The Next Culture War

[albionpeej]

You really should use some logic before posting.

All the lower paid jobs in the public sector have been shifted off into the private sector. Cleaners, bin men, nurseries and children's centres.
Welcome to the free market. Same market that means if you don't like a private sector job, you could always apply for one in the public sector.

[Borin' Baggie]

Ah, I see you have a subscription to The Times as well.

In my opinion, public sector vs private sector is missing the point. There are far fewer benefits to staying in the public sector these days aside from job security, the gap is so much smaller. The issues being raised seem to be more about capacity to work and the role of work, which adds in a chunk of the private sector to run parallel with the public sector against another chunk of the private sector. The friction between the two sectors has very little to do with the workers and more to do with the government issuing stupid and arbitrary rules that they change on a whim.

Regarding the pensions issue, people in the public sector just don't get the gold plated final salary pensions they used to. Last time this was looked at the majority was getting less than £5k as a pension with the mean still only going up to around £7500, the people at the top end are very few and far between nowadays.

MoneyWeek is a great read too.

You speak about £5K as a public sector pension as meagre. What do you think similar private sector workers in Auto Enrolment will be taking home? They'll be lucky if it's £1000. Auto Enrolment ought to be exposed as the greatest misselling scandal in history.

I'm really quite interested in the "far fewer" benefits to remaining in the public sector. When I worked there it was fixed 38-hour week, 25 days annual leave plus Bank Hoiliday "Tuesdays" + up to 24 days flexi leave. Free parking behind the NIA, essential car user allowance and mileage, final salary pension scheme (mine's still worth a 1/3 of my SIPP despite only 5 years service on modest pay v 20 outside public sector). Has it really altered that much?

I think the friction will occur if low paid workers in the private sector ever recognise how much better off low paid workers are in the public sector, and how they have zero prospect of ever catching up - particularly in pension terms.

£5k is meagre, just because a diet of a slice of bread and some cheese is better than just a slice of bread that doesn't make the former in any way substantial. It also misses the point about that being the median point pension, more people will be in the earlier brackets receiving far less than that. The issues with private pensions will affect both public sector and private sector workers as you can't rely on a workplace pension/average salary pension as you could older company and public pensions and the state pension will inevitable collapse or you will need to be 90 to be eligible by the time I'm in a position to retire especially if adjustments aren't made to it.

Regarding benefits, the private sector reacted to market demands and salaried hours are comparable except with a half hour lunch break vs one hour. Plenty of private sector businesses offer perks like car parking and company cars and plenty of public sector roles (like NHS workers or certain councils) have to pay for parking, and with how contracts are being provided the only leave entitlements people are getting is more flexible working (with the new working environment encouraging WFH I'd be surprised if that didn't start to filter down now so that benefit will likely go for comparable roles). As a salaried worker in the private sector my contract is for 37.5 hours per week with 25 days holiday entitlement not including bank holidays, I earn more than if I was working in the public sector based on advertised roles for the public sector and the only negative is I have less job security and you get more help with training schemes in the public sector but that's probably more to do with the company I work for being an SME.

And "low paid" workers in the public sector are paid through an agency nowadays whether that be temps or outsourced jobs so they would in turn count as private sector, not even mentioning outsourcing (again, counted in the private sector) so the only people directly paid as public sector workers will be considered as essential which in turn will provide higher salaries (and given pay freezes over the last 10 years, their equivalent private sector roles now pay more and, as we've seen, people are abandoning public sector roles for a few years for equivalent private sector roles at higher pay) so looking at salary numbers as a whole is pointless and you need to compare role vs role (if I was doing what I did for HS2 employed directly for HS2 ltd I would have been on less money than I was). Those low paid get no benefits whatsoever and the wages are not better than the private sector. When I was a temp at Warwick District Council over the summer between first year and second year at uni I got no additional work benefits compared with anyone who got paid through the same agency in the private sector.

[Protheroe]

<BUMP>

[baggy1]

I'm really quite interested in the "far fewer" benefits to remaining in the public sector. When I worked there it was fixed 38-hour week, 25 days annual leave plus Bank Hoiliday "Tuesdays" + up to 24 days flexi leave. Free parking behind the NIA, essential car user allowance and mileage, final salary pension scheme (mine's still worth a 1/3 of my SIPP despite only 5 years service on modest pay v 20 outside public sector). Has it really altered that much?

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Taking a sidebar here - I reckon that our paths must have crossed at some point Proth. I was at BCC 2003 to 2008 and had the same perks including the NIA parking, I was with Birmingham Audit at the time. You are correct on the pension as well but mine amounts to a bit more of a proportion with 9 years overall of local govt. However that is balanced by the much larger salaries that I have earned in the private sector, so swings and roundabouts.

[MrFizz]

I'm really quite interested in the "far fewer" benefits to remaining in the public sector. When I worked there it was fixed 38-hour week, 25 days annual leave plus Bank Hoiliday "Tuesdays" + up to 24 days flexi leave. Free parking behind the NIA, essential car user allowance and mileage, final salary pension scheme (mine's still worth a 1/3 of my SIPP despite only 5 years service on modest pay v 20 outside public sector). Has it really altered that much?

Fixed 38hr week? Thats a laugh. I worked 49 last week. I average around 45.
Annual leave 32 days, of which 3 or 4 must be taken at Christmas as we are 'shut'.
Flexi leave one day per month. Of course you have to 'bank' hours for that. You cannot 'carry over' more than 12 hours from month to month. I regularly 'lose' upwards of 15hrs a month, i.e. hours that i have worked that i will neither be paid for or get time off in-liue.
Free parking? You're having a giraffe. Pay like everyone else.
Essential car user doesnt exist. Mileage for business only.
Pension i dont take a great deal of notice of, other than its very different to the one i signed up to 16yrs ago and i will be in my late 60's before i can claim it.

As an aside, out of my team of 6 people 2 are employed through agency. Both have been offered permanent positions but turned them down as they would be losing more than 15% of their salary, plus healthcare benefits, cars etc if they became permanent employees.

Nobody wants to work local government anymore. Those of us left after the great cull of 2010/11 are the few who want to make public services work, in spite of those 'we' elect and the dickhead Directors they appoint.

[HawkingsHalfpint]

I actually predict the public sector will obediently walk the tightrope between the new working class and those employed in a smaller, leaner, more digitally savvy and more exploitative private sector. They have far more power than they actually know; its's just always lay in the wrong, self-serving hands.

What a shit situation.

[MrFizz]

Local Government these days wouldnt exist if it didnt work hand-in-hand with the private sector. When i first started 'consultant' or 'agency' were dirty words to be whispered. Any agency worker or consultant who was in the office had to tread quietly and mind their p's and q's, especially around the older generation.

Nowadays probably 25% of 'council workers' are actually agency staff or from consultancies on long term contracts, doing normal jobs rather than being brought in for specific specialist tasks.

[Jack Halford]

Several articles on this over the last few weeks in the the press and online.

The next culture war in the UK will be Public v Private sector employees. Covid has served to magnify the inequality in pay, job security and pension provision.

Zero interest rates will only make the chronic underfunding of private pensions (and fantasy funding of public sector defined benefit pensions) even more polarised, and even less justifiable than at present. As I suggested the other day, individuals and corporations will not wear further tax increases to fund the state's largesse without finding new and exciting ways to avoid them, certainly not without a quid pro quo from the public sector - austerity? Probably not. But there needs to be a really serious conversation about waste, technological transformation of public sector services and pensions.

Don't expect the unions to take that lying down. A decade or more of strife is on the cards - whichever party is in power.

Having worked in both, life in the private sector is way, way, way more cushty than the public sector. Way more. Private sector pay has overtaken public sector pay. Most people in the public sector are now on average salary pensions, not final salary. The work benefits you get in the private sector are larger. I never, ever got mileage in the public sector. Ever. They'd stick you on public transport first.

What you'd like to do is compare doctors and politicians to the vast majority of public sector workers, who don't get anything like those kinds of wages.

But having been a lurker around here for sometime, I think you need to lay off the Joe Rogan and perhaps spend less time on YT falling down a well of right wing bile.
But I suppose it's easier to attack the cleaner earning minimum wage's pension than Amazon for paying £293m tax on an income of £13.73bn and then not compensating it's staff suitably, also whilst on a forum about a sport where some people are earning the same in a week as 3 cleaners would earn in a year for kicking a bag of air around.

If you don't like what you get in the private sector, get a job in the public sector.

Both factually incorrect.

The rest of your post is just bizarre. I've worked in both sectors too. Your point about mileage is ludicrous - you could've claimed this yourself in your tax return anyway and it pales into insiginificance compared with employer pension contributions (and a defined benefit pension).

I'm not attacking anyone, least of all a cleaner on minimum wage - though being on minimum wage is far better in the public sector due to job security and pensions etc. What my point about employees has to do with Amazon I'm not sure and who the fuck is Joe Rogan?

Maybe you should stick to lurking.

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You have a choice what sector you work in. Yours a Libertarian

Currently a bunch of them and associated private companies are trying to pretend the failures of the private sector are the fault of Public Health. Both the public and private sectors need each other, what they don’t need is a sustained attempt to blame the NHS etc for the failure of a very well rewarded private company.

I thought the argument that things should be ran by private companies was they would be more accountable and awarded contracts on merit?

Alice will never wake up.

I'm talking about employees. Not sure what you're talking about.

You’re trying to set-up an us and them narrative when the two sectors are dependant on each other to work at their optimum.

To quote Digby Jones, you need a strong private sector to create jobs not a strong public sector

Try getting hold of some B’ham City Council departments at the moment. Dealing with them is a clusterfuck.

[Brentbaggie]

Proth, I might be missing something but when you state that Public sector workers can claim mileage on the tax return - what makes you think most public sector workers have a tax return?

[Protheroe]

Proth, I might be missing something but when you state that Public sector workers can claim mileage on the tax return - what makes you think most public sector workers have a tax return?

Anyone can fill in a tax return. To claim your mileage back would take about 2 minutes.