Who would get the most pay if it was up to you ? Top 6

I wouldn't give a rise to the bin men at all their sullen, leave the rubbish on the floor, bins everywhere, and recycling well that's a joke! Food pail they end up most 0f the time in the general waste! I would reduce it.

Much as I would love to see carers paid much more, how would that work when it came to fees? I realise that carers do more than work in care homed for older people, but the fees for those are prohibitive as it is - if pay for carers doubled (as it should) would that mean that fewer people could afford to pay?

I think that a way round that would be to bring far more homes into local council care, and increase taxes (ring fenced) to pay for them. That could also apply to care for the disabled and so on. Carers should have a national rate of pay, with a proper grade spine, and the homes/care companies should not be run for profit. If people really want to have private ones as well as that, fine, but there should be a legal responsibility put onto councils to provide enough places for those who need them, so going private is genuinely optional.

I realise that that is a simplistic solution, but as long there is a two tier system of care, with some paying and some getting it free, people will be forced to go into homes that are paying staff peanuts and making huge profits for the owners, as councils can only afford to house those who would otherwise be without care, and everyone else has to cover the fees of those people in with their own.

The system needs an overhaul, and as more people never need care than do need it, if we all paid an extra tax to cover the risk it should be possible to ensure that everyone can get care who needs it, without exploiting the carers at an affordable insurance rate. I think the tax should be separate from income tax, and paid by everyone, with only those unable to work exempt. Again, that would spread the load and ensure that it is not those in work subsidising those choosing not to (and I repeat - those unable to work, including carers of the sick and disabled, students, jobseekers etc, should have the tax paid as part of their benefits).

Actually, I think the Finish system of paying everyone over the age of 18 a basic "citizen's allowance" and then allowing them to earn whatever money they can on top of that and be taxed on their earnings should be implemented everywhere. Far fairer than this snobbish business of doctors, teachers or dustmen being more necessary to the populations welfare than scientists, craftsmen, actors, musicians etc.

I have reservations about the UBI idea, although I'm not against it in principle, but I do agree that pitting one group of workers against another in terms of who is more valuable is pointless.

Surely in this perfect world carers should only get high rates of pay if they do their work properly, ditto medical staff. Why should the careless doctor who nearly killed my DD be paid a high wage just because he is a doctor, or indifferent carers, bad teachers, etc etc?

M0nica

Surely in this perfect world carers should only get high rates of pay if they do their work properly, ditto medical staff. Why should the careless doctor who nearly killed my DD be paid a high wage just because he is a doctor, or indifferent carers, bad teachers, etc etc?

Who judges personal merit though Monica? A doctor, nurse, carer, or whoever else, will make mistakes as they are fallible just like everybody else. Consistently poor performance should not be rewarded, but neither should all individual errors be penalised surely.

When a 'careless' mistake puts lives at risks, then there should be a price to pay - to ensure careless mistakes are not repeated.

Too often continuous bad care results from careless mistakes continually being shrugged off.

Carers are so under valued they are offered very little in the way of training or ongoing support from their managers. It's no wonder mistakes are made MOnica

M0nica

When a 'careless' mistake puts lives at risks, then there should be a price to pay - to ensure careless mistakes are not repeated.

Too often continuous bad care results from careless mistakes continually being shrugged off.

I’m not sure what your point is Monica, do you think NHS staff should not be valued because in your experience there are some careless mistakes made? I believe that the vast majority of people, wherever they work aim to do the best job they can, and should not be penalised for every error. When mistakes are made they should be rectified and people should be performance managed if they occur more than once. That applies to all jobs, not just the NHS.

In these days where people's careers can be ruined for life by one trivial mistake, I suppose it is difficult to understand the idea of a small fine/brief suspension/requirement to go on a course for an error and then continue as normal.

However the day after, yet another surgeon, who has taken refuge in Libya, someone senior enough to be a 'Professor' is being sanctioned for multiple mistakes, leaving the hospital to pick up the cost of his errors in both financial and human terms, I think it is very important that careless mistakes are picked up and the person concerned is sanctioned, however briefly, before one careless 'human' error becomes a whole series of errors with its terrible cost in human lives.

Attitudes like yours, Casdon are as innocent as the butterfly's wing wing that causes the tropical storm, but the results are the same.

Negligence is one thing, but mistakes happen. I am sorry that you have been the victim of a mistake, and understand that you will feel raw; but punishing people for mistakes won’t rectify them, and the stress of knowing that one false move might lead to sanctions could make slip-ups more likely.

I don’t know what happened to your daughter, and am in no way minimising it, but we have all forgotten something or got things wrong at some point. Being drunk, or cutting corners should be punished (basically criminal negligence) but accidentally doing something is human error, and we are all capable of that.

I am sorry, nothing to do with my own case. If someone makes a mistake, you do not throw the book at them, but you pull them up, note the mistake and draw it to their attention. If one little mistake is not noted and commented on the cause of it can too easily slips into carelessness and that is how things begin to slide.

If I made a mistake, I really expect people to pull me up and tell me what happened and think how the mistake happened. That is how you learn and reduce mistakes more generally.

I believe we should all be paid the same. We each need others for our skills and talents. If we were all paid the same there would be no greed or disparity in society. Just because some people have high intelligence, doesn’t mean their job is more important than someone who holds the hands of the dying or someone who produces food to sustain us.

I don't agree with this at all. Nothing to do with education. Some people just put so much more effort into their jobs. If everyone was paid the same there would be no stimulus to improve and do the job better..... or put more hours in to help. I always think this argument is put forward generally by the most lazy who want to be paid for the efforts of others.

How would you encourage people to take jobs with high levels of responsibility if everyone got paid the same?

I meant to put nothing to do with education or intelligence.

M0nica

In these days where people's careers can be ruined for life by one trivial mistake, I suppose it is difficult to understand the idea of a small fine/brief suspension/requirement to go on a course for an error and then continue as normal.

However the day after, yet another surgeon, who has taken refuge in Libya, someone senior enough to be a 'Professor' is being sanctioned for multiple mistakes, leaving the hospital to pick up the cost of his errors in both financial and human terms, I think it is very important that careless mistakes are picked up and the person concerned is sanctioned, however briefly, before one careless 'human' error becomes a whole series of errors with its terrible cost in human lives.

Attitudes like yours, Casdon are as innocent as the butterfly's wing wing that causes the tropical storm, but the results are the same.

I’m hardly naive Monica, I sometimes wish I were, but after working in the NHS for many years and seeing first hand the consequences of both negligence and mistakes for both patients and staff, I do know the difference. Your subsequent post is saying the same as I said, and in practice is exactly what should happen when mistakes occur.

Sheian62 That is a council of perfection that only works is everyone that no one has any negative aspects.

It has been tried in Russia and in the Kibbutzim in Israel and on each case it failed.

I don't think it can work, as many people are naturally competitive and want to have more than others. Also, with no incentive to do more, why would people bother to make more effort?

In Russia it led to inefficiency, and poor quality goods.

Security guards. My son in law did this for years, 12 hour shifts, minimum wages had to do a 60 hour week just to pay the bills and they deducted his SIA and uniform from said wages. He was expected to protect London corporations, TFL and tourist sites from terrorists/nutters.

My daughter worked for a local authority when COVID hit, they asked for volunteers to learn refuse collection as they though that was possibly the most important function to keep going even if staff all took ill. She said it was a real eye opener apparently the local authority job with the highest death in service rate in the country.