Pay freezes is basically stealing from employees. If employees were caught stealing stationery they'd be sacked.
Should the public sector be subject to economic reality?
- Thread starter bemused
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Pay freezes is basically stealing from employees. If employees were caught stealing stationery they'd be sacked.
ymu
Niall Ferguson's deep-cover sock-puppet
Yeah, I know .. I posted it. It's an article about misleading figures put out by right-wing think tanks. You know, in their press releases?Here is the press release, your quote is NOT from that press release, it's a quote from the Grauniad.
Well, it would be kind of nice if they'd do their jobs for a normal pay packet, just like the rest of us. If they won't, sacking seems more appropriate than paying them more.
He's certainly to blame for promoting moronic neo-liberal economics, but he is but one willing pawn in a long line of willing pawns.
No link between corporate greed and catastrophic economic collapse at all is there?
Duh.
lewislewis
Lumumba Cymru
In Wales the public sector is used to pretty much run society and the country. The whole programme of government from the left in Wales is based on using the public sector. Therefore, we are now royally screwed and will be for the forseeable future. Next decade or so is going to be horrible.
A Dashing Blade
Takes horses to water but can't make donkeys drink
ymu
Niall Ferguson's deep-cover sock-puppet
If you were one of my med students, I'd be so proud. *wipes tear from eye*. Well done, have a gold star.Er . . . dunno, but I do know that the chart you linked to certainly doesn't proove a causal relationship
Double duh!
I said a link, not a proven causal relationship. Although to be fair it's tough to prove even that empirically with only two data points, but the pattern is rather striking, is it not? The trajectory of this recession is strikingly similar to 1929 - much deeper than any other we've seen in the last century. Both are marked on that plot by rapidly rising income inequality, peaking just before a humongous crash, both times caused by phantom money disappearing into the ether (but not before the bankers had pocketed it).
You'd need to delve into economic theory, I suspect, for the closest you could come to proof. Proper economic theory, mind - not neo-liberal doublethink.
Still, tad more evidence for this than there ever was for trickle-down, given that 90% of us are still earning the same in real-terms as we were in the 1970's.
sim667
All aboard the 303 bus.
yeah i work in a college, and im definately being subjected to economic realities..... they're currently going round picking out members of staff and asking them to take pay cuts (up to 30%)
our closest rival has just laid off a lot of its workforce and shutdown an entire department.
our closest rival has just laid off a lot of its workforce and shutdown an entire department.
glenquagmire
Rightwing NuLab apologist
I work in a college and we've had our funding frozen for the last three years.
Funny as in not funny yeah.
The thing is here there is a chance for people on the left to score an open goal. The issue of high pay in the public sector can be addressed and once you start to argue that high pay is not justified in the public sector it can have a knock on effect more generally.
The public sector does have too many people just milking the public purse on big fat salaries that are in no way justified....Sadly many people who claim to be left wing seem to want to brush the issue under the carpet.
I think many here underestimate how bad the UK's funding situation really is. The government are truly betting on there being a near miraculous economic recovery in the private sector at some point in the next eighteen months, because failing that there are going to be a lot of people in the public sector just not being paid at all.
The harsh reality is the next government are going to have to either cull the public sector, enormously raise taxes, or most likely both.
The harsh reality is the next government are going to have to either cull the public sector, enormously raise taxes, or most likely both.
Are those really the only options?
Did you know that Government debt as a percentage of GDP in Japan and Italy is over 100%.
Wolveryeti
Detty Pig
A Dashing Blade
Takes horses to water but can't make donkeys drink
Or they could just stop pissing money up the wall on ID databases, trident and wars.
ymu
Niall Ferguson's deep-cover sock-puppet
I wasn't talking about consumer electronics getting cheaper. I was talking about incomes, adjusted for inflation.
Wolveryeti
Detty Pig
Why are you using US figures 
These are the figures from the ONS, and they contradict what you say.
Anyway, inflation is calculated by working out the increases in a price index - i.e. a bunde of goods. It is a bit bizarre to just look at the change in prices of these goods without looking at the change in their quality over a period as long as 40 years, and depending on what you include in that bundle you could obtain a very flattering as well as unflattering picture. This is why there is a lot of controversy about seemingly innocuous statemnets about 'real' income, and why including a methodology is necessary to ascribe context to these kinds of results.
These are the figures from the ONS, and they contradict what you say.
Anyway, inflation is calculated by working out the increases in a price index - i.e. a bunde of goods. It is a bit bizarre to just look at the change in prices of these goods without looking at the change in their quality over a period as long as 40 years, and depending on what you include in that bundle you could obtain a very flattering as well as unflattering picture. This is why there is a lot of controversy about seemingly innocuous statemnets about 'real' income, and why including a methodology is necessary to ascribe context to these kinds of results.
Wolveryeti
Detty Pig
Well, it contradicts her claim that 90% of us are still earning the same in real-terms as we were in the 1970's, for a start.
me and my colleagues have had a virtual wage freeze for nearly 20 years now .. while we are earning 19/20k a year, the town halls are full of people on 50 and 60ks a year and what is really sick are the consultants on figures like £750 a day ..
so no, the majority of the public sector does not need another dose of reality .. but those at the top do
the majority of those who do the hard work earn nothing like this
where i work our pay has gone down relative to average wage every year since the early 8ts .. there was a strike then that gave a lot of the manual workers good money .. it has gone down ever since ..
nationally outsourcing pushed manual wages dwon significantly .. we just had a load of cleaners brought back in house who were earning 10K!!!!!!
The interests of the people really milking it at the top of public sector are very different from the majority of public sector workers.
I think its really important that public sector workers like yourself argue the case in public and in the unions that the people at the top should be the ones to take pay cuts.
Gromit
International Man of Misery
Except that the guys at the top's pay is linked to MPs pay.
Was the MP's way of pretending that they were no longer giving themselves outrageous pay cuts but were merely getting the same as civil servants were getting. Where upon they immediately started giving top civil servants outrageous pay increases. Go figure!
If only MP's had said they'd have the same as the average across the entire sector instead of linking themselves to a tiny part of the civil service which would skew the treasury's bill the least if they sought personal gain.
But they didn't so it doesn't matter what unions do or say the MP's are not going to stiff the top as to do so is to stiff themselves.
Gromit
International Man of Misery
Not if you include MPs expenses into their income.
Read this: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8072031.stm
Even if you could include their expenses there are hundreds of thousands of people in the public sector earning far more than MPs.
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