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!

And George if you're watching...

My father used used to work as an Occupational Physician for the police/firebrigade - the amount unjustified sickness absence he dealt with was horrifying but what was worse still was the oodles of people faking illness, saying they were stressed knowing full well they could retire on a big fat pension

This simply cannot be allowed to continue

I work for LEA and DH works for a certain bank. He has had no pay increases for the past 5 years or so and no bonuses etc for the past 2 years. His basic salary is £19,000 and since there is no paid overtime, despite working at least 1.5 hours extra each day, £19,000 is what he gets. I don't even earn £15,000 so there is no way my pension is going to be anything approaching that amount. I also contribute towards my pension and have done ever since starting work there. As anyone who works in education will know,since there is usually not enough money to pay for enough resources, there is certainly no money for overtime, again, despite the fact that I and my colleagues work the equivalent of an extra day each week.

The problem is not with those of us at the bottom of the ladder, whether private or public sector, it is with those at the top who seem to have cast iron contracts giving 'bonuses' for failure and ridiculous pension pots.

From the Office of National Statistics

"The percentage difference between the median level of full-time earnings in the public sector (£539 per week) and the private sector (£465 per week) widened over the year to April 2009..."

I have read the thread. I understand from the thread that people are feeling threatened. Which is unfortunate but employees in the private sector were threatened two years ago when the redundancies started.

It is quite simply factually accurate to state that public sector workers are paid more.

There is a lot of anecdotal evidence to suggest that they are paid more for working less, as well, and improvements in productivity are going to have to be achieved.

hey, agent, there's my key lime pie recipe. but you can't get key limes here so just use standard ones! they need to be at room temp and i roll them round on the worktop before juicing them.

mmm, pie.

Gaelicsheep, think i am on the same scheme as you. Think the civil service get a much better deal including on things like maternity pay, for which i get benefits that are significantly less than the majority of my friends, who work in positions of equivalent responsibility in the private sector.

I work in the public sector and I have to say we are probably fairly lucky compared to others in the private sector. I haven't felt under pressure during the credit crunch in terms that I might lose my job as I know others have.

I have noticed a bit of belt tightening but to be honest, it's long overdue and more is needed - fewer quangos, fewer top managers, less people talking management speak and more people actually doing the job. I have same some shady practices in my time, blatant misuse of public funds and definite mismanagement of funds but I think generally, it's getting better.

I don't agree with pay cuts though - why would I voluntarily work for less?!? I'm afraid that I am not that noble. There's too much talk of the small person or Average Joe doing his or her bit whereas the people earning hundreds of thousands /millions who caused the mess in the first place are still profiteering.

My experience of public sector sickness behaviour is that it is very much in the minority

Over the last few years it has become less and less well-tolerated, and although I won't deny it is difficult to oust a stubborn and bare-faced bludger, there are certainly not oodles of them...

well I wasn't going to enter the private vs public debate but seriously there are some ludicrous comments on here about public sector workers.

Not sure what a full entitlement of sick days is, whilst not disagreeing that public sector workers probably take a higher number of sick days per annum than private, in the main it's because sickness isn't properly managed in the public sector as far as I can tell and people can just get away with it. I'm sure plenty of people would take advantage of that, whatever sector you work in. Certainly don't know anyone where I work that takes sick days as leave, it affects our PRP if we're off sick.

Have never had a payrise in the last few years that has been in line with inflation or even close to those of many people I know in the private sector, think it was 0.1% last year, and certainly well below inflation in previous years, and yes I will be under a pay freeze this year and yes plenty of local authorities around here have made redundancies or are not recruiting when someone leaves and yes where I work is also making redundancies.

"Depends whether you are one of the 70% lazy public sector workers who take their full entitlement of sick days as holiday or one of the 30% that works extra hours and carries them!? "
I'm not sure what that means. The "full entitlement" of sick days, on full pay and certified would be 6 months I guess. Do 70% of public sector workers take that?
Maybe working in an LEA isn't typical, but I didn't see this pattern of waste, over-staffing and slacking. I saw a lot of people working very hard. Some cracked and truly did go down with stress, but mostly they just plodded on day after day. At the middle and senior management level people were expected to work ridiculous hours. When I made it to the level of junior management my pay increased by about 10% and my hours went through the roof, with no overtime of course. And you know what? There were and still are a lot of dedicated people out there slogging away in the admin roles that support our schools. That's not an profession where you could do without 90% of them and employ monkeys, as I hope we never discover.

Tell us about the public sector redundancies fluffy,

are they statutory minimum???? No, I didn't think

The public sector workers on here are so deluded that they don't even realise their pensions equate to something for nothing

we don't get paid more, work longer hours and no one underwrites or contributes to our shitty pension schemes

I agree Anyfucker, it is made clear at our school that you come into work unless you are dead and even then you have to email in your cover work first.

Sickness absence in the public sector is 55% higher than in the private sector

Tryharder, out of interest, what area of the public sector do you work in? I suspect that there are great differences in working in different parts of the public sector. Certainly in my experience, working in an Education Authority was gritty and there wasn't a lot of waste (no quangos).

sayithowitis - I certainly don't get paid overtime either. Flexitime is a big con as it only works if you choose to build up hours rather than having to because of your workload. If you have to work extra hours then de facto you can't take the time off you're due = large amounts of unpaid work.

BexJ78 - yes you're right. Maternity provision is better than pure statutory but pretty darned poor compared with the civil service. That's why I get so damned annoyed when people lump together "public sector" workers.

You're right, Quattro. My reference to the bankers was oversimplistic.
In fact, my job did go because of the financial crisis.
The public sector jobs that go will be for different reasons.
But we'll all feel as shit as each other.

As for the staffing situation in the public sector, it has been my understanding that it has been used as a bit of a job creation scheme over the last decade or so (without consideration being given to how to pay for it all). If a business in the private sector did that (as some did in the boom years) heads would roll at all levels. It seems that it still has to happen in the public sector.

The "better than statutory" bit being 3 months of half pay from weeks 7 to 18, which you have to pay back if you don't return to work for more than 3 months. Civil service gets 6 months full pay and 6 months half pay I think - many private sector companies offer the same or better.

Really wish my pension was something for nothing but that would imply that I paid nothing into it and got loads out of it, which obviously isn't the case is it? My pension certainly won't be a huge gold-plated pot of money when i retire.

And was just wondering where the evidence was for private sector working longer hours, i think across the board you'll find plenty of people working alot longer hours than they are paid to do.

Generally it will be the average paid person, whether public or privte, who has to pay for this mess but it is very unfair to make accusations about public sector workers that could so easily be applied to both sectors.

55% more sickness might have something to do with having around 55% fewer staff doing the same amount of work. The work increases, staffing levels fall - that's the reality of efficiency savings.

At our council, if you take more than 5 days sick (i think) in any rolling period of 12 months, you do not get your increment. Full stop. It doesn't matter whether you have had been skiving, or had heart surgery (as on person in our team had.) The public sector have been under massive pressure to improve working practices and become much more like the private sector; and contrary to popular belief, have already shed jobs. Has no one heard of the Gershon savings that local authorities have been required to achieve, and which were called for long before the general elelction was even called.

You know what? I think that perceptions and figures are difficult to interpret and compare because the "public sector" covers such a wide range of professions and roles (and salaries!). (This has been pointed out earlier in the thread). So comparing a mean average, to me, is not as meaningful as other studies which have attempted to compare like-with-like jobs in the private and public sector.
Reading through all this it seems obvious to me that in the private sector, some professions and companies have done very well by their staff. And some haven't. In the public sector there are areas where the staff themselves feel there is waste and they've done quite well themselves, and in other areas the staff know damn well that isn't the case.
So isn't it about time these bloody stupid, pointless discussions that point jealous fingers in either direction stopped?

Last post as I have some essays to finish marking.

People keep trying to point out that there is great variance in the public sector. There is very little sick leave where I work.

I accept that I have a very good pension but I have worked very very hard for it. During term time my minimum working day is 15 hours. I think I am well paid tbh but I could earn more i I worked in the private sector. Aged 23 I earned about £25K a year, I dropped 10K to become a teacher. Very few of the people I graduated with earn less than 100K a year, I earn 35K.

I don't want to moan, I chose to do my job and think I am well rewarded for it, but I obejct to being told I get money for nothing.

They were going to introduce that at my last council before I left (not for that reason). It was going to be 6 days I think. But again, no discrimination between the skivers and the genuinely ill. What a fantastic way to ensure more long term sick leave as people struggle their way in through genuine illness.

Apologies for appalling typing!

I've got plenty of criticisms about the way the public sector works, far too many people doing jobs with no obvious purpose with job titles I don't understand (and they work for the same organisation as me), it definitely needs streamlining in many ways and making more efficient. But what will happen in a lot of cases is that the people who provide the front line services will lose their jobs and then there will be complaints when that service isn't available anymore or it can't give a quick response or you have to pay more for a service or pay for one that was free before, it can't work all ways but that's what people want to happen, less public sector expenditure with the same output as now.

Errm Katy you get quite nice holidays(ex teacher here, so I know they're needed but even so they're a nice perk),that's probably why you get paid less than the people you graduated with.