What should be done about Public Sector pay?

Can't speak for any other professions, but I think amongst the teachers I know - and for myself - public sector pay within the teaching profession is ok. It is the working expectations, the conditions in and beyond the classroom, the lack of professional trust and ridiculous learning expectations and stress placed on children that are leading to disillusionment and a mass exodus that is under-reported at present.

Interesting Imperfect. That would suggest more teachers rather than more money per teacher.

Not just more teachers, but a change in the working methods for teachers and children, it sounds like.

Definitely more teachers needed,

I am getting irritated by the constant talk of .public sector pay, not every lives in London , not everyone wants to buy houses in London, as for the constant raking up what the cleaners earn, what about carers employed by private companies, what about the many not in the public sector, minimum wage, no pension , yet all we hear from Corbyn and Mcdonald is public sector workers, partly because they are frightening the public and partly because the big unions are supporting them financialy

Teacher's pay may be OK (though with rises pegged to below inflation it will have lost value in real terms since 2010) but school support staff were never particularly well paid and must be struggling as 1% of not very much is not very much.

And schools themselves are having to contend with much reduced budgets, which means staff being laid off and very little money for resources. From what I can gather they are in a very bad state.

So certainly no money for extra teachers GG.

I don't know what pay is like in the rest of the public sector so can't comment.

What is particularly galling, though, is that there was no need to cut public sector spending in the name of 'balancing the budget'; but I won't bore you with Modern Monetary Theory yet again.

Labour have campaigned on zero hours contracts and the gig economy in the private sector, not just the public sector. Nurses, teachers, firefighters, ambulance staff, police, armed forces, all bumping along on less than inflation pay rises, so relatively worse off. MPs though, didn't they have an 8% pay rise?

I was wrong, MPs got an 11% pay rise. Plus they can claim huge expenses.

MP's and MEP's always seem to feather their own nests. Public sector employees do get better pension options. As for pay there is no general rule. Some in both public and private sectors do well and others do not.

I think the MPs' ability to claim huge expenses has been severely curtailed since the expenses scandal. I also think that in that scandal it was the actions of a high profile few that very sadly brought all MPs into undeserved disrepute.
Accepting that pay rise when restricting public sector workers' pay rises to single figure %ages was crass, to say the least, but one thing should be clarified. MPs don't vote for their pay rises; they're determined by an independent pay review body. Ironically the system was set up to try to remove the taint of self interest. (Hasn't worked, though, has it?)

Yes Anniebach me too. JC's Labour Party is a public sector party and really, nothing more. He doesn't give a hoot about the rest of us (you know manufacturers who bring wealth into the country). As far as this bunch of clowns are concerned anyone is business is a fat cat earning fortunes and he is determined to punish private enterprise in favourite of giving wage rises to his precious pubic sector workers. Poor nurses, poor poor policeman and teachers etc. what the idiot can't see is that it is private enterprise that pays for the public sector we all enjoy.

I have very little sympathy with the government over teachers pay and conditions because I believe they are out of hand. There seem to be two points that need addressing - pensions and Job Descriptions. If Spreadsheet Phil wants to include the amount an employer pays into a pension, declaring it as part of the total remuneration package, then I feel this should become the standard way of showing everyone's remuneration. If this was the case I think there would be some shocks about just what some - already highly paid people - are actually being remunerated and also, at the other end, just have much bigger the gap is for those on low pay whose employers only pay the statutory minimum into a pension from those whose overall remuneration package is even higher than it appears.

As for JDs, I have been, (as some will be aware) reading a lot to my daughter and this includes for her Lit review. It is obvious that the Education establishment takes until teachers/lecturers reach breaking point before they actually revise JDs. Up to this point, if new work (often from government and not actually teaching) is added or positions taken away the work is just divided and added to the remaining teachers. This very poor way of addressing job changes seems to be the same in the NHS too.

Gillybob, he is dancing to the unions tune, teachers, nurses, firemen, police, hospital porters, hospital cleaners . When he wins an election stand by for the unions to really get going.

Small businesses, has he ever mentioned them ?

And it is the public sector that supports the private sector to be able to do their work - do we not all use teachers, doctors, nurses, bin men, firefighters, police officers, ambulance drivers, paramedics, council staff who keep essential services running etc etc. Try setting up businesses in a country where none of these services exist or have to be purchased on an individual basis. I'm sick to death of hearing how the private sector funds the public sector as though all those services that we take for granted as a mark of a developed country are somehow leeching off the 'productive' private sector. It's really not like that, each depends on the other, and all workers pay taxes that contribute to the good of all. Please let's stop this 'public sector bad, private sector bad' mentality.

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.

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.

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

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.

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 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

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 ?

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,

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.

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?

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.