What should be done about Public Sector pay?

I think this is why the pension 'thing' should be brought out into the open Iam. Company owners can restructure their 'income' so the company pays more into their pension scheme I believe. We need to talk about remuneration, in total, rather than pay.

I think it is a bit of a red herring to say anyone is 'overpaid' if there is a shortage of them. I would have thought the conservative view would be they should be paid according to supply and demand - although, of course, we should have more say in the demand and not have a government that decides to reduce teaching numbers for example, without being up front about going to do that.

I don't think, Iam, anyone is doubting that YOU paid for your pension. I think what Philip Hammond is talking about is a total remuneration package. I rather think that if we started down this road we would really be shocked at some of the private sector ones as they have always been very clever at hiding some remuneration for the already highly paid.

Well MP's have improved their own public sector pay by over £10,000 under so called austerity! (that's 16%!)

When the Conservatives came to power an MP earned £65,738 whereas today they earn £76,011 - and this is just the basic pay not including the living and office expenses they can claim.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salaries_of_Members_of_the_United_Kingdom_Parliament

What I can remember of the strikes in the seventies

Power strikes

Miners strikes

Bakers strike

Dock strikes

Postal workers strikes

Lorry drivers strike

Ambulance driver strike

Bin collections strike

Grave diggers strike

I am not saying all these didn't have a just reason but the unions worked against the labour governments too and we had thatcher and the wilderness years.

This brought about the Tory government taking away much of the unions power, too much, but the public had had enough.

The wealthy didn't suffer during these strikes ,life went on, but the man in the street suffered much

Yes return some powers to the unions but not the power Corbyn and McClusky will bring in.

When I joined the Civil Service as an Administrative Officer about 2002, I took a drop of £4K pa. As I was on a progressive pay scale, I would have been better off after 5 years. Unfortunately, that pay scale was scrapped the following year andI was no better off after 5 years. As soon as I started, I was given notice that the office was closing in two years. I was transferred to another department and as soon as I finished training, I was told that office was closing! A similar experience in the next department. As soon as |I could, I retired. Most of my pension was earned in the private sector over the years and is not fantastic.Public sector workers at the lower end are not overpaid and see a rapidly diminishing income over the years. A simple solution to this would be to link MP's rises to the Public Sector. They would then be paid on results and lower paid Public Sector workers might get decent living wages. I wasn't in a Union until I joined the Civil Service but joined because of the way I was treated and needed them on quite a few occassions.

All workers need a decent living wage

MPs claim that they "have to" take their pay increases, as that is decided by an independent body.
They could opt to donate the extra money to charity either individually, as some do, or as something organised by Parliament (which doesn't happen afaik).
I'm pretty sure they could also change the remit of the independent body, or do away with it altogether, if they wanted to.

I think that for many in the public sector, the cuts and redundancies have had more impact than the salaries although obviously people need to be able to house themselves within reasonable distance of their jobs and in most cities that is expensive. One of the reasons for the shortage of ambulance drivers in London is the difficulty with housing and so there needs to be a more detailed look at not just salaries but what those salaries are needed for.

Completely by coincidence, after writing my last post, I found that facebook had sent me the following "memory" from 2015:

" MSPs have voted to scrap the link between their pay and the salary of Westminster MPs.
A spokesman for the Scottish government said Ms Sturgeon would keep to a voluntary Scottish ministerial pay freeze, agreed in 2009, giving the remainder to a fund to boost public spending.
All Scottish Cabinet Secretaries and Ministers also agreed to a pay freeze at 2008/09 levels.
In July 2013, the then First Minister Alex Salmond rejected as "ludicrous" the Ipsa plans to increase the pay of elected parliamentarians.
He said: "Pay for MPs - and MSPs - should not rise beyond the limits of the restraints currently placed on public sector pay.
"It is ludicrous to suggest that parliamentarians should be given anything beyond these norms, at a time when public sector workers are having to make do with much, much lower pay increases."

Am I alone in thinking that GransNet is talking too much politics? This is not what I joined for.

I am sure there are many GNetters who never venture onto the politics forum. It's not compulsory.

I forget nothing Annie perhaps I just remember it differently.

The answer is to pay for what we need. We of our generation remember much higher direct taxation.
Nurses, fire fighters, police, teachers have had frozen pay followed by 1% pay cap. (Buying power is about 80% of 2007 pay, when increased contributions are factored in?) And yet we are short of all of them. The NHS and state education will fall apart without committed staff, who intend staying more than a few years.

Sorry I missed a whole page of posts! That was a response to Annie's post of 09.11

I am very pleased to say Iam that if you paid into the Greater Manchester Pension Fund , your pension was very well managed partly by my H as well of course of many others. He managed a huge property portfolio for it.

Do you nightowl, what other way is there rembering hospitals wards lit by candles, not being able to use your car in emergency because you couldn't buy petrol, the bereaved crying because they couldn't bury their dead , the rats running on pavements gnawing at refuge bags , the disaster of the 1983 election, do you think we won ? Even Michael Foot spoke out against some of these strikes

Hate to disagree Gillybob - but manufacturing is a very small part of UK output these days, has been for over a decade. Latest ONS figures showing it is falling even further behind.

We export precious little in manufactured products these days, and the privatisation of the likes of BREL, and its subsequent sell-off and failure was a disaster for manufacturing.

Manufacturing industry does not add much wealth to the economy these days sadly.

Overpaid? Who are these people? I worked in the public sector for 26 years. My public sector pension and state pension added together are just under the the tax allowance of £11,500 - so who's overpaid? It certainly wasn't me or my co - workers. The out sourced staff [agency] were paid more than we were.

I wholeheartedly agree with Gillybob. Anti-capitalist Corbyn has fired up students with the idea of free tuition...According to experts this will initially cost £100 billion .... where is he getting the money...Corporate Taxes! We need "capitalism" to make the world go round...whether we like its idealogy or not!

I was a public sector worker for over 30 years, until redundancy because they decided my admin post could be done without. Then the && hit the fan because I was the only one with the skills to produce the data that had to feed into government figures. The ones left behind didn't have the time or skill. I was the lowest paid in the office.

It took me and my husband working full time and part time to buy a small three bedroom terraced house. I receive a pension due to redundancy. Not enough to live on. Luckily hubby worked and now gets pensions or we would be selling up and moving to a caravan.

Golden handshakes - cobblers!!! and big pensions don't exist for public sector staff who like me did the menial tasks. Makes my blood boil to see MPs getting 11% plus expenses. We had a high turnover of staff because they would come into our department, learn their job then go to private sector where the pay was higher for the same skills.

Iam I thought the points in your post were well made. Jsycee you mention housing costs and I agree this is a significant proportion of peoples income. I think it would take the heat out of the private rental market if the Government actually did build a HUGE amount of affordable housing across all the country. This would drive rents down and people would have more to spend. Also capping utility costs (since it would be too expensive to bring them back into public ownership) would help. I believe our food and white goods costs are some of the cheapest in Europe. I would prefer this to help people rather than increase only a proporion of the workforce ( public sector) salaries.

I don't agree at all with GillyBob. There are proposals for small businesses in the 2017 Labour manifesto which are specifically to relieve some of the burdens on them. I quoted them to GB at the time of the general election but she declined to respond to them, preferring to perpetuate the 'Labour isn't interested in small businesses' line. Nobody is ever going to be totally satisfied with any party's proposals but it would be good if they could acknowledge them, if only to offer a critique.

where is he getting the money...Corporate Taxes!

Well, he isn't; he's getting it from the same Magic Money Tree that Theresa May found when she needed to bung a £10billion bribe to the DUP to support her government.

I can't speak for other "public sector" workers but DS has been a firefighter in London for 15 years. His take home pay is £1600 per month - £200 a month LESS than than 7 years ago. His mortgage (for a very unglamorous 1920s two bedroomed flat) is £1500 per month. He HAS TO do other part time work whenever he can to pay for "luxuries" such as the car to get him to work. DiL works as a self employed tutor and they both juggle childcare around their various jobs. DS has shoulder injuries (for which he has had to have surgery) caused by rescuing a very overweight person from a burning building. The brigade don't recognise this as a work related injury because he took the decision to carry this person out of the building to save a life. DS (and all firefighters) have now been told they cannot retire at 55 as per their original contracts but now have to carry on until they are 60, when their bodies will be unable to run up and down ladders let alone carry someone out of a building!

It's not just pay that is the issue, it is the terms and conditions too. Every profession should be assessed individually - there cannot just be "Private Sector" and "Public Sector". As a lifelong Tory supporter I have felt very let down and disheartened by the government over the last month or so and if there were a General Election this week my vote would have to be a "tactical" one against certain parties rather than a vote for a party to govern.

That's it - rant over with!

We probably will never be able to accurately compare remuneration for one job with another but we could try harder. Money put into a pension by the employer should be included in a Remuneration figure along with all other perks eg car, housing and this is what should be used for comparison.

I would like to see an organisation eg Hospitals have their salaries publicised then used as a "Reference Point". Who in the world could claim to be worth more Remuneration than a Brain Surgeon? And a Cleaner responsible for fighting the bugs has to be better paid than the average Cleaner.

Public sector workers should get more pay, especially the lower paid.
But this won't just apply to London it will be country wide.
And the school system should definitely be sorted out.
Children should enjoy their childhood not end up nervous wrecks, plenty of time for that as you get older.
Teachers should not have to do so much ridiculous paper work as all other trained public sector workers do. Too much bureaucracy instead of professionals being able to get on with the job.
Sorry but the private section have to deal with their own wages. This is why you should belong to a Union to have collective bargaining for wage rises.

I am sorry to have missed your quote at the time of the general election MazieD

I have searched LP manifesto for SME's and found nothing at all to benefit my company.

Plenty of things like increased rights for workers, increased minimum wage to £10 an hour (plus employers NI and compulsory pensions of course) increased union power, Extra bank holidays etc.

Who in their right mind would start a business under a JC Labour government?