To think public sector workers

[firsttimemum77]

Are being 'punished' for mistakes made by bankers / previous government? I work for my LA and at the moment everything around making savings is centred around our jobs and salaries! People think we earn loads, get bonuses etc etc - I certainly don't and I work unsociable hours with no bonuses and a average wage which pays my mortgage and bills...

So AIBU to feel like this or do I deserve it because I work in the public sector!

Penthesileia

North Sea Oil is just not comparable to Norway's oil reserves it wouldn't have written 1 trillion worth of pensions

And i'm not comitted to any scheme

but the one you say is a disgrace is exactly what people in the private sector are forced to accept

If we could have final salary too it would all be fine but if we can't all have one, why do you get one and we don't?

sorry written underwritten

MillyR, to go back to your previous point - I think the problem is that our food is picked and processed by immigrants and other people on the minimum wage, and our clothes are made far away, out of sight, and there aren't many company cars and gym memberships involved there. Sure, there may well be among some of the people involved in their distribution and sales, but it's why it makes me angry when people start talking about gym memberships and the private sector in the same breath. It feels as if people are forgetting what the private sector IS.

answer me peni

No Vesela, I think you are forgetting what the private sector is. The private sector are (and some of these have been mentioned on this thread) waitresses, many care workers for the elderly, hill farmers on 12 grand a year, cleaners, train drivers, builders, hairdressers and so on.

Even in the financial institutions most of the employees work in IT, or in the canteen, or on the counter in banks, or on reception.

Sorry Vesela I think I have taken your meaning to be the opposite of what you intended.

splodge: sorry, then, if I misinterpreted what you've posted on this thread. You implied earlier that you were putting £400 a month into a pension plan which would, at current value, pay out £4000 a year when you retire.

I agree entirely that the private sector has treated its employees shabbily. You deserve better pension provision. As I have already said, leaving aside the question of the poor planning of the public funding of public sector pensions (no planning at all, it would seem), there is no reason why decent pensions ought not to be available to all. It's a question of priorities. Are you in a union, at all? That's the kind of thing unions fight for.

I repeat, however: my scheme is private, and not government backed (which appears to be your beef today), so I "get" it, because I (and my employer) pay for it.

And as I already said, I "get" this deferred pay, because, in opting (in my sector) to follow the career path that I have, I have chosen to earn less than I might otherwise in the private sector.

GerbilMeasles: yes, according to the last report (though a more complete/up-to-date one is due next year), there is a predicted hole in the USS pension fund owing to the global recession.

Gaelicsheep, I didn't take your comments as being aimed at me personally - I did take it (mistakenly, as it turns out) to have been aimed at an amorphous mass of workers who have very little in common. I also loathe the whole "public v private" hype we seem to be exposed to at the moment - I don't like to see either sector being damned, and hadn't realised that you were simply illustrating a point.

Penthesileia - I stand by my comments. The current unaffordability of private pensions is the result mainly of political decisions - regulations which were perfectly reasonable in themselves, and which addressed a specific mischief (companies going insolvent and leaving pension schemes - and therefore employees and former employees - with no pension) have been applied in a way which requires all private pension schemes to ensure that within a fairly short time scale, they are fully funded and able to meet all current liabilities on the basis that they could find a lump sum to an insurance product to secure those liabilities. The difference with public sector pensions is that they are able to take a longer view, and meet those liabilities as they fall due for payment (which, for a 20 year old now joining the pension scheme, will be no sooner than 40 or 45 years in the future, and which are likely to extend 30 or more years after that date) not as a lump sum in advance.

I don't think that final salary pension schemes are unaffordable; they are probably unaffordable in their current incarnation, because most private companies cannot guarantee that they will be around to pay the pensions of employees who will retire 40 years hence - so private pension schemes can't have the leeway that public schemes do.

If there was the political will, it would be possible to establish a pension scheme which gives a known pension for a known level of contribution without (as seems to be the case with splodge's pension) the individual having to take risks with investments. There was such a scheme between 1978 and 1988, run by the government, open to all, providing a known pension.

It cannot be the case in a decent society that people are unable to make arrangements to provide themselves with a pension with a reasonable level of certainty, or are discouraged from doing so because of a complex and costly means-testing system of pensions. Sadly, I don't think that the political will is there, and as to corporate will, they have to operate within their own markets. When most companies provided pension schemes, any company not doing so was at a competitive disadvantage in recruiting and retaining staff. When most companies are closing their pension schemes, there is no particular competitive advantage in providing a pension scheme - you need a critical mass for the market to work.

Anyway, well off track, and I now have to walk the dog unless I want poo on the carpet, which is probably a more pressing issue than the nation's old age pensions.

Thank you for your long and considered post, Gerbil. I think (?) we agree; that is, pension provision is not dependent on (un)affordability, but political will.

PMSL @ Splodge utterly ignoring any statement that goes against her. Wonderful debating skills, shout loudly, get emotional and then attack with either aggression or passive aggression as fits the need but at all times just stick to your point and ignore anyone else's.

To paraphrase some of the many questions you have ignored whilst attacking the public sector without pausing for breath or making any new points other than to add a fresh insult to us work-shy louts:

a) If you are so jealous why not work in the public sector? Do you perhaps not fancy being shot at, spat at, sworn at and having to be a public servant?
b) If you hate the public sector so much and resent paying for it we all assume you do not use the NHS, state schools, rubbish collections, police or allow yourself to be protected by the military?
c) You are happy to constantly bang on about the pension yet utterly ignore the simple fact that there are no company cars, bonuses, free gym memberships or anything of that type in the public sector. You have wonderfully side-stepped the simple fact put across that there is a difference between taking your perks and cash now and getting it later. The difference is simply which sector you work in... and even that grossly oversimplifies it as the gap in pay and benefits is so wide that the pension barely touches it.
d) You ignored the fact that many public sector jobs have had below inflation pay rises for the best part of a decade.
e) Where you got your figure of 70% for goofing off from?
f) Where your utter lack of respect for the military, nurses, doctors, teachers, refuse collectors, midwives and other public sector workers comes from?

I won't hold my breath in expectation of a sensible, rational and polite answer as you have been nothing but rude and obnoxious since your first post on this thread. In fact if you aren't going to be polite, sensible and avoid all the wondrous tricks you have employed lately to basically mimic a Daily Mail style of debate then please don't bother to answer as I have to deal with enough crap in my public sector job (alongside the rewards of being a public servant) everyday and don't fancy more of it now.

Thank you.

Thanks Penthesileia. I think that we do agree and am very proud that I mentioned to slip a poo reference into my post, thereby bringing the level of what had (mostly) been a very measured debate down to gutter level.

As a (completely spurious) aside, am I the only person who gets great satisfaction from picking up and bagging a large dog poo (large poo, not dog, relatively small dog actually, am quite impressed with the amount of poo she can produce). It should be revolting, but strangely isn't.

This shall be my motto henceforth - you can keep your gold-plated pensions, just give me a big bag of warm poo, and I'm a happy woman.

Dear scardy cat name change. what's the matter are you too chicken to show your real self to distribute your insults?

I would answer your q's but your last paragraph means that I shan't be lowering myself to your level this evening.

Instead to summarize:

This is not about individuals job swapping but about a principle - a principle of equality of opportunity.

it's not about hating anyone.

Below inflationary pay rises - you make me laugh and expose your ignorance of the real world - when there's no cash in the company there ARE ZERO pay rises and ZERO sevarence pay - and for most people there are no employer contributions either

Milly - yes, you understood me right the second time! I just find that people come up with some odd things about the private sector.

at GerbilMeasles

@Splodge

Ah so you are incapable of being polite or addressing the points raised. Thanks for clearing that up. Keep on trolling!

Splodge - I don't think you are a troll and I can understand WHY you are irritated. I stand by my earlier comments but invite you to look for comparable job within the NHS. The NHS Jobs website has everything from Accountancy to X-Ray techs. I am sure you will find a job within the next 6 months on there..... then join the pension scheme before the new Govt abandons it.

I don't earn anything like 24k so won't be getting a 12k pension. You however, might depending upon what your skills are. There are no other perks though but I am guessing that you might not be getting these in the private sector at the moment anyway.

I don't know why we are still discussing this. There are going to be cuts in the public services. This means either (in fact probably all of) job losses, cuts to salary, cuts to pensions (which are deferred salary - but still will need to be cut).

What the public sector do is entirely irrelevant.

Splodge you are being deliberately misleading.

The only way you could get a 12K pension on a 24K salary is under a version of the civil service scheme which closed to new entrants nearly 8 years ago. You would also have had to have worked in your department for 40 years, full time.

It is generous but doesn't apply to a lot of public sector workers. Also to quote my scheme booklet "your pension, along with your pay, forms part of your total benefits package"

Yes its a lot more generous than a private scheme for someone earning the same, but it is part of the employment package. In a private sector employment contract it isn't. As simple as that. In my department someone earning 24K could get a job earning substantially more in the private sector, and use the extra to make their own pension arrangements so that they would have a comparable pension.

Cuts already coming in my office - they want to retire two health visitors (both at retirement age but enjoying work) and both with massive child protection caseloads which the rest of us will have to absorb. Before anyone says "but in the private sector we have had to absorb work from absent posts for x amount of years" I will simply say that with reduced staff to monitor the living conditions of the children involved that more will be missed. In most cases it means the children might suffer more - in the worst case scenario it could mean the difference between life and death.

Of course both HVs are at the top of their salary level. The rationale being that the manager can "employ new HVs". The fact that the UK hasn't trained that many HVs in the past 8 years and that our PCT has had an open ended advert for HVs since forever with no applicants appears simply to have passed the numpty who came up with this idea by.

Splodge. I considered my employers contributions to my pension scheme a small recompense for the (on average) eleven hours of unpaid overtime I did per week.

Geek point, this was worked out over 52 weeks. 11 x 52 = 575 hours which, if I was actually paid for them, would come to about 27% (at time only, not OH pay) of my annual hours. The employers 6% contribution pales in comparison to this.

Ahyhoo...Cuts in my dept too. I work on a business critical system. The "team" is being cut from 2 and a half positions to one.

Sorry, I am a bit of a pensions geek so have to dispute one point on this thread.

A defined benefit (final salary) pension costs a lot of money to provide, but the real value isn't in the pension which could be small if you have a low income/short service. The real value lies in the guarantee.

The idea that if you worked in the private sector and earned, say, £35k instead of £25k in the public sector, you could provide an equivalent pension for yourself is not correct. If you put all of that £10k directly into your pension, invested well and were lucky you might be able to build up a decent pension pot. But then, if the market is crap when you need to retire you might not have enough to live on. Plus if annuity prices are not good at the time you might find yourself pretty screwed. Annuity prices are shocking - the last time I looked £100k would buy a 65 year old woman between £6k and £7k of pension per year. Fabulous it is not.

So it is really really hard to compare DB and DC pension arrangements. If I were offered a badly paid job with a DB pension and a better paid one with a DC arrangement I would probably take the worse paid job. The guarantee is worth a lot more than anything I could put into a pension scheme.

Also, all pension is "deferred compensation". The difference is that it has been being chipped away at for longer in the private sector. It's not unusual now to be offered no employer contributions at all to a scheme (although this will change from 2012, a little bit anyway). To provide an adequate pension you'd need to be putting away a lot (+20%) of your income from the off. And who has managed that? The reality is we all just need to retire a lot later- I plan on working to my 70s.

I don't think public sector workers should be pilloried for their pensions, but I also think that they should acknowledge that it is one hell of a benefit. I'm envious, not cross!

we do see them as a benefit- trust me sometimes its all that keeps us in the job.

Don't get me wrong- I love my job most days but in a lot of the public sector jobs you have to become the job 24/7 and its very hard to switch off.
For me the pension scheme is more than money but a symbol of gratitude for serving your time as a public servant.

The guarantee is worth a huge amount. When I worked for a firm of actuaries some years ago, they were advising their clients to go DC I noticed that they themselves retained a DB scheme.

Thanks Haliborage

I too am a pensions geek, I only realised recently what the differences between DC and DB are

I honestly think one of the problems here is that the public sector - in general doesn't understand how different their pensions are, they don't 'get' the guarantee bit

And I don't blame them, it took a lot of research for me to understand it all - and why would you bother researching all that when you already know you're covered?

The buit in safety net for public sector pensions is paid for by people who could never ever have the same guaratee for themselves and all this talk about 'get a job in the public sector' is mindless - we can't all work in the public sector, this argument is not about individual cases but the principle of equality.

And the differences are huge

I use averages because they are the most sensible figures to use - theirs no point saying 'yes but i don't earn that' - of course you don't by definition is not going to be what everyone earns but it helps illustrate the point.

We could extrpolate either way

12k public sector salary =4.5k pension guaranteed
12k private secor salary =£500 (unguarateed)

This difference is just too huge and cannot be bridged by perceived better incomes in the private sector.

And these guarantees apply to 90% of the public sector workforce