What should be done about Public Sector pay?

The Labour party is putting forward ideas to help those in the so called 'gig' economy and ideas to help small businesses.

As has been said earlier, private and public rely on each other.
But I think that if someone has either only worked in the public sector or only worked in the private sector, they get a skewed view of the other.

annsixty
Thank your husband for me.
I have worked in both the private and public sectors and have a small pension from GMP.

I do know some well off pensioners but they worked in the private sector.

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

Can you not see babyjane that for the private sector to increase their wages they almost always have to increase their prices. Meaning is anyone really any better off?

The minimum wage of £10 an hour (£20,800 per year) proposed by JC would cost a small company like mine an additional £1715 in Employers National insurance plus pension payments. How could we pay this to a trainee? or a labourer?

I do know some well off pensioners but they worked in the private sector

Isn't that funny Ilovecheese as I know some WOP's too and they all worked in the public sector.

^As has been said earlier, private and public rely on each other.
But I think that if someone has either only worked in the public sector or only worked in the private sector, they get a skewed view of the other^

I have to agree with that.

Annsixty, yes please thank your husband. I did pay into the Greater Manchester fund which was well managed.
My son in law followed his father in setting up a small business. They both vote Labour.

I am a teacher and at taking early retirement at 56 and will start claiming teacher's pension at 60 and state pension at 67. I can tell you that over the last 10 years I have increasingly seen many people my age or younger taking early retirement. Many teachers have had enough of constant curriculum changes which means having to devise new schemes of work almost every year for one age group or another, when staff are ill teachers asked to cover other teachers lessons even if you know very little about that subject (I have been asked to cover GCSE Spanish and I don't speak Spanish) which is stressful, more and more time spent keeping meticulous records to prove you have done something, wage rises less than inflation for many years at the same time as education budget cuts meaning larger class sizes, schools can't let teachers have the resources they need so many buy them themselves out of their own salaries and the profession is demoralised with student behaviour at an all time low. It is worse for young teachers who have to pay back student loans/debt, can't afford a deposit for house and can see no improvement for foreseeable future. Some of staff at my school go without lunch as can't afford any as have to pay a lot to share a house with others and only on bottom of teaching scale as not experienced yet. For all the teachers who retire every year few are recruited to replace them. I left at Christmas but my school advertised but could not find replacement so half way through January my Head Teacher asked me to come back until end of year as easier to recruit then. I imagine many teachers will recognise this story. I am just lucky I can afford to retire early.

A country that values it's workers. Good on the Scots

I worked in the public sector for many years and my pay was really low. My DD is a teaching assistand and her pay is appallingly low.

assistant

My DH civil servant accountant. He grumbles that skilled workers such as accountants are paid significantly less than in private sector but low skilled workers such as admin are paid 50% higher than they would be doing exactly same job in private sector where you are paid for the skills you have. In public sector they have pay bands but they are skewed close together so a manager who manages 40 people may only be paid twice as much as a person filing and typing. In private sector the pay differential would be far bigger and base don how much skills and responsibility the worker had.

newnanny I think that's true. There are a few more responsibilities in the private sector at that level, such as revenue generation, the profitability of your team/unit. I think generally there's a different culture too, but I'm sure at an individual level there are people in the civil service who do a very comparable job for less pay & pension.

I understand why we had to have austerity and I do believe that there was a lot of waste in system that needed to be cut away but we have had austerity for a long time now and I think many are hoping it will be eased up a little. I am hoping some of the money we won't have to pay to EU coffers can be used/shared to ease up on austerity in UK for all of us. I hope Hammond reads this thread!

Start
Mandate the newNational
Investment Bank, and regional
development banks in every
region, to identify where other
lenders fail to meet the needs
of SMEsand prioritiselendingto
improve the funding gap.

• Reinstate the lower small-business
corporation tax rate.

• Introduce a package of reforms
to business rates – including
switching from RPI to CPI
indexation, exempting new
investment in plant and machinery
from valuations, and ensuring that
businesses have access to a proper
appeals process – while reviewing
the entire business rates system
in the longer run.

Scrap Quarterly reporting for
businesses with a turnover
of under £85,000.

• Declare war on late payments by:

• Using government procurement
to ensure that anyone bidding
for a government contract pays
its own suppliers within 30 days.

• Developing a version of the
Australian system of binding
arbitration andfines for
persistent late-payers for the
private and public sectors.

End

Is none of that of any use to you GB?

I am genuinely curious

Also curious as to what the tories offered you. (though perhaps this should be on another thread)

www.simplybusiness.co.uk/knowledge/articles/2017/05/general-election-2017-what-manifestos-promise-for-small-businesses/

I am hoping some of the money we won't have to pay to EU coffers can be used/shared to ease up on austerity in UK for all of us. I hope Hammond reads this thread!

Hope away!

We've already 'spent' £60 billion of it (roughly 6 year's net EU contributions) on Quantitative Easing when sterling fell after the Brexit vote; then there will be the contribution (around another £60 billion) to pay on exit to cover ongoing commitments we made as members; so there's another 6 year's contributions already accounted for. Then there will be the costs of replicating all the regulatory Agencies of which we were part (and will still need if we wish to continue to trade with the EU). Then the costs of setting up new customs arrangements (haven't even started on that yet) when we leave the Customs Union; then the 'inducements' to vital industries such as the motor manufacturing industry to persuade them to stay in the UK when it would make far more sense for them to move their operations to the EU. Plus a load more..

So, we're not going to see any spare money for Education or the Health Service (which the tories want to privatise, anyway) for many years yet.

'Austerity'is a big con trick, but as you all so firmly believe in it perhaps you'll believe that these Brexit costs will cause it to continue for years to come...

I am a teacher and at taking early retirement at 56 and will start claiming teacher's pension at 60 and state pension at 67

My heart bleeds for you having to be 56 before you can take early retirement newnanny. Just wondering are you going to do a bit of supply work after "retirement" ? It seems to be the way forward with nurses, teachers etc.

Not one single thing of any use to me (or most other real small businesses either) MazieD

Just as I thought.

1) I don't know of any small businesses with a turn over of less than £85,000 so that's rather safe isn't it? Self Employed maybe but very few companies with employees.

2) Prioritise lending to SME's ? I think GB tried that. It failed. Lending at what exorbitant rate?

3) Declare war on late payments? Ha ha ha bonk (I have just laughed my head off) Big businesses hold small businesses to ransom (as do local government) and typically dictate their payment rates of 90-120 days. How could any government change the take it or leave it terms? You do work on their terms not vice versa.

4) My rates for this year are already zero.

I voted Labour my entire life. Sadly I could not vote for JC and his public sector party.

Maybe it's because they can't mange easily on public sector pensions, gilly

I any my Daughter are in the "Private Sector" my husband and son are in the "Public Sector" the wages, pensions and conditions in both are atrocious. My husband is non teaching staff at a school - he never having uplifted as a teacher is now taking 5 lessons a week as they don't have enough teaching staff- not something I as a parent would approve of. He has no pension to speak of. My daughters career is almost entirely based on the fact the public sector has outsourced loads she's a new fangled service level manager supposedly ensuring that the private sector doesn't get shafted by its public sector customers. My son is one of those customers in a public sector school - they're both on minimum wage despite their degrees and neither has more than the state and stakeholder pension to loon forward to. Me I was keeping them all with a good Private Sector job and a reasonable pension but I've been put out to grass and being well over 50 my outplacement advisor tells me I'm unlikely to work again and should take a reduced early pension. If I do DH will have to quit his job and get something that pays. So from where I am there is no great difference between the sectors - might have been briefly but now in U.K. Plc everyone has to be as cheap, young and flexible as possible (exploited). I have no answer except to know that it's now down to how we show people's remunierations - package up to has long been a term, and frankly if it wasn't money in my pocket and included values of pensions, possible but never achieved bonuses, benefits I wouldn't have paid for etc. I wasn't interested just tell me what it pays - or are you covering up a rubbish wage?? Yes they are package up to 30k for my daughter was £18k wage the rest was stuff she didn't want child vouchers, dental care etc that cost the employer buttons once they have a scheme and a pension that the employer matched your contributions up to a ceiling - not much of a package where over half the figures quoted are not actual pay!!!

Ha ha devongirl I like it

I (honestly) don't know anyone at all in the Private S who has been able to retire at 56. It seems quite common in certain areas of the Pubic S though.

They complain how terrible it is to teach, how overworked they are as nurses. Then they take "early retirement" and can't wait to get back as a bank/supply.

PUBLIC, not pubic !

See this is what happens, people are being pitted against each other, each thinking the other has a better deal than they do!

We are all part of the same economy.

I know people in the private sector who have taken early retirement aka redundancy packages, paid off their mortgage and have enough pension not to work again, although most of them do lucrative consultancy work. Obviously, these are people on managerial level, not lower down the pecking order, but just to say that its not all one sided. We have a friend who was an accountant for BP, got made redundant at 50, and gets well over £50k pension index linked. So there are good deals to be had for the well off. There is inequality in every sector. the private sector feeds of nth public sector in many cases, pharmaceutical companies selling expensive drugs to the NHS, cleaning and catering companies getting paid by schools and hospitals etc. I could go on. Its not an either/or battle.

I agree IIlovecheese but my fear is that a government under JC would only to make it so much worse.

Thanks for your comments, gillybob

....and here lies the problem suzied JC seems to think anyone in business is working as a fat cat BP executive!

When most of us are just scraping along the bottom of the barrel with very little (if any) pension to speak of. I am forced to pay into a pension for my employees and those in the public sector too and yet cannot pay into one for myself. How is that fair?