I’m not sure we’re making substantially different points! I will chose the best terms I can get. If I think I can get better terms elsewhere, I’d leave. I’d be happy to accept a pay rise to convince me to stay or to reward good performance, but I wouldn’t demand my employer went above and beyond my contractual terms if I had signed a contract that didn’t include wage increases in line with inflation. In the same way I wouldn’t demand I change to a 4 day working week, or to work from Barbados. Re: nurses. Fair enough, I’ve only heard the 100k+ stat from my friend in LA. But my overarching point I think remains. A quick google search suggests a £62k median salary in the US vs £37k in the UK.
Oh dear. Still fixated on me using the term 'middle class' without defining precisely the accepted meaning of the term? Even though I was, as I said plainly at the time, referring to the left's perception of middle class, and therefore could not define it if I wanted to. Please, 63. Can you explain to me your meaning of each of the following words. Ha Totally unintentional irony on your side tedious etc. Should I criticise you for not doing so? What levels of trite are you not willing to ascend to in order to make your tedious, irrelevant, ill-thought arguments?
Some very valid points there. I can understand your viewpoint in the first part of your post if we are talking about people on £45k per year enjoying great pension & work-life balance benefits, but that is not true of everyone, and certainly not nurses on £27-32k pa for example. I don't think it can be shown that over the last 10 years that the government has even implemented the totality of the 'independent pay review body's' recommendations, resulting in the nurses feeling the current cost of living crisis is adding more strictures on already non-existent 'reserves'. I agree that a '2/3% annual increase' should not be 'expected' in times of low inflation, but many workers have seen their effective per hour salary decrease over the last decade via the insidious mechanism of 'reform' creating 'flexibility' in the work force, which certainly impacts negatively on their work-life balance. Making such 'acceptable and reasonable' amendments to their employment conditions as being able to require 'reasonable' amounts of unpaid overtime at short notice; of absorbing public holidays into their '25 days annual leave' if they so wish; short notice amendments to shift patterns etc are all indicators of a system where many employers have been acting in manners far short of reasonable. At which point do employees decide to take a stand? And I make this point as someone who regularly defended the rights of 'staff' in European Management meetings to attempt to point out to more 'hawkish' elements how demotivating such practices could be. Better to pay a good employee 3% more & keep them than to see them leave, be forced to pay their replacement more anyway, only to find out after 6 months they were no good at the job. But many employers have not acted that way with 'employees' being treated more and more like cattle as the months passed. The whole point is that the 'employer' in the case of the NHS is NOT willing to pay an adequate salary; so what would you suggest? Part of the current crisis in the NHS is down to trained and skilled nurses leaving to take part-skilled jobs in supermarkets. The most eloquent comment on the current fiasco one could find. And one of my other points is that the current 'minimum wage' WOULD leave people destitute. In fact, things have got to the stage where people on significantly more than the 'minimum' or 'living' wage are having to be given Universal Credit to prevent them from becoming destitute; the system is broken when that becomes the case. I am aware that in the current economic structure, a lot of what you warn against may happen. But I think the crux of the matter is that we need to face up to the fact that the current modus operandi no longer works; to appeal to the same 'history'as you have, that history shows that the current system is allowing ever more wealth to move to an ever-smaller group, with no apparent concern as to the lot of the people who actually do the work to keep things operating. I struggle to align my experiences with the implications of what all that may actually mean, but using an institutionalised benefits system to attempt to mollify the effects of the very system that causes the symptoms being treated seems to be a little circular and does not address the underlying causes. You also raise another interesting point. How should the increased use of technology be aligned with the available workforce in the 21st century?
Public sector pay has been at a standstill since 2010 with increases well behind inflation. As has been pointed out, most nurses don’t earn 45k and for them pay has become an acute issue as rents have spiralled and the costs of living soared. And even those on 45k, these are workers at their top of their profession, with bundles of skill and responsibility. Why should their pay fall behind? Solicitors wouldn’t allow it. Neither would your plumber charge less than they can afford to have a decent life. I feel this belies a view of the public sector as unproductive, but nothing in the modern world works without the safety net of health, policing and other emergency services. There would be chaos. There would be no wealth or health.
Suddenly we see the emergence of a massive class of UK family households with 4 fully-employed adults over 23 years old....I'd suggest that is an almose imperceptible percentage of the UK working population, but still. Should we penalise everyone else just to ensure this pesky 2% don't coin it in? Looking at some more figures, I wonder whether my £21k gross, £18k takehome, may not have been a little too low. Where I live, the unfashionable East Midlands, a typical 3-bed terrace sells for less than £250k, yet the typical monthly rental cost is £300 more than the base figure I used in my original estimates. I'm sure in other areas, £21k gross would see people sipping champagne as they lounge back on their designer sofas. You are aware that in many areas, even people earning over £30k qualify for Universal Credit? What money? The country is awash with it, there just isn't the political will to go after it. Heaven forbid that anyone should suggest that the reason for that is that the people making the decisions want to keep it all for themselves. WAGE: I use the term as meaning 'remuneration for work rendered'; at no time have I ever implied, let alone stated, that it should also apply to those not in employment. Benefits for such as those is a separate issue.
I now realise that I should have put the word 'skivers' into inverted commas to make it obvious I was referencing the following comment you made in post #112: 'If you are suggesting it would be a fundamental right for a person employed in the same job as me, but chooses to do no work, get the same living wage as me, then I say no. F..it'. Clearly the words of someone who believes someone who does no work 'can earn as much as they like.' As long as it's not as much as you, eh?
Overall, I'm a massive pragmatist. Few deserve to be paid less in a cost of living crisis, but not everyone can be paid more. Saying that, I absolutely agree the NHS is absolutely broken and isn't facing up to the massive issues facing our country, and I do have a huge sympathy with healthcare workers, and especially nurses. In a private system without a state monopoly they'd likely be paid a lot more (£62k median in US vs £37k in the UK), so they certainly deserve to be paid more in my eyes. And from the nurses I've spoken to, the pay isn't the main issue. It's the lack of other nurses and beds, which means they have to work way longer and harder than they should have to, for less money with worse patient outcomes. They are and will continue to quit the NHS until it undergoes radical reform, as they should really. As I said before, I'm far more open to strike action when it involves genuine public safety and risk to life, even though I doubt the strikes will do anything given the system is probably broken beyond repair. I'd argue however that health is a very different situation than highly protective union-heavy industries like train drivers, who deliberately restrict the amount of trainees who go through the system and strike to exploit their monopoly power to boost their above market rate salaries (£39k median in US vs £60k in UK). Either way, I still feel strikes do very little but benefit union bosses, who benefit from increased publicity of their workers striking and get paid hundreds of thousands of pounds regardless. The government digs in and starts off negotiations with a lower amount, so they can make the unions feel like they've made progress and justify their raison d'etre. And the limited gains by workers over the last decade are part paid back to unions through monthly fees and lost through industrial action. I do agree we need a more progressive tax system, based more on wealth than income. But to introduce that, you need to overcome a communication issue, with richer, older people thinking that because they've paid in their whole lives, they shouldn't be asked to pay more for their health treatment/ care. Without realising that that money has been spent, and the rest of the country would have to increase taxes to a detrimental level to continue paying for their healthcare based on the current formula. I prefer a land tax, as most of the inequality in the country stems from poor land use/planning. This would involve revaluing land across the UK, and increasing council tax based on all land owned by that individual (irrespective of whether that land is being used or not), based on today's values. Unfortunately this might make significant elderly people move out of big houses which they have emotional attachments to, but it is a price worth paying to stop this horrible cycle of rent seeking which is killing our productivity. But even with a fairer system, I don't think the NHS as it is today will be able to survive our aging population, despite our emotional attachment to it. Which is why I hugely welcome Streeting's unpopular but justified comments today and have moved a step closer to voting for Labour at the next election.
I agree for some industries and disagree for others. Mostly based on what their genuine market rate would be if we didn’t have unions or illogical pay awards (which can be too low or too high). As I’ve outlined, nurses should be paid more, train drivers less. Ideally, I’d like governments and unions as far away from these decisions as possible. All of these industries need to accept rapid reform though as part of their terms and conditions, given the pace of technological advance. And from my experience of working in the NHS and on education policy, unions tend to block things that would require significant retraining and technological innovation. Which is holding back our wealth and our health. Edit: I’d also add that given the unions lack of success that you’ve highlighted, that supports my point that bosses are being paid far too much for doing very little. Which I suppose explains the hesitation to say how much money has been lost by workers through industrial strikes.
I don't think it's accurate to compare train drivers in the US with those in the UK given that a far greater proportion of the population uses rail services here than over there. European countries would be a better comparator.
That is an idiotic response. You asked me about a fundamental right to a living wage. Like I say, but the nuance flys over your head by a few thousand feet, if legislation guarantees a person the same wage as someone else, whether they do any work or not, for doing the same job, then f it. You even went on to agree with me by going all right Wing and saying only productive people would get paid it. So don't try to blame your nastiness on me. Never stop posting 63, if you want to make sure everyone thinks you are a half wit. I am sorry, but everything you say degenerates to absolute bibble babble when you try explain your ideas. And how on earth do you figure out that I inferred anyone was a skiver, when all I did was point out that a living wage, as a fundamental human right, is an ill thought out idea that is not supported by the UNHCR for very Good reasons, by making a point THAT YOU THEN WENT ON TO AFREE WITH, BUT NOW SEEM TO BE DISAGREEING WITH!!! You said you wouldn't pay them if they weren't productive so you clearly do not see it as a human right (I only rejected it as a very stupid idea), and ONLY YOU used the word skiver to describe anyone. So yet again, you are at odds with the rest of the world and established law. Purely because of your absolutist view that conceding anything to Hooter is unacceptable and you would rather deny reality. Talk about fannying by gaslight.
We’ve had lots of rapid reform across many industries and much of it has been useless. Most council services are outsourced now and many are poor quality, whether it’s prisons or school food. Unions will accept reform that is well-reasoned and where the terms of change are fair. Sadly, the last forty years has seen a stripping out of wages and pension rights and here we are, millions getting in work benefits. What an awful legacy, a terrible price for what exactly? It’s a poor way to run the World and unions are right to resist it whenever they can. That a union is being called ‘unreasonable’ nearly always tells me they are on the right track.
The average size of a UK family is 2.4 people. You have arbitrarily chosen 4 as the figure on which to base your living wage. You are the one who is suggesting your 'pesky' 2% be subsidised to an income four times what you think is an adequate amount. I have no problem with them getting what they can out of YOU. I am not even saying 'take it away from them', because they are not currently receiving it. So can you stop referring to them as pesky skivers, because you are clearly being terribly rude and condescending. If I were ever to be so unpleasant, please point it out. I am saying, "don't be silly, and start paying this money just because you plucked it out of your bottom." So can you clear this up, because I suspect you will soon be denying that it is a consequence of your grand scheme... Do you think a household of four adults should have their wages subsidised by the government to £84,000? Even though you believe they can live on 21,000. Do you feel that such a thing would make the other 98% happy, and feel that your governance was fair and even handed. And with freedom of movement, with something like 80% of migrants being single men, living together in a single household potentially earning a subsidised £200,000+ (under your scheme), do you think that your average UK man and woman will be singing your praises for the fantastic ideas that are raising their taxes. You will not have removed the actual underlying problem. That whilst people have money in their pocket, the greedy will demand they hand it over. You are right that we need change. IMHO, you are absurdly wrong about how it can be achieved. And you know, if you hadn't chosen to say that scarcety of labour had no part to play (makes me wonder why you support the strikes, or what you think they are doing if they are not leveraging a scarcety of labour), I would have just looked at your idea, laughed, and moved on.
What a horribly laboured (see what I've done) accusation. There are so many meaningful ways you could have criticised that ludicrous post, yet the one you choose to invent is just not relevant. Rather than attacking the things you imagine to be evil (like me), why don't you attack the actual issues, in this case an attempt to associate Starmer directly with the strikes. It was the same with Brexit. Remainers were so busy attacking proveable rubbish, and completely ignored the real issues, because they were not sensational enough, which gave the impression they just didn't understand the issues. Same here.
All these unions that are striking need to come together and strike on the same day if possible. A union of unions if you like.
Erm... https://www.bigissue.com/news/employment/february-1-strikes-unions-coordinate-what-you-need-to-know/
I've got my 2nd biannual 'full' skin examination in dermatology tomorrow - that's unnerving *but* I'm extremely uncomfortable with the thought crossing picket lines as I fully support industrial action.
Look after yourself. No one is going to resent a person getting their health sorted out. That is not what the picket line is about. In my experience, working in the health service, the picket lines are more about garnering support and raising awareness than intimidating patients or even staff. I hope it goes well.
I don't think those on the picket line are there to put off patients. I don't even think they will be intimidating fellow workers as I'm sure they must have agreed a level of service for tomorrow. I'm sure all they will want is you to express your support as you cross their line. I certainly wouldn't feel any guilt about it.
I'm absolutely certain that none of the clinical professionals who work in our NHS who might be carrying any out any picketing activities would intimidate anyone crossing 'their' line. I fully aware any 'sympathetic strike action' I take would be: Possibly counterproductive to my future health and definitely counter productive to all the clinical interventions & care I've received over the past two years from our NHS staff. Cost the NHS £120. Do absolutely SFA for their worthwhile cause.
It's been very interesting watching as people slowly start to understand how strike action works. The teachers strike will potentially affect a lot more people than the NHS one, simply because schools may well be forced to close and parents will be inconvenienced. It throws the whole thing into sharper focus. Hearing pundits and commentators expressing surprise that the teachers who choose to strike don't have to notify their headteachers in advance shows just how poorly informed so many of the pundits and commentators are. It's literally their job to understand and explain what is going on *before* they pass opinion, but most of them don't have a clue what they are talking about. Not mentioning any names... but Andrew Pierce is definitely one of the worst.
This is what we got when the NEU announced the results of their ballot on the 17th: And a follow-up announcement on the 27th that both schools will be shut on the 1st Feb with provisions for those getting free school meals to bring home a packed lunch today for tomorrow.
So, for some, Brexit was about reducing the number of foreign workers so there'd be a scarcity of labour, which would force wages up for (good British) workers. But now we have a scarcity of labour and an increase in job vacancies the people who decide the wages are still refusing to pay more because 'the country can't afford it'. Anyone would think that the reason for low wages in the first place had nothing to do with immigrants or the EU and everything to do with the type of people who are in Government. (sarcasm alert for those who need it). The private sector is often very poor at redistributing its wealth to the people who do the bulk of the work, preferring instead to prioritise executives and shareholders. When I worked for a big company, the number of times over the years the internal email would trumpet its success and 'record profits' in one breath and announce below-inflation pay rises and the need for belt-tightening in the next was incredible. But not as incredible as the number of employees who just shrugged and thought this was absolutely fine. Just because the private sector is bad at something is no justification for insisting public sector workers accept being poorer at the end of the year than they were at the start of it.
Spot on. The latest logic fail comes from the same people moaning about public sector pay demands and in-work benefits. It doesn’t seem to compute that this is where many public sector roles are heading. An inefficient and disempowering distribution of wealth.
Agreed. The workforce does seem to be more mobile in the private sector though. People gain salary increaes by moving on or getting promoted, wheras in the public sector roles tend to be more static. Personally I think public sector salaries should rise in line with average private sector salaries. Linking salary rises to inflation/cost of living, just perpetuates a rise in inflation & cost of living, which will backfire the next year. There does however need to be some rebalancing in the public sector first of course. Many deserving groups are undervalued and many are massively overvalued. People also need to factor in pension costs to salary increases when looking at percentage rises and evaluating them as not enough or too expensive.
Average of what? In some public sector areas there aren't many private sector equivalents. How would you calculate the comparable average for that sector?
Quite simply the average private sector pay rise overall applied to public sector wages overall as a base rise. https://assets.publishing.service.g...ce_January_2023_-_final_version_PUBLISHED.pdf https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/55089900 You would assume tax take would rise accordingly so that it's fundability (if that is a word) should not be affected and therefore shouldn'd self perpetuate like linking to CPI/RPI/inflation. I reiterate that we do however need some rebalancing to counteract sectors where workers are undervalued. Nursing for example. Just an idea for discussion
Slightly wonky logic here, if I may say so. Salaries for jobs shouldn't increase because people can move on and get a better job? So the people who come into the lower paid jobs to replace those moving up will be, in real terms, poorer than the people who did those jobs before them. And over time, the gaps will widen. Typically, younger people, or those who get stuck in lower paid jobs, will drift further and further backwards and the state will have to step in to top up their wages anyway. Pointless. If we're going to base public sector wages on the private sector, which bits of the private sector? Should the wages of public sector directors match the wages of the top corporate CEOs? Because there's an awful lot of right-ish-wing rhetoric that slams hospital chief execs on huge salaries, for example, when the argument that the public sector is bloated and wasteful needs to be made. Or should public sector salaries be based on Amazon warehouse roles? Let's face it, Amazon can afford to pay its people a hell of a lot more than it does but it chooses not to. It chooses to value those jobs and those people badly. Not because it can't make money but because it has the power to set bad wages and the profit motive does nothing to persuade it to pay any more. And the market reinforces the idea. And the Government steps in with a carrot and stick welfare system that tops up wages of the lowest earners. Barmy. The *problem* is that we've been conditioned to assume that public sector wages are not worth much because they don't generate wealth. They are a 'drain' on the public purse. This message has been hammered into the British public for decades. Bottom line is, public sector jobs literally serve the public. We can have a debate about certain jobs in the civil service that may seem unnecessary, but if you want a functioning society and a healthy economy, paying people decent wages is the golden key that opens the door to that. We have an unequal economy, a poor society, bad public services, a broken system. I've just spent a week in France and, yes, there are problems there, but nothing is as run-down and shabby and broken there (comparing towns of the similar size to Watford). We are an absolute mess, paying too many people badly, valuing jobs poorly, with a political class that lies daily. (Keegan couldn't even quote the average salary of a teacher without getting it (wilfully?) wrong. As for pension wealth, well, sure, a valid part of the equation but also you can't spend your pension on groceries, or a holiday, or on contributing to a vibrant, diverse economy until you're in your 50s. It greases the wheels of someone else's vehicle until you're old enough. And if you pop your clogs before getting the full value of it, well, that's just the bad luck from your spin of the wheel.
That was my question, I understood the answer to be that we look at the average pay increase across the entire private sector from top to bottom.
