Public sector faces pay cuts, says Alistair Darling

[mateykatie]

ALISTAIR DARLING, the chancellor, today warns public sector workers they need to follow the example of the private sector and accept wage cuts if they want to hang on to their jobs.

Signalling an assault on public sector pay and bonuses, starting with the highest-paid employees, Darling said it was time for a change of culture.

?What is being paid has sometimes lost the relationship it ought to have with what someone actually does. Once that happens, it?s not only unfair, it?s actually grossly inefficient,? he said in an interview with The Sunday Times.

He cited the example of private sector firms, two-thirds of which are planning wage freezes or cuts this year as an alternative to redundancies.

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6999958.ece

I wish Alistair Darling was PM instead of Brown. He seems to be one of the few remaining Labour politicians who is on rare occasions honest, instead of spouting the Brown/Balls "Labour investment versus Tory cuts" lies.

All this talk of dead wood and cutting staff in the public sector - where I work, there is no way we could cut back any further. 4 years ago the 2 hospitals here amalgamated into one trust. We had 2 colleagues at the other hospital, both left, neither were replaced. Since then the number of patients seen by our team has tripled, our remit has changed considerably to include even more patients. How do we go about cutting staff? I know that we're not the only ones in the NHS facing this kind of situation.
I dread to think what will happen to patient safety if they continue cutting frontline numbers.

Reallytired as a public sector worker (TEACHER) I would vote for the cut. My dp who is a private sector worker has had to agree to far worse. It is fair that public sector workers who earn above salary wages contribute. Our budgets benefited during the boom.

scaryteacher as a public sector worker my whole life is on benefit tbh, I accept that teachers have it easier in many ways than many other public sector workers. I have 12 weeks a year off, I can be flexible after 4pm about when I work, great pension, immense job satisfaction, job security and I get to prattle on about a subject I love. Most teachers do not know how lucky they are.

Reallytired sadly poor teachers do survive, every school I have worked in has poor or lazy ineffectual teachers.It is very hard to get rid of a poor teacher despite the fact that kids get only one chance at getting it right. ( unless you count resits!) Sure it is stressful but you are only ever a few weeks from a holiday so the stress comes and goes. Other jobs are stressful all year.

wtap - I think dh would vote for a pay cut as opposed to redundancy; we wouldn't like it, he is top of his particular scale, but it is better than the alternatives. If I was still teaching, I would be voting for a pay cut rather than redundancy as well. I know they were making teachers redundant in Devon, so I don't suppose Cornwall where I used to work would be too far behind.

However, they need to start by looking at the Civil Service mandarins before they start looking at mainscale teachers. I still reckon cutting quangos and tackling fraud would go along way towards balancing the books.

I moved away from Lancashire to escape redundancies, I am now in Dorset but think my job is very safe.

I am sure that other cuts could be made but am happy to do my bit.

As someone who works in the public sector I can only second what others here have said. It is simply not true that public sector staff are completely unaffected by the current climate.

I am another who had been affected adversely by job evaluation. Being on the lowest clerical grade I wasn't particularly worried as I didn't think they would lower our salary but they have and I have had my salary cut. And I'm talking a wage that was already at least £10,000 PA below the average national salary. I know that it just how things are but it does annoy me slightly when people just presume that public sector staff are completely unaffected and raking in huge salaries.

What worried me was the Govt seeking EU legal advice on their position if they reneged on paying public sector and state pensions. I'd rather a salary cut now than no pension when we have no time left to build up another one.

when I graduated and began work in the public sector, I was earning £12k. Many of my fellow graduates were earning twice this in the private sector, plus bonuses, company cars, gym memberships, private health insurance and so on.

At the time, we just accepted it. We would have a good pension, though this didn't always make up for the inequalities.

I doubt those earning twice my salary on graduation gave a second thought to the "inequalities" between the public and private sector back then. Funny how they are all shouting about it now, eh?

I graduated 10 years ago and am yet to earn the average graduate starting salary. I haven't even started paying back my student loan. And I'm in a good, responsible job, I'm just continually fighting against the kicks in the teeth that are job evaluation exercises (3 in total, the blardy thing has been following me around the UK). This time I might finally get somewhere as the job description was plain wrong. In a few months time I might actually be approaching the national average wage - weh heh!

I don't think cuts should affect people earning that wage but people like me on above 30K are a different story,

Do you not all get a year's full maternity pay? Plus generous flat rate daily expenses if you're out of the office? That's just two I can think of off the top of my head. Or is it different in different parts of the civil service?

Sorry I meant six months full pay!

But depending how savvy you are, that £26 can go a long way, with change to spare can't it? You could end up making a profit!

I'm comparing civil service with the even stingier local government btw.

That's cr*p WickedWench. No wonder you still feel resentful about that. I take your point about hotels etc. - it's funny how the grass always seems greener isn't it?!

I also get incredibly fed up with the warped impression that people have of life in the public sector.

I think us public sector workers should stick together and tell it like it really is - as some posters on this thread have done.

People seem to think we have gold plated pensions, endless supplies of annual/sick/maternity/compassionate leave and are redundancy proof. Not true at all.

I could bugger off and earn probably £10k more in the private sector than I do in the public sector but I care about my job and the work that I do. DP and I are comfortable - ish. Not rich by any means but not poor. I would rather do a good job where I am to ensure that taxpayers money is well spent rather than feather the nests of shareholders, which is what I would end up doing if I moved on.

You're right. Sorry about the dig at the Civil Service - it didn't help.

No worries - and absolutely no reason for the embarrassed icon either. We is in the same boat methinks and pulling on the oars like buggery!

still the top jobs in the public sector wont get fucking cut will they as they need to "attract the best from across all sectors"

fucking horseshit crap wank.

fuck this shit - the Housing association that i work for follows suit v. closely indeed. pay freeze this year - and i will go into my performance appraisal onf riday -w hich isn't linked to any financial incentive as it usually is - and say fuck it fuck it fuck it - in any other way than actually 'fuck it'

Im applying for 3 year funded jobs - becuase the third sector pays better than this horseshit - via the national lotters, ESF or other funding sources.

but pearls - teachers don't get paid well IMO - they just dont.

whats the starting salary? 23k ish? be there a few years your on 26/7 k

thats proper shite.

and yet they lend to the banks without telling hem they have to pay it back.

kiss my hairy vadge you incomptatent bunch of horsefuckers.

I can't remember what I started on tbh, at the top of main payscale you get 30K. That is without any reponsibility. Not bad IMO considering the time we have off.

I am more than happy with my wage, which is admittedly over 30K. I fund a nice life from it and for a while with dp's similar wage we were able to run two homes when we couldn 't sell. Now I can fund dp being a part time SAHP and still have the luxury of long holidays. My job makes me happy so I don't need a huge wage to buy a lot of stuff.

Maybe I just have incredibly low expectations.

I would work for less and would have done so when starting out.

you sound lovely, but teachers deserve a helluva lot more IMO