so, we are all shafted then. public sector workers in poor areas to get pay freeze

[ThatVikRinA22]

here

this is a great idea. NOT.

as a fairly new police officer, i was horrified to read Windsors 2nd review, basically, as a 40 year old woman, i would not have got in to the police service under these new recommendations. The police will lose all their protected rights but still not have the legal right to strike.I am still wading through it - this job is far far tougher than i thought possible, and at the end of most shifts i look back and think "i was in real danger there...." Reading it, it looks like it is stacked against older officers and women, and if you are injured (even while on duty) and on 'light duties' for more than 12 months, they can get rid of you.
Thats before they make the fitness test harder for older officers and increase the retirement age/pensionable age to 60, (but i know i wont be rolling around on the floor with people at 60, or running a fitness test - they will have rid of me long before tha,t i suspect) as it is we have a 2 year pay freeze with then only a 1% increase for the following 2 years, and they want to reduce the starting wage by £4500 while asking that you have a degree to join....it is ludicrous.....this is all while numbers have dropped and police budgets lessoned by at least 20%, in reality i can see since i joined that our numbers are less and it makes the job dangerous - i have been in really precarious situations where i needed back up and there has been none (im thinking of one particular night shift where there was myself and my female colleague being the only available car left in our district when we got called to a burglary in progress in a remote scrap yard with no back up available)....anyway enough of me....

because now, our dear PM has decided that teachers and nurses in poorer areas should have a pay freeze because they live in a poor area and obviously dont need as much to live on for that reason, while teachers in more affluent areas should be on more money.

i wish i could say i was incredulous. sadly im not.

I really shouldn't watch the news anymore. It's not good for my blood pressure.

I'm just getting so sick and tired of teh public sector being constantly hammered. As is constantly put forward, there are more graduates in public sector, hence more people with higher wages. I really can't understand why we should have to have lower wages just because people in the private sector do.

ANd have they considered the benefits many private sector workers get? I'm a teacher; dh works in private sec. HE has O levels. He earns little less than me, but gets a range of benefits, so we're pretty much almost equal. Not only that, but how are they going to compare like for like jobs? If it's public sector teacher vs private sector teacher, surely my wages should increase?

Things do cost less but I really don't think those on public sector salaries in the 'poorer' areas are exactly living it up on all their surplus cash! They are going to freeze pay until the private sector catches up? How exactly will that work?

Hmmm I think this a good idea actually.

We live in an area with low wages(SW),dp could get double(private sector job) in London/SE area.Wages down here will never compete(they don't call it the career graveyard for nothing) so dp will be looking for London jobs soon and live up there midweek.

Sorry this is reality for everybody outside of the public sector sooo not sure why they should be any different.

Readers of this thread might also beinterested in this one which was started in January this year, when Ed Milliband spoke in favour of regionalisation (of benefits, but as one poster said on that thread, making the case for that leads logically to public sector pay too).

So I suppose once again there will be no effective opposition, as the coalition is once again using a Labour idea.

I am going into a part time public sector job soon. I live in an area that is much less costly to live in than London (I have lived in London some years ago) and I would definitley not do this job at all if it were London based. The pay would be too low. Pay levels are different in London.

Igly - interesting that high paid senior civil servanst will be unaffected. this is what happened when BBC move to Salford was mooted as acost saving measure. Most of the high paid staff/presenters simply threatened to leave if they were forced to move out of London. The BBC backed down and the big name presenters have stayed in London while lower paid technical staff moved.

Moving public sector jobs to low cost areas is a good idea. High paid staff will refuse to accept it though. Also MPs in low paid seats will not take a pay cut as others have noted.

Yes, move the public sector jobs to low cost areas.... more demand for housing prompts greedy landlords/house sellers to raise prices. Low cost area becomes a high price are... what then?

What about job mobility? I certainly wouldn't be keen to move to a 'low paid area'!

I live in the SE, about 25 miles from central London. The price of housing in my area (for a 'normal' ex-council house) varies from £200-350K, depending on the school catchment and demographics. Presumably other parts of the country have these vast differentials in housing prices. How can you therefore set 'low paid' and 'high paid' regions?

Someone not thinking too clearly. I hope the unions have something coherent to say about this.

astronaut me too! I'm sick of the public sector being blamed for everything and now this!

I'm a public sector worker in a national quango. We have the same roles with the same responsibilities across the country - people are based in a different region with a different patch to look after, but the role is essentially the same wherever you are in the country, just slightly different regional issues to deal with due to geography. I just can't see how pay differentials can be justified because you happen to be based where it's cheaper to live. The job is still the same!

We already have a terrible problem with equal pay and I can see this will provide my employer with the opportunity to hide behind to justify it further. So much for equal pay for equal jobs.

I also dread to think what will happen in some parts of the north especially where the public sector is the largest employer in an area and everyone has already been through ongoing pay freezes and devastating cuts.

It stinks.

Just another attack on our terms and conditions:

2 year pay freeze
recruitment ban - but no decrease in the amount of work that has to be done
pension uprates now pegged to the CPI rather than RPI
reduced redundnacy terms - just before announcing massive redundancies

I may be able to retire later this year. I am seriously considering it. Get out now while there is still a pension etc.

Lower public sector pay in the regions outside the SE also means less money circulating in those economies. Public sector workers will have to cut back - so local businesses will suffer.

thankyou Boo, I was just concerned that I had already thought this was happening, I mean the pay gap for London etc. That's all.

Of COURSE PS workers need to be paid far more all over, I'm completely on that side of things and f*cking hate what's happening (and what the tories always planned would happen.) Bastards anyway.

They really, really don't give a shit about us. Any of us unless we're their best buddies.

I don't have a problem with this provided London-based workers are paid more rather than others less.

Public sector workers should be paid the lowest amount that they will accept for doing the job. I think a lot of them tend to forget that it is us in the private sector that pays their wages. There is something wrong when wages have decreased in real terms in the private sector so we are paying more and more tax in order to keep public sector wages artificially high.

The stupidest thing about it is that the point of a national public service is that public servants are able to relocate when the govt needs them to. Do you think any doctor, teacher, etc. will relocate if they are going to get paid less in their new location?

Grag - that is bollocks. A lot of people in my organisation are just above the minimum wage and have second jobs or have to claim benefits to feed their familes. Please don't forget that we pay taxes, NICs, VAT like everyone else!

"us in the private sector that pays their wages"

This is just bollocks. I'm a public servant and a higher rate tax payer. I guess I pay my own wages then.

Yes, you pay taxes out of your wages, which are paid by other people's taxes. So basically your employer just holds a bit back.

The public sector does not fund the public sector. That would be impossible.

Grag, troll lol lol

I earned more in the private sector but joined the public sector to give something back. In return I would like a reasonable wage and a decent pension - I have a degree and a professional qualification which took me 4 years and 9 exams - I work bloody hard and don't think it is too much to expect.

What do you want, no hospitals, roads, schools, or infrastructure of any sort?

'Given there is a huge difference in living costs between the South East and the North East (for example)'

My home is in the SW, so housing may be cheaper, but we have the highest water bills in the country, the highest petrol prices, and I have noticed no difference in the prices charged in Sainsbury/Starbucks/M&S in London and in Plymouth for instance. We don't get 'regional' interest rates on mortgages either. Insurance costs much the same.

Luckily dh is in a public sector job that won't be affected, but it will kill job mobility into poorer areas.

Kinstingtonia, there are lots of people that would like a reasonable wage and a decent pension, but they are hard to come by nowadays.

As for the years spent doing a degree and professional qualification, there are plenty of people with these things.

Do those that think this is a good idea think that this is going to encourage people to get in to £27,000 worth of debt to get in to professions that are now graduate only?

I really can't see it myself.

Good point, boney.

Maybe some of those professions will have to open their doors to non-graduates?

apart from London, which already has weighted pay scales, i think the housing industry has more or less evened out from when i was looking,

can i just also point out to whoever said that police cannot be made redundant - this is set to change with Windsor part II, he wants compulsory redundancy for the police, and a fitness test for ALL officers, regardless of job, or age.

at the moment it is illegal for the police to strike. illegal - but for that we had protected rights, now our protected rights are going we should have the same industrial rights as other public sector workers. ie, the right to take industrial action, just like any other public or private sector worker.

the public sector is being shafted to fund tax cuts for the very highest tax payers. How have the bankers bonuses been cut? they landed us in this shit in the first place. The fat cats get richer while nurses, teachers, police and other public sector workers pick up the slack and it sickens me.

,
....and if i had a pound for everytime i heard "i pay your wages" i could have retired by now. its old. its boring. and its bollocks. I pay taxes/national insurance just like every one else, i pay substantial contributions to the pension (for which i will only get 20 years back - if i can still run the bleep test at 60....highly unlikely) however not every other worker puts their lives in danger every time they clock on. PC Rathband lost his sight and then his life, and under the proposals Windsor is advocating, he would have lost his job within 12 months of these new proposals. It stinks.

Grag
"Maybe some of those professions will have to open their doors to non-graduates?"

the Gov is still pushing for teaching to be Masters level, (albeit not very hard)
the days of cert eds (teaching) and nursing being none graduate are gone.

The highest tax payers still pay the most tax by far. I think the 50% tax is ridiculous and self-defeating, it was a dirty move by Labour to introduce it right at the end of their time in office just so they could criticise the Tories when they got rid of it.

The seeds were this were sown under Labour, and the public sector unions were cheering them on at the time.