So many consider themselves underpaid, where does this leave our society?

[Reluctantadult]

Didn't know whether to put this in politics or cost of living, but suspect this gets more traffic at the mo. Just musing that so many people think they're under paid now. Where does this leave us as a society? Groups that are considering striking or pre-strike action, that I have read of or know of myself: railway workers, train drivers, nurses, teachers, barristers, bus drivers, baggage handlers, paramedics, bin men, BT engineers, postal workers, the Environment Agency, Natural England...

Ditto nursing with 12 hour shifts. Who wants to be a parent in such an inflexible job. Ditto care workers and nursery nurses. They are all out of step with flexible working from home, work around your kids jobs

Report the other day that since Covid people are working considerably fewer hours. Many people, particularly women are choosing to work part time. You often see quote on here places like France where child care is heavily subsidised but because nurseries can't recruit staff the majority of children can't access this subsidised provision and so rely on child minders and private nurseries.
Many many people choose not to work or work part time. How do you encourage these workers to return to full time work. Talk about subsidised child care is not going to happen unless you improve working conditions for care work

Threads like this about mythical money trees are not addressing the problems of making public sector working conditions ( not just pay) equitable with other sectors. Most other countries are facing the same problems with worked not wanting to do inflexible jobs when so many alternatives are now on offer.

This is very true. If I did my job in the public sector I'd have to be in an office every day (I wfh) and I'd be on 1/4 or 1/5 of the salary for the same job.

Exactly, yet threads like this pretend it's down to money. The majority of our nurses are recruited abroad. Teaching recruitment is in crisis.
It won't hit home properly for a few more years but no one wants inflexible, anti social jobs.

@user1471465329 seeing as I've never read a book, what's so hard about explaining what you are actually suggesting??

I genuinely have no idea what overthrowing higher tax payers would entail (and I don't think you do, since you refuse to explain what you actually mean).

If you earn between £100-125k based on 2022/2023 tax rates your marginal tax rate is 60% when you take into account the loss of personal allowances. I find it wild that you think these people don't already pay enough.

First you call me crazy for even suggesting I believe in radical change.

Then you suggest I'm the ignorant one after I've highlighted your ignorance on the topic.

Now you want me to spoon-feed you all the answers in a neat little post, when you're literally sitting on the internet pretending to be interested in this topic.

Are you usually this rude to people you want things from?

I'm going out now but when I have time I will try to find you a simple text about social revolution that someone like you might understand.

In the meantime instead of insulting me, you could always do a little research and reading on the history of social, political and economic revolutions and that will prime you for a proper discussion.

But I expect you won't, bc the real purpose of your posts is not to learn but to ridicule someone with a different world view to yours.

Why not read a book and learn about it?

Nurses and other allied health professions had a long pay freeze from when the tories came into power until 2018, and then the rises in 2018 and 2021 neither kept pace with inflation.

These are graduate professions which are now far more challenging clinically than a few years ago, the patients are sicker, the conditions are shit (14hr shifts, no break) and there's huge vacancies.

This problem now is a result of years of pay suppression but its made more acute by our horrendous cost of living now and how stressful the NHS is.

I remember in 2011 as a new B5, I had pretty similar amounts of disposable cash as I do now as an B8a.

I really think that is what a lot of posters fail to understand, that a lot of teachers, nurses, front line service staff work in horrible conditions. There is constant scrutiny from Ofsted and the general public. Compare that with nice cosy work from home jobs where you can be on your phone and have a lot of flexibility about work hours. I'm a teacher and years ago lots of students wanted to work in childcare. That is long gone. You can't use your phone to text your mates or go on social media if you work in a childcare setting.
There has to be huge bonuses for teachers and nurses in the form of 100% mortgages, half a day off in the working week ( all of which were available when I started teaching).

A Gallup survey in June of 2022 found that 8 in 10 people are working hybrid or remote, while only 2 in 10 are entirely on-site. And this trend continues for future predictions. A recent AT&T study found the hybrid work model is expected to grow from 42% in 2021 to 81% in 2024.

Read those statistics and tell me where the next generation of teachers and nurses are coming from?

Adding to the point about strikes being more about conditions than pay.

Teachers are only allowed to strike about pay and other ‘direct’ impacts. What they are really upset about, as a profession, also includes the massive underfunding of their workplaces (and as a result the cutting of school workforce to the bone and beyond) the unavailability of support for the increasing numbers of vulnerable and SEN pupils, the brutal and unintelligent scrutiny of Ofsted and others that ignores social context, the impacts they see daily on the physical and mental health of their colleagues and pupils etc etc.

I agree the conditions need a massive improvement. But a big part of what makes conditions so horrendous is staffing vacancies. People will work in stressful horrible jobs for the right renumeration. If government pay enough to recruit and retain the working conditions will automatically improve.