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Unread 17 Jul 2008, 19:05   #9
furball
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Re: Council strike, inflation and living cost

Quote:
Originally Posted by All Systems Go View Post
Would you support the strike then if it were just the people who were being underpaid?
If the individual underpaid sectors went on strike, yes. But £15k/year seems perfectly reasonable for a teaching assistant given that a similar job in finance in the City of London pays £16-18k.

Quote:
Originally Posted by All Systems Go
It depends where you live really and what you mean by 'live'.

In the Welsh Valleys, I would say yes. In London, I would say no. But I don't think anywhere in the UK you would be 'comfortable' on £15k.
Of course it depends, but anyone who wants to live independently and make a career out of being a teaching assistant is a fool. It's not a valid career option.

Quote:
Originally Posted by G.K Zhukov
Do people in the private sector really take paycuts?
Isnt getting 2.45% wage rise when inflation is above 3% a pay cut?
How much have public sector employees gotten under Labour? (but are council employes not under the councils, and not under the state, and so does really Labour holds any power/influence on the setting on wages?)
No, people in the private sector get made redundant, a much more efficient way of cutting the wage bill. I'm not going to go to the effort of checking figures that I vaguely remember but pay in local government (a big bug-bear of mine) has increased by 30-50% in real terms since 1997.

A pay cut is a reduction in pay. If your company's not growing when there's positive inflation (i.e. a recession) then where is the company supposed to find the money to increase pay from?

Council employees are employeed by the local council. The council gets some money from council tax and some as a grant from central government. You may have noticed the council tax controversies in recent years - these are because the government has increased the duties of councils without increasing the amount of money it gives to them

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tietäjä
It might be that the situation there is a bit alike to how it's here. Public sector is somewhat underpaid (in compared to private sector), but one could argue that it's not so on terms broader than just simple pay roll numbers. Essentially, through lower wages, people in public sectors are paying a premium for the "cushy place to work".
That's really how it should be, in my eyes. However, Labour's pumped so much money into the public sector (through increases in public spending) that the premium for a cushy job is making the public sector a better place to work in, financially, than the same level of job in the private sector.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tomkat
This isn't really true at all. The reason for the strikes (as with the teacher strikes back in May) is because the pay increase per annum (%) has been below average for a long time now. There's a significant difference between the average pay for public sector and private sector.
I will accept your point on the education sector itself. Lecturers in particular are underpaid, as are teachers. However, Unison's strikes have covered the energy, healthcare, higher education, local government, police staff, transport, and water and environment industries - surely you're not arguing that all of these are underpaid?
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