

That makes no sense at all. Why should private sector pay be limited? The private sector funds the public sector as is.

@MarshaBradyo

The decisions made during covid have literally destroyed the nhs.

(I know some will argue it would have been destroyed without those interventions but I dont agree)

Its a shit storm I dont think we can recover from.

Maybe not for decades by which time climate change will have properly kicked in and we'll be fucked anyway

Covid and QE are one and the same thing. QE was a choice made. The other choice was not to lockdown healthy people while giving them QE money.

QE has been propping up the economy before covid.
Re pandemic you can't lockdown without supporting people. They should not have paused stamp duty.

Yep we’ll overlay with climate change soon and in the meantime the war is ongoing and volatile

With all this I think we got pandemic response out of whack and it was something we couldn’t afford

I'm old, this is like the 1970s all over again.

People will walk with their feet, already the cleverest kids at my teacher DHs (private) school are rejecting medicine as a career and going into tech/law/finance for less stress and several times more pay.
My DD has quit teaching after just 2 years and has retrained in tech, work from home on a starting salary of £50k.
One of my DSs earns more than me at the age of 21. He is also in tech. For context I'm top of band 6 in the NHS (£39k) which is the equivalent if a ward sister.
It's not a race to the bottom and I font resent private pay, but how on earth do they expect to recruit into teaching and the NHS if they wont pay decent wages.

I haven't RTFT but I just wanted to say that I genuinely think nurses, social care staff and teachers should not only take a leaf out of RMT's book but take the whole book. Go the whole hog.

Again yet more baseless accusations to deflect the fact that you don't have any answers.
Why don't you take your nasty bs elsewhere unless you have anything actually useful to add to the debate

Citizens of the uk do not have a magic money tree, so if rent and utilities are rising so much but salaries are not, how do you expect people to afford to live?

We're always told that higher earners deserve their wages because they work hard/studied and we have to pay well to attract talent/prevent brain drain.

Yet some how that doesn't apply to the public sector?

Things do feel pretty bleak right now it has to be said

Sorry that last post was ment for @Assanctamonioysastheycome

@kathleen567 the band 1 was removed in 2018. They're automatically on band 2 now and they get £17.23 per hour on a bank holiday. Usual rate of pay is £18750 a year and they don't get to work every bank holiday.

Standard rate of pay for an fy1 dr is £29384 a year goes up to £34012 in second year and they get a 37% increase for nights, weekend allowance and on call pay

I think many industries are in for a surprise, the government know that large pay rises will just increase inflation even faster and prolong the problem it for everyone (I say I’m a house pretty low paid public sector workers). It would be dreadfully I’ll advised to give big pay increases. Inflation is tough for the whole world, not just us.