Daily Telegraph: distorting debate on public sector pay
Posted on Thursday 21 January, 2010
Filed Under Society
OPPORTUNITIES to skive, doss, mess around on Facebook in company time, spend three hour lunches down the pub, take multiple fag breaks and generally put in as little effort as is consistent with not being sacked are not entirely lacking in the private sector.
Indeed, the higher one climbs the greasy pole, the more frequent they become. Sadly I suspect my career will never be crowned by management status, but I can’t help noticing the perks that go with such positions. I’ve known publishers to get away with everything from spending half the week playing golf with advertisers to sticking the cost of tacky black hookers on their exes. It’s almost as good as being an MP.
I make these elementary points after reading the latest bollocks in the Daily Telegraph on ‘the record gap between public and private sector pay’. The article is shockingly private sector supremacist, and built on the assumption that state and local government employees are labour market Untermenschen poncing off the soul-sustaining largesse of the wealth creation master race.
You know this guff off by heart by now:
‘Workers in the public sector are now being paid more than £2,000 extra a year compared with employees in the private sector, after public sector pay continued to race ahead of inflation.Twenty three grand a year? Gold digging or what, eh? At this rate, some of them will be holding a gun to the taxpayers’ head and asking for – nay, demanding – enough to support a mortgage on a two bedroom flat in Basingstoke.
The average public sector worker was paid £23,660 a year, compared with private sector workers who were paid £21,528 a year, in the three months to the end of November.’
Cue the inevitable whingeing from the sort of people who often pull down 23k a month. David Frost, director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, warns us that public sector pay has ‘exploded out control’.
John Philpott, the chief economist at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, weighs in with the observation that ‘everyone knows the public sector gravy train is going to be derailed.’
Doubtless he would argue that the investment banking gravy train – a veritable Train à Grande Vitesse compared to the council white collar employee suburban stopping service – must be allowed to trundle on in the national interest. Perhaps I am missing something here?
Corin Taylor, policy director at the Institute of Directors, adds: ‘There will have to be a public sector pay freeze or public sector pay cuts. It will be painful but it is necessary.’ And here’s Frost again: ‘This just isn’t sustainable … The wealth-creating private sector is losing out to the public sector.’
Now that’s what I call a broad spectrum of opinion, ranging all the way from private sector bosses’ organisations to, well … private sector bosses’ organisations. Maybe the reporter didn’t have the number for the Unison press office. Try directory inquiries, mate.
Yes, there is a gap between public and private sector pay. There is also an obvious reason for it. Most unskilled jobs that were once in the public sector – refuse collection, hospital cleaning and that sort of stuff – have long been outsourced to private companies.
Public sectors workers are increasingly likely to be graduate professionals who expect something approaching a graduate professional’s wedge. Of course civil engineers get paid more than crew members at Burger King.
Inevitably, then, comparing mean averages is not comparing like with like. Grade for grade, any disparity remains decidedly in favour of forex traders rather than social workers.
Torygraph writer Wallop damn well knows this elementary argument. Yet they prefer to slant the debate to suit his small state ideological agenda. Opinion pieces should be labelled accordingly.
Otherwise, what remains a serious if stridently rightwing newspaper sinks straight into Fox News territory. Grown up readers deserve better.
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81 Responses to “Daily Telegraph: distorting debate on public sector pay”
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Jimmy,
Thanks for joining the argument and an even bigger thanks for joining it on Modernity and Winston’s side.
Julia,
I don’t buy your innocence and miracle like conversion to be honest and I will expand my criticism of your position to show why I have my doubts about you.
Firstly I will give a general criticism of your points and then I will directly respond to specific comments.
Your whole argument is based on 2 separate homogeneous entities, the public sector and the private sector. Every comment you have made assumes this idea. So all public sector workers are on lavish pensions, working as and when it suits, never putting in extra hours and claiming expenses on trips out. All workers, whether cleaners, gritting crews, drainage engineers, accountants, dustmen, chief execs, are all the same. And in the private sector all workers are working 50 hour weeks, never claiming expenses, on zero pensions, no matter if they are hotel porters, shopping assistants, lawyers, accountants, hydraulic engineers, middle management.
This way of thinking lacks a certain sophistication if you ask me.
Now here are some of your comments which prove my point,
“Public Sector: expenses paid for visits to partner organisations”
Who are making these visits? Cleaners, School cooks? Are there no expenses paid out in the private sector? Isn’t the point here that at a managerial level certain perks are available? Isn’t it true that this is has nothing to do with public or private sector. Does this not expose your distortion and what witchfinder calls “False dichotomy”?
“Public Sector: No calls out of hours”
Who do you think does emergency planning work? If there is a disaster of some sort it is public sector workers who man the emergency operations rooms. This happened when flooding affected my area, workers were working around the clock. They did a first class job incidentally. I think I am correct in saying that public sector workers also in the main work on election duty. Who do you think grits roads in the middle of the night? How do you think social workers operate? (Cue David Duff).
“Public Sector: as much free tea as you could drink”
This seemingly trivial comment I think tells us more about your motives than all the rest, only dullards like Winston and Modernity would not see this comment for what it is.
“And I never had to work through the night at the council”
I guess you were not part of a gritting crew were you. I suppose you never had to repair roads, which is done off peak times. I guess you never volunteered for flood relief work.
“I know many public sector workers are dedicated and caring. But from what I’ve seen, they aren’t working under the same pressure as a private sector employee who has seen pay freezes, recruitment freezes and been told ‘work your arse off or you’re out’.“
See the generalisations on display here, social workers are not under pressure because they are public sector workers. Public = no pressure, private = pressure. Two homogeneous separate entities presented because this is the only way your dichotomy can possibly work.
“many of them can only dream of the benefits in pensions, flexible working and training/development that exist in the public sector.”
So public sector cleaners have great pensions do they, better than bankers, or better than dentists? Don’t you think that presenting arguments in the context of public vs private is totally irresponsible for someone on ‘our side’ to do? Only dullards like Modernity and Winston fail to see the foolishness of this approach.
Maybe I have become over sensitive to the right wing attempts to split public and private sector workers but I don’t think so. And that doesn’t change the fact that you attempted to use the exact same tactic.
I can’t believe that Modernity has a total sense of humour by-pass, or rather, I can believe it. Perhaps he should rename himself ‘Ernest’ but spell it ‘Earnest’. Of-course I know the remark about the ‘magic circle law firm’ was metaphorical. Johnno, there’s no way Julia Smith has been gritting roads, she’s a former City Lawyer, so she has a certain perspective on things. That’s one little difference she didn’t mention incidentally…if you work in those big City firms and you earn enough for your bosses, you get upgraded to an associate and then a partner, where you share in the profits of the firm. Public Sector workers have no such luck, they don’t get to be made shareowners, or as this government prefers to call them, ‘stakeholders’. Incidentally, isn’t that what a Labour Government is supposed to do? Protect teh interests of workers? If you think that private bosses are not playing fair with their workforce, then start pressuring the Government to introduce legislation protecting their workers rights. That was one of the founding ideas behind the Labour Party, although who would believe it now!
JOHNNO,SueR. One thing is certain is that there are cuts and voluntary redundancies taking place now in the public sector. In Glasgow the authotities had to close the list as to many teachers wanted out. In other sectors where my friend works the trimming is from the bottom up and the front line is suffering. The elite as always in any system public or private are protecting themselves. They make the cuts they survive. Sad old world. But the heathy can fight. The elderly, disabled and infirm have no power. I still suggest they will be better protected better by Labour.
“Modernity even joins the public sector hysteria by saying, “bullying and sexist attitudes are a problem in the public sector”.”
They clearly are a problem in the public sector, as anyone with the competence to use Google, would find out.
According to Government figures, approximately 65% of the workers in the public sector are women, yet women are significantly underrepresented in any senior positions, as a recent report highlighted.
Basically, the reason for that is sexist attitudes, men protecting their turf and other men.
I think this article will reiterate my original point:
http://www.womenintechnology.co.uk/news/one-third-of-women-bullied-at-work-says-unison-news-19487928
Of course, if you are a bloke like Johnno or Dean, then that is no concern of yours, in fact they probably done a bit of bullying or sexist intimidation all of their own, such is their conspicuously misanthropic attitudes.
However, any socialist with the wits of a budgerigar would appreciate that a certain sensitivity and understanding is required when dealing with these issues in the public sector.
Not that shit-for-brains, Johnno would understand why.
modernity, bullying in the workplace probably did increase after Thatcher. It was only tribunals that could expose this. Prior to tribunals in the mid seventies you had no chance of proof. You could only stick the head on the bully and walk away as there was plenty of work. Now you have to endure.
One might have hoped that – once everyone had got the bile out of their systems – someone would answer the question I ventured to ask on 22 January;
… if one were giving a school-leaver sage advice, what’s the best career deal all thing considered?
Just in my working lifetime, we’ve seen all sorts of changes in the World of Work. Some, like Health and safety legislation, have been – on the whole – good.
On the other hand, the realities of secondary teaching and third-level education teaching have changed markedly for the worse.
So what’s the best advice for someone in his/her late teens or early twenties?
Johnno, I’ve said a couple of times:
“I was comparing one public sector organisation with one small private company, both that I worked at in the last five years. In statistical terms, I know it’s the opposite of a representative sample.”
The two jobs I did were broadly similar in terms of roles and responsibilities, which as John Gray notes, is a good comparison to make. To compare road gritters with dentists is to cloud the issues because the terms and conditions of the jobs are so different, which is why I wouldn’t attempt to do it.
In fact, the only person taking my comments and extrapolating them to include the entirety of “2 separate homogeneous entities” is…. err… YOU, sir.
Bill:
I’d suggest trying to pick the right 6 numbers. Definitely learn Chinese. Don’t attempt to discuss stuff with people on the internet!
Or more seriously, make sure you’re working while studying. Make sure you build up good contacts – mpst grads get their first job via friends and family contacts. Accept there’s no jobs for life and make sure you have enough saved to get out on your own by your early-thirties: then the perils of rationalisation are much reduced.
I think Julia Smith has demonstrated exactly where she is coming from ‘make sure you have enough saved to get out on your own by your early thirties’. What sort of employment policy for a society is that?
So Julia, to reiterate my question from earlier (and taking at face value your conversion to concern for all workers)…
What are your suggestions other than ‘unions could do more to engage with private sector employees’?
Do you not think that has occurred to anyone? Aside from UNISON, most major unions’ (Unite, GMB, USDAW) membership is mostly private sector. So it has, you know, occurred to us that membership density is pretty low.
Julia,
I do not have a problem with you using your personal experience in the workplace to inform us of certain realities, this is very important to our understanding of how society works. The problem for me (and others I think) is that you used your personal experience and then applied it to ALL public sector workers and ALL private sector workers. You took your specific experience and then generalised that experience in a most sensational way to claim public sector workers were one thing and all private sector workers were another. This was the point of contention, as well you know.
You did this on a thread specifically discussing such distortions and how damaging they are. I can’t believe you were so naïve to believe your comments would be taken as innocent, casual observations. (Not everyone is as gullible as Winston Smith).
Though it is becoming hard to keep up with your ever changing position on the subject, I would say that at least you have stuck to the debate at issue, namely public sector distortions. Contrast this with Modernity’s pathetic and increasingly deranged attempt to divert this debate away from the important and topical theme of the article.
SueR, you need to take that with a healthy dose of facetiousness! Mind you, some of the happiest people I know are sole traders/freelancers, for all that they work 24/7.
Witchfinder, you’ll know better than I do what’s already been done – but would an information exchange would be a good place to start? So people without a union branch could get help with their issues from people who’ve been working in the field for years – so if something like the Vestas dispute happens it brings people to the union.
And Johnno, this: “then applied it to ALL public sector workers and ALL private sector workers” is something you did! I took great pains to say it was only my experience all along. But let’s put that to one side and move on.
What should worry us is that the bias is so ingrained into papers like the Telegraph and Mail that the readers can’t tell when they’re being lied to. So how on earth do you counter stories like the one referred to way up the top there^^?
Isn’t it wonderful that socialists can exchange views in such non-civil fashion?
There was an opportunity to have a good, friendly, dare I say, comradely discussion on the public sector, and find some points of agreement, refine arguments, etc
Yet what happens?
Another pointless slanging match, which is so typical of the modern British Left.
That noise which you hear is thousands, tens of thousands, of dead socialists and trade unionists spinning in their grave wondering how modern day “socialists” are bollocksing it up.
I don’t know what experience ‘modernity’ has in the trade union and socialist movement, but I thought that the exchange of views was rather restrained, given the high stakes involved. Anyway, especially for him, here is Britney Spears little ditty:
‘Superstar, where are you from, how’s it going?
I know you, gotta clue whatcha doing.
You can play brand new to all the other chicks out here
But I know what your are, what you are, baby.
Look at you, getting more than just a re-up
Baby you, got all the puppets with their strings
up
Faking like a good one, but I call ‘em like I see ‘em
I know what you are, what you are, baby
Moralizer, moralizer – moralizer, you’re a moralizer,
Oh moralizer, oh you’re a moralizer, baby
You, you, you are, you, you, you are
Moralizer, moralizer, moralizer (moralizer)
Boy don’t try to front
I (I) know just (just) what you are – are- are
Boy don’t ry to front
I (I) know just (just) what you are – are are.
(Continues for another ten stanzas of groaning and sqwarking whilst gyrating her arse around like a female cat inviting any passing Tom to fertilize her.)
I agree Sue, it is very restrained if you wish socialists in Britain to have no influence, to hold their meetings in telephone boxes and to be confined to the margins of society.
However, if you wish socialism to succeed in a wider sense, then socialists have to connect with people, real people, and it very clear that from these exchanges that is highly unlikely.
I think that is regrettable, but I doubt you’d understand why.
modernity
What makes you think you’re better placed to know how to deal with ‘real people’ than the rest of us?
Worth commenting on the mythology of brillinat public sector pension provision.
Very many school support staff have negligible pension eligibility.
E10 Rifle made a good point further up about the `politics of envy’. The Tories are always quick to accuse socialists of engaging in the politics of envy and here they are actively encouraging it by setting the private sector workers against the public sector. However, what we say to private sector workers is sue for nationalisation if you think you are hard done by and would be better looked after in the public sector. The public sector workers will support you as the private sector acts as a huge source of downward pressure on its wages, conditions, pensions, hours, etc.
Further up: there has been mention of the 37 hour week but I think most Civil Servants are on a 42 hour week and that hasn’t changed since probably the turn of the century.
Modernity is a professional troll. He’s attempted to change the discussion here from socialism into one about the boreishness of the left just as any thread on Palestine he will alter into one about the left being anti-semites. He should not be engaged with.
(above) The turn of the previous century obviously.
Julia,
“What should worry us is that the bias is so ingrained into papers like the Telegraph and Mail that the readers can’t tell when they’re being lied to. So how on earth do you counter stories like the one referred to way up the top there^^? “
Well that’s a good question and we have to understand to what extent people are being lied to, how many actually believe the lies and to what extent people just want to believe the lies.
To counter the actual lies means trade unions, labour politicians, worker friendly media and socialists providing a reasoned (yes that means not calling people witches), factually correct analysis of the situation. What we cannot afford are people on ‘our side’ remaining silent on the issue or as you have done adding to the right wing distortions.
In my opinion socialists should see this issue as one of the most fundamental issues of the day (and many do), especially in an advanced capitalist country such as ours, where the public sector is a significant portion of the economy. (The attitude of Winston and Modernity to this subject has been most revealing –in a bad way).
To better understand the issues involved public v private obviously does not tell us anything particularly meaningful. It would be better to understand the situation from an analysis of class relations and ‘productive’ and ‘unproductive’ labour.
We had a raging discussion on this site a few months ago about whether doctors should be considered working class, funnily enough Modernity and myself both came to similar conclusions on that occasion. (Though my position was far more refined than his).
As to why some workers would want to believe these lies and don’t want to hear the truth is a question that haunts socialists constantly.
Modernity,
If you have nothing to say about the actual topic under discussion then shut the hell up. We do not need to hear over and over again how the conduct of the modern British left fails to connect to ‘real’ people and how if we only followed your ‘wise’ advice we would be closer to a socialist society. Take a leaf out of Julia’s book, who despite being the ‘injured’ party in all of this has shown an admirable thick skin and got on with the actual debate. I am sure ‘real’ people would admire that kind of attitude. Your rather pompous, more tea vicar attitude would rather put them off I would venture.
I wouldn’t dream of telling people how to conduct themselves.
After all the British Left in the last 20 years has been such a striking success, it doesn’t need to change, that is obvious, does it?
Hmm, then again?
The Telegraph article (and many others like it) seem to me to be part of a (co-ordinated) ideological campaign to soften-up the electorate prior to the general election. This campaign has it’s ‘serious’ voice in the Telegraph and cheerleaders in the tabloids etc, but can be seen ‘up close and personal’ in local authorities and other public sector enterprises across the country.
The recent cuts package unveiled by my employer (£70m / 650 jobs) was preceeded by a steady stream of stories / leaks / comments about ‘missing’ resources, ‘greedy’ workers with bonus payments, ‘inefficiencies’. Services were then identified for cuts because of the ‘difficult fnancial environment’, the need to maintain council tax rises at 0%, protection of ‘frontline services’ etc etc.
The discussion amongst activists in my Union branch is centered on developing a strategy for fighting back that will command the most support from the membership – or at the very least, identifying a principled stance that we can argue with the wider membership, even if we lose the argument or become victim of inertia / demoralisation.
As an aside, I came acros this blog while surfing for stuff about the trotsykist group that I used to be active in between 1982 and 1990 (on and off). I stopped being active because I couldn’t maintain psychologically the effort of confusing losses with victories, talking to the same people all the time (with some notable exceptions) and getting involved in pissing contests with other trots. A lot of that still going on.
modernity. The British left has not changed and never will. They are just a protest group on the margins. They are part of the reason we got Thatcher and will probably help Cameron to power. They put ideology before reality and pragmatism.
They have to swallow their personal pride and do the best they can for the less well off. Remember that Lenin refused to feed some of his people. He said they will not fight if they are not starving. A full belly makes Jack content. The overwheming majority of British people are well off. Socialism means nothing to them.
“The overwheming majority of British people are well off.”
Christ almighty Jimmy, you’ve jumped the commenting shark there. This is “well off” in the sense of “not lying in the streets with consumption, smallpox and rickets” definition that not even the most rancid of Old Tories would dare use these days. Fffft.
“Socialism means nothing to them.”
True enough, but not for the reasons you’re stating. When it comes to the lovely living conditions for the poor in the UK today all’s for the best in the best of all possible worlds for you dear Pangloss. You Jimmy, are the archetypal “working-class Tory” and I claim my five shillings.
I wouldn’t dream of telling people how to conduct themselves.
After all the British Left in the last 20 years has been such a striking success, it doesn’t need to change, that is obvious, does it?
Hmm, then again?
Yes and the tedious arguing style and inability to stick to one topic displayed by you are one of the reasons. If you’ve been active on the British Left for the last 20 years then YOU are one of the reasons for its lack of success.
In other news, why does anyone still reply to Jimmy Glesga’s troll guff?
It’s a measure of Dave’s success in running this blog, that he is attracting such trolls. It also highlights the lack of debating space if you are not a)a partisan of a group, b)interested in sex, and drugs and rock and roll or c)monomaniacal. Despite the claims that the internet has opened up vast vistas of information and interaction, I find it hasn’t really, but that’s a topic for another day. (Dave: Hope you are enjoying Hong Kong and I’m working on my genoise.).
But Sue, I am interested in S,D & R&R!
Are you also monomaniacal? Anyway, I didn’t say that S,D &R&R are a BAD thing, they are just not everything.
“Sadly I suspect that my career will never be crowned by management status”
Well let me be didactic here: why don’t quit the habit of a leftist’s lifetime, stop carping at others more successful than you, and put in the effort necessary for success?
Or are you content to live the life of a drone, forever seeking “opportunities to skive, doss, bugger about on Facebook in company time, spend three hour lunches down the pub, take multiple fag breaks …” etc?
As for CIPD’s comments on the public sector, they are absolutely spot on, and in case you missed it, not only on the pay differentials, but on the pension defecit as well.
Public sector pension promises are huge and, in many cases, funding is woefully inadequate. Government assumptions of double-digit returns on pension stocks have been far too optimistic. The 20th century was wonderful for investors but 10 years into the 21st century the FTSE 100 still hovers at 5200:
http://quote.fool.co.uk/chart.aspx?s=^ftse
Because the fuse on this time bomb is long, politicians have been studiously avoiding inflicting tax pain, given that these problems will only become apparent long after they have left this mortal coil.
Promises involving early retirement – sometimes to those in their late 40s – and generous cost-of-living adjustments are easy for these officials to make on paper.
But given that people are living longer and inflation is certain, those promises will be painful to maintain.
Andy,
A very impassioned critique of modern capitalism, I am beginning to think socialism is the answer.
“But given that people are living longer and inflation is certain, those promises will be painful to maintain.”
People are also 10 times more productive, which means that your doom mongering is rather misplaced and a little economically illiterate. But don’t let that stop you.
Former Neo Liberal,
Critique of modern capitalism? No, a critique of unrealistic funding for public sector pensions.
10 times more productive than what?
Not “doom-mongering” but a refusal to believe in magic and government fantasy figures for pension projections.
Unless I really get my act together I won’t be well off when I retire. “Doom-mongering” or facing up to reality depending on your inclinations…
“Critique of modern capitalism?”
Yes Andy a withering critique of modern capitalism, a system which you claim can no longer afford to give people decent pension provision. I think it is time for a re think and people like you nicely expose the inadequacies of the system.
People are living longer than people in the past but people are far more productive. That is the reason we are not fighting in the street over decaying human corpses.