What should be done about Public Sector pay?

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.

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

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.

I forget nothing Annie perhaps I just remember it differently.

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

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

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.

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.

All workers need a decent living wage

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.

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.

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

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.

Yes nightowl too many, but I fear going back to a time when they could bring down a labour government as they have done. How easily you forget the seventies , what did we gain? The thatcher years.

Is that your only comment on the present day state of unions Anniebach. Do you have any idea how many hard won union rights have been lost?

Well said Iam particularly about those 'gold plated pensions'. There are many myths about the size of those pensions and the fact that we did contribute significant amounts from our relatively low pay to the schemes. In my case the schemes were fully funded and well managed to give good (but not rich) returns but it was hard at 30 with a young family and rocketing inflation, struggling to pay the mortgage, to appreciate what the benefits would be in the future. Particularly hard when friends working in the private sector were earning significantly more. Public sector pensions now are far more expensive and the returns will be significantly less for this generation.

What I wish fir is not unions jumping on the band as they are with - police and nurses have to use food banks , they do not, the unemployed, the ill thry need food banks,

Where is the research evidence to say public sector workers live in the best houses, earn the best wages in the north east? I'm in the north west, a similar demographic in terms of no mining, few large industrial employers. I haven't any reliable research evidence but my personal experience is that those of us in the public sector never earned as much as friends in the private or independent consultancy sector. That remains the case amongst our family and friends now heading for the age of thirty.
My 'gold plated ' pension was something I paid around twelve percent and iften more into fir over 35 years. Our pension fund was well managed. The average public sector pension when I retired was around £6000. This is a polarised argument that I suspect wont end well. One of the things that kept many public servants in their work, was the fact whilst we never earned huge salaries, we would have a pension.
Yes, some senior managers earn large salaries. So do senior managers in large private schools or banking say.
Most of us work hard in our chosen area of work. Isn't that enough ?

Yes gilly I accept there is very much a north south divide when it comes to public/ private sector pay. But as Iam says, divide and rule is not a productive way to run anything but it keeps the masses busy while the rich profit ever more. We need to focus on the real problem which is just that - those in power are feathering their own nests while the rest of us, public and private sector alike, are paying the price with zero hours contracts, pay cuts in real terms, no job security. All the things the unions existed to fight against before their powers were gradually removed by successive governments. You have got what you wished for Anniebach

You mean you don't want workers to have and use the power of their work just as the capitalists have and use the power of their money AB?

Sadly Iam, if you get a government leaving it's true Conservative roots and becoming neo-liberalist you have already created the division. I always felt I had quite a bit in common with Conservatives but this move to the right is/has been appalling.

Yes exactly nightowl . The public sector needs the taxes paid by all of us in the private sector to operate (and to prop up their pensions) and the private sector need the public sector to provide services. Why in this case would JC deliberately set the two apart and create friction and bad feeling?

Here in the NE public sector workers are by far the wealthiest workers. Enjoying much better pay, living in the best houses etc. than the average in the private sector. As Anniebach says we all don't live in London.

depends what you mean by a problem nightowl, we need unions, we do not need the unions running the country and the government. Work for the members, but I do not want to see the seventies back

Thanks nightowl for your post. Divide and rule has never been a productive way to run anything, whether it's a family or a country.

Have you always felt that trade unions were a problem Anniebach? Odd to read your posts on this subject as a self-described socialist and Labour Party member.