Non public sector workers

[Guest sibon]

The subject of another thread? In which we can have at it?

 

(

 

I fear you would be disappointed. I don't have any strong feelings either way about the existence of private schools. Maybe next week:)

[truman]

The employer has no choice if there are more than 5 staff - he must offer a pension scheme.

 

But the employer doesn't have to contribute...

[alchresearch]

I'm really fed up with the demonisation of public sector workers, often by people who have no idea what we do or the conditions that we work under.

 

Well said. "Public sector" covers a massive range of people and jobs, so when people use the term and accuse them of being lazy and overpaid, it just shows up their ignorance. Many of the public sector workers I know are on well below £12,000 a year.

 

The majority of people who work in the PS will just accept the conditions, tighten their belts and get on with it without moaning.

 

Just because someone has seen a silly job in the paper or heard someone loosely related to the public sector mouthing off doesn't mean they're like or speaks for all of us.

[Bedders]

The only people working in there are cleaners and security guards since it is now vacant because of job losses.

 

You've not really thought about what you've said there have you? If you are trying to say a reduction in staff has occured that probably a valid point for debate, but to say ONLY cleaners & security guards work there, then that has got to be a valid waste of tax payers money occuring. Why would you clean a totally 'unmanned' building? Most companies would 'mothball' any unused property not carry on cleaning it for the benefit of....er no one as you suggest!

[Wildcat]

You've not really thought about what you've said there have you? If you are trying to say a reduction in staff has occured that probably a valid point for debate, but to say ONLY cleaners & security guards work there, then that has got to be a valid waste of tax payers money occuring. Why would you clean a totally 'unmanned' building? Most companies would 'mothball' any unused property not carry on cleaning it for the benefit of....er no one as you suggest!

 

Perhaps you should ask the landlords that, I suspect it might be so when the Council move in they don't have to clear up the mess from its mouse problem.

[Wildcat]

Not sure that I understand your point, Wildcat, sorry

 

My point was made in response to this:

 

Seems to me that the private sector (yes, that mass of private sector employees, who outnumber public sector workers by some margin and comparatively very few of whom work in a bank, never mind at a decision-taking, profit-taking level) has been taking its own fair share of scapegoating over the past 2 years already, no?

 

My point was where has the private sector been scapegoated? The banks certainly externalised their problems on to certain sections of the private sector, which is what has caused the recession and has created big problems for them, which the quantitative easy that brought about the public sector debt was designed to mitigate. That however doesn't make for scapegoating, in fact the opposite. Contrast that with the OP's rant, or similar ones from GordonBennett fueled by the CBI, the Institute of Director's and readily regurgitated and twisted further by tabloids like the Mail.

 

I agree. They were not responsible alone

Where do you think the credit for your mortgage came from? Toxic or not is not the point, the point is too much credit got created globally relative to the value on which it was indexed (indiscriminantly of toxicity), to accomodate the demand (which was fanned by the offerrers). Doesn't matter if you were good with money and paid your debts, you contributed to the demand and the bubble just the same. That's all.

 

Far from contributing to demand I have been a victim of that demand. I would have been able to remain in rented accommodation if house prices and rents had not risen so high I was priced out.

 

Don't expect much sympathy, Wildcat. It's nothing many in the private sector haven't been through yet, and many private sector workers made redundant in the last 2 years didn't get anything at all, because their employers went to the wall.

 

Many have and they have my sympathy, and in some cases donations.

 

What you are citing is individual examples. It doesn't make a general point. The fact of the matter is that last year private sector pay on average went up twice as much as public sector pay. Public sector pay at least where I work has been held down. The last 3 years we had average 1% pay rises well below inflation, our pensions have been detrimentally changed, and we have 0% pay rises to look forward to. The previous Govt tried to retrospectively change out contracts to make it cheaper to sack us, a judicial review determined their actions were illegal. This Govt. is now going to resort to primary legislation to break the contracts made with us, petty nasty behaviour and contempt for your workforce in any sector. There are more Private sector jobs now than there were 5 years ago. Over the last 5 years Civil Service jobs have been cut by 20%, we face even harsher cuts looking forward.

 

My point is not that the private sector deserves no sympathy far from it, I have consistently argued private sector subsidies need to be maintained to get us out of recession. My point is that the scapegoating of public sector workers by sections of the media at the behest of bosses organisations despite us having nothing to do with the crisis is wearing more than a little thin. At best the criticisms are taken out of context but more commonly they are simply lies and unhinged untruths. The truth is public sector workers have faced more than their fair share of paying for the recession it is their critics in the bosses organisations that are the ones with all the privileges that have profited and continue to profit out of this. Is it any wonder they are looking for scapegoats to distract people from their profiteering. The sad thing is so many people readily buy in to it.

 

More on Pensions and who it is that has the gold plated pensions:

http://www.touchstoneblog.org.uk/2010/07/its-britains-directors-who-have-caused-the-publicprivate-pensions-divide/

[L00b]

My point was where has the private sector been scapegoated?

It was an allegory: the private sector has been 'scapegoated' over the past 2 years, to the same extent as the public sector is about to be 'scapegoated' now.

The banks certainly externalised their problems on to certain sections of the private sector

Well, those certain sections (at least in my experience and that of just about everybody I know) happen to constitute the bulk of the private sector, from which I only hear one song from the same hymn sheet: no-one is getting paid for their work/services/products, from the guys at the start digging up the coal/making the steel/assembling the widgets all the way to the guys selling it to the end users, and everyone in-between, be they office cleaners, bog roll suppliers, IT providers, etc, etc, etc.

 

There's just not enough liquidity left in the 'tubes', anywhere: think of the butterfly effect, apply it to the private sector at large. That's where the private sector is now, and from where it hasn't moved much for the last 2 years or so. So, I don't see it so much as scapegoating, as about time "it" was externalised to the public sector as well, if only so that the toll on the private sector eases up a bit.

What you are citing is individual examples.

Yes, a few hundreds of thousands of them.

It doesn't make a general point.

No? See above

[Wildcat]

It was an allegory: the private sector has been 'scapegoated' over the past 2 years, to the same extent as the public sector is about to be 'scapegoated' now.

Well, those certain sections (at least in my experience and that of just about everybody I know) happen to constitute the bulk of the private sector, from which I only hear one song from the same hymn sheet: no-one is getting paid for their work/services/products, from the guys at the start digging up the coal/making the steel/assembling the widgets all the way to the guys selling it to the end users, and everyone in-between, be they office cleaners, bog roll suppliers, IT providers, etc, etc, etc.

 

There's just not enough liquidity left in the 'tubes', anywhere: think of the butterfly effect, apply it to the private sector at large. That's where the private sector is now, and from where it hasn't moved much for the last 2 years or so. So, I don't see it so much as scapegoating, as about time "it" was externalised to the public sector as well, if only so that the toll on the private sector eases up a bit.

 

Yes, a few hundreds of thousands of them.

No? See above

 

How so when I have given evidence that the public sector has already faced worse than the private sector? In both pay rises and in the Civil Service in terms of job losses. Your examples are just that, unlike the evidence I have been citing from labour force studies and pay studies like from IDS.

 

The public sector cuts will have just as big an effect on the private sector anyway, whether that be Forgemasters or Keir.

 

Even if the public sector had been insulated from the effects of the recession, rather than the reality of leading the way with pay restraint, that still wouldn't justify the one sided arguments scape goating put forward against public sector workers almost daily in the right wing press.

 

You seem to be simply repeating what you have said previously and ignoring the evidence put forward that contradicts your views. If you want to be base your opinions on something other than the evidence then fair enough, but you shouldn't think just because you are using a lot of words you are being very convincing.

[L00b]

How so when I have given evidence that the public sector has already faced worse than the private sector? In both pay rises and in the Civil Service in terms of job losses. Your examples are just that, unlike the evidence I have been citing from labour force studies and pay studies like from IDS.

Because your 'evidence' is just as anecdotal, it just looks authoritative. Get me some independent (ONS?) data, and I might consider it.

The public sector cuts will have just as big an effect on the private sector anyway, whether that be Forgemasters or Keir.

See, that's where your carefully constructed argument falls flat on its face, or the ideology underpinning your posts shows a tad: Forgemasters never needed that public money in the first place - public money was just more advantageous within their corporate context (no need to toy with ownership, lesser business liability), and provided Labour with a useful media hook (look Sheffield, what we're doing for you!)

 

Why do you Forgemasters has stayed so quiet about it all, since? Let sleeping does lie and all that

 

EDIT - though I do fully agree of course: the public sector cuts will likely have a massive repercussion at the macro-economical level. All the private proximity service providers, hairdressers, corner shops, that kind of thing, which probably sufferred a loss of private sector clients, but could rely upon public sector clients up to now, are going to suffer a second loss. An effect likely to find itself amplified at the national level, goes without saying.

If you want to be base your opinions on something other than the evidence then fair enough

I base my opinions on my life experiences, inclusive of evidence I find and which others tend (and which I believe...or not). Just like everybody else, I suppose

, but you shouldn't think just because you are using a lot of words you are being very convincing.

Another issue where we are at odds: I'm not posting to convince, I'm posting to air my views. 'Tis the Interweb, not a High Court

[Wildcat]

Because your 'evidence' is just as anecdotal, it just looks authoritative. Get me some independent (ONS?) data, and I might consider it.

 

IDS are as independent as you will get and the leading experts on pay:

 

Public sector pay half that of private sector pay... as I was saying.

 

http://www.employeebenefits.co.uk/item/10782/pg_dtl_art_news/pg_hdr_art/pg_ftr_art

 

I also said that where I work we have had pay increases of average 1% for the last 3 years. I expect other areas of the public sector have had better deals than that. But it still shows the unfairness of blanket pay restraint measures.

 

See, that's where your carefully constructed argument falls flat on its face, or the ideology underpinning your posts shows a tad: Forgemasters never needed that public money in the first place - public money was just more advantageous within their corporate context (no need to toy with ownership, lesser business liability), and provided Labour with a useful media hook (look Sheffield, what we're doing for you!)

 

Why do you Forgemasters has stayed so quiet about it all, since? Let sleeping does lie and all that

 

Regardless of that, the funding for Forgemasters would have brought jobs and profits. Just like the house building programme produces jobs and is investment that would have helped us out of recession, had it not been cut.

 

My point is obvious, the fact you are picking straw man faults with it shows your ideological interpretation not mine.

 

EDIT - though I do fully agree of course: the public sector cuts will likely have a massive repercussion at the macro-economical level. All the private proximity service providers, hairdressers, corner shops, that kind of thing, which probably sufferred a loss of private sector clients, but could rely upon public sector clients up to now, are going to suffer a second loss. An effect likely to find itself amplified at the national level, goes without saying.

 

That was the point I was making.

 

I base my opinions on my life experiences, inclusive of evidence I find and which others tend (and which I believe...or not). Just like everybody else, I suppose

Another issue where we are at odds: I'm not posting to convince, I'm posting to air my views. 'Tis the Interweb, not a High Court

 

Well if you are happy to contribute unconvincing arguments, then so be it. I thought you were interested in the facts and an informed viewpoint.