"Public Sector Workers Should Take A Pay Cut" Says....

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

.... Ed Milliband. Not only does he fully support the payfreeze - much to the dismay of the unions that voted him in - he suggests the public sector should be prepared to take a paycut to save their own jobs. Article here Do you think the Labour front-bench have him on Electoral Suicide Watch?

" Public Sector Workers Should Take A Pay Cut "

Which public sector workers would that be?

David Nicholson head of the NHS on £280,000

Colin Campbell (former) vice chancellor Nottingham University on £585,000

David Richards Chief of the defence staff on £211,000

or a school cleaner on basic £6.08/hr?

School cleaner should get a pay rise and all the above should get a huge pay cut.

Simples.

I do appreciate that Grimma and I know I shouldn't make sweeping generalisations as I hate it when most of the benefits public sector workers are claimed to have apply to a small minority of civil servants so I apologise.

And I'm certainly not relating my own experience to city jobs - I am northern and don't know any city workers. But I have friends who work in banks or IT who used to get the odd grands worth of bonus annually. I'm talking small fry compared to city bonuses but then my own salary is small fry compared to the national average but don't even get the bonus of a note book at work for note taking on the phone...I buy my own!

It isn't that I think we should be immune from cuts, I just feel that we have faced so many but it also feels like we are being held up as public whipping boys sometimes.

GrimmaTheNome Wed 18-Jan-12 16:29:33

"The way it worked in my company when, during the 90s recession it was paycut or layoffs was that the CEO took a 25% cut, senior managers 15%, most other people (such as me) 10% and some junior staff 5%."

They tried that in my company a couple of years ago too. However most of us were very much aware that the CEO's actual salary made up only about 1% of his typical year's total remuneration (the rest made up of bonus/options/etc.) so a much-trumpeted "25% cut in salary" was actually a 0.25% cut in total remuneration -- and in fact, as cutting costs was likely to lead to an increased bonus, would quite probably result in increased total remuneration. Meanwhile the rest of us, who didn't get bonuses or share options, were being asked to take a real 10% cut. Oh, and with no suggestion that this would actually avoid or reduce layoffs. We didn't all rush at once.

just wish he had made his views of public sector workers before he relied on the union vote for his leadership bid.

That's the root problem with the Labour party and why they got booted out in 2010 - their claims that they were for 'hard working families' was a load of old rubbish. At least with the Conservatives you get what it says on the tin.

Tmesis - I was a bit sceptical about the CEO's cut, but if there are going to be cuts then its the correct sort of model to apply. At that time it did avoid layoffs. At other points in the history of the company, when the sums didn't add up, there were layoffs. I survived them, salary intact ... guess which I think the better solution? (Note - I am not a Banker)

Plenty of public sector people ARE overpaid, I don't think anyone can deny that.

Doctors for one, as well as a lot of office-bound non-jobs.

Plenty of others still think they are in the 1970s and go running to the union everytime they are asked to do something slightly outside of their job desciption.

I spent many years working in the public sector, and the problem is not how much people earn, but how many people work there. Every single department I ever worked in, there were several people with 'non-jobs' that wouldn't exist to anywhere near the same extent in the private sector. For every 5 nurses on the ward, there will be a co-ordinator, or risk manager, staff controller, work planner, business continuity manager or some other such non-job. And they're working flat out doing all this stuff as well.
I challenge any public sector worker to look at their organisation and say, with her hand on her heart, that there are no such people in the organisation. And to think they're being encouraged to take a pay cut to 'protect jobs' - it's not the jobs of the doctors or street-cleaners that are being protected, it's all this fat around them.

The days of people being handed free non-contributory pensions should end ... I am a public sector worker and have to pay for pension but not everyone does. That pisses me off.

It all pales into insignificance compared to Fred Goodwin & co. That bank is nationalised, but the privately owned corporations obviously get all their profit from us, overcharge customers (fuel, transport), provide a crap servic e (banks, transport) and pay the CEO's vast bonuses

Well if DH takes a paycut in his public sector it will be illegal, he's already on minimum wage. I mean how much more money can they take off us FGS? Yeah really raking it in at £800 per month. Miliband, Cameron and their ilk should try living off minimum wage for a few years see if they want to take a pay cut then.

*public sector job

While manufacturing and other companies which actually make something pay for the whole lot of you ;-)

Bloody 'Sir' Fred. Never mind stripping him of his knighthood - there should be a Dishonour list, with his name at the top for dis-service to the banking industry. Honours should be for the honourable - he isn't, if he had an ounce he'd have relinquished the title and given back most of his gains

Pay freeze here. Plus I've had my hours cut and taken on work from folk who've been made redundant. I think I'm doing my bit TBH.

Is Ed doing his bit? No. Thought not.

Oh be fair - MPs have had a pay freeze too, poor dears. And according to this 'MPs' pay is not as high as it should be'. (my interpretation of that data is that MPs are paid enough, GPs and judges are paid a heck of a lot and what constitutes a non-manual worker has probably changed so much since 1964 that its a meaningless basis for comparison.)

I am also public sector and in the last 2 years have had my post redundant and was forced into a lower paid one,i had a pay freeze,my retirement age looks as if it will be a lot older,my pension contributions increased and my car user allowance just stopped even though i cannot do my job without a car.
I do think he has got to be kidding now.