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.
<<Go back
Comments
81 Responses to “Daily Telegraph: distorting debate on public sector pay”
What is the lowest fulltime wage paid in the public sector? Where?
We all know that there are enormous and stratospheric salaries up at the top end, as well as some dodgy hopping to-and-fro between certain arms suppliers and the Ministry of Defence mandarins who authorise the buying the wares of the same arms suppliers, but can anyone reading this site tell us chapter and verse of the facts?
“OPPORTUNITIES to skive, doss, bugger about 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, it seems to me that the higher one climbs the greasy pole, the more frequent they become.”
Really? Perhaps you can tell me where I can find such a job. Because I inevitably found that the higher I climbed up the greasy pole, the more I had to work. I mean crazy work, 12 hours a day. And when I wasn’t in the office, I still was on call 24/7. Even when I was “on leave”.
Which is why I’m now quite happy at the bottom of the greasy pole with no great urge to climb it again, but if you can tell me where I can do all these dossy, skivey things while pulling down directors emoluments, I’ll be a very happy man.
Minimum wage in NHS and HE is about £13,000, in local government about £12,000. In FE about 13,500.
It’s fairly academic in my sector, as most of the lowest spine-point jobs have been outsourced and are now provided by the private sector on national minimum wage.
Diagree with Obnoxio, in my experience Dave has it spot on. And where I work mangement have certain perks that mere mortals do not have, like ‘home working’.
It is a pretty obvious trick the ruling class are playing, setting one set of workers off against another, using the bourgeois state media to do it. (This would never happen in China incidentally!). And they are doing this to divert attention away from the fact their system and their real lackeys screwed up big time. The question is will they get away with it?, why am not optimistic.
There’s also a very good reason why public sector pay on conditions are better – we have unions. Us agreeing to pay freezes and cuts will do nothing to improve the lot of those in the private sector i.e. crap wages and conditions, health and safety a sick joke, laws to protect staff blatantly ignored by bosses. We need to get more private sector workers in unions so we can fight back together.
Interesting to see that the figures for public sector pay are quite significantly skewed by public ownership of the banks.
http://www.leftfootforward.org/2010/01/more-misreporting-on-public-sector-pay/
PS. the IoD bloke was formerly at… the Higher Rate TaxPayers Alliance
‘Obnoxio’
“if you can tell me where I can do all these dossy, skivey things while pulling down directors emoluments, I’ll be a very happy man”
Try your local district council offices!
This “public sector workers have it easy” crap pisses me off no end, and we’re only going to see more of it in the months and years to come, as destroying what’s left of the public sector is one of the few things on Cameron’s wishlist that Labour hasn’t already done for him.
When I worked for HM Customs & Excise (as was) about 6-7 years ago, I was on the lowest pay band, Band 2. The reason Band 2 was the lowest is that Band 1 was overtaken by the Minimum Wage and had to be scrapped – so we’re hardly talking banker salaries here. (In 2003, the HM C&E Band 2 starting salary was something like £10800. Around the same time, the DWP’s bottom-rung salary was the generous £9990).
‘McGazz’, sorry to be hard but I am rather relieved to know that all those scruffy, uniformed oiks I see gathered in little groups chatting amongst themselves and exhibiting nil interest as I and several hundred other incomers pass though Customs are paid the minimum amount for doing what appears to be the minimum!
I’ve worked in both lately, so think I can comment fairly conclusively!
The private sector: 10 hour days, no overtime until you passed the 50 hr pw mark to make sure you never received anything for it, pay docked for sick leave, expected to take phone calls over weekends and in evenings (once on a call to a supplier in Oz at midnight on my sofa – so much for “home working” being a doss), buy your own tea bags and milk, no flexi time allowed, most important = no pension.
The public sector: flexible working even if you don’t have kids so had the option to do a nine-day fortnight, 7 hour days and overtime or TOIL for anything over, as much free tea as you could drink, no calls out of hours, expenses paid for visits to partner organisations, could accrue TOIL for extra days holiday, full pay for up to 6 months sickness, full pension rights with generous employer contributions.
Fact is and even the most dedicated lefty can’t argue against it (I know, I’ve tried and failed): private sector workers with no hope of decent pensions for themselves are subbing through taxation an exceptionally favourable pension scheme for public sector workers. It isn’t just. And the old argument of ‘well the pension is to compensate for the lack of earnings’ doesn’t hold water: I got a pay rise when I moved from a magic circle law firm to a local council. And I never had to work through the night at the council.
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’.
So Julia, you basically think that the answer to you having crappy work conditions in the private sector, is that everyone else has crappy work conditions too in a race to the bottom. I think this is called “the politics of envy”.
So what is the cushiest and safest, job-secure and non-dangerous, non-exhausting number?
Let’s imagine we’re giving sage advice to a school-leaver or recent graduate – without bothering about the greater good for a moment.
Suggestions, please!
My memory is not what it was, but I think that it’s in a James Joyce short story that a fellow tells his forever-daydreaming lackadaisical godson:
“Get yourself into the Civil Service and then ye can “Think About Things” as much as ye want!”
Julia smith,
Julia’s experience does not match my own and I think on one level she tells an outright lie and on another level she is deliberately misleading.
Firstly, there are many many private companies that offer flexible working to their staff and the private sector offer greater bonuses than staff in the public sector. Though undoubtedly the lack of unionisation in the private sector has allowed most workers pay and conditions to deteriorate and this first attack on private sector workers is now being sold to justify the attack on public sector workers. The ruling class and their lackeys, of whom Julia is a prime example, are trying to cause division among workers because they know that a divided workforce is easier to attack. The lesson for workers is that they need to be united.
In the public sector, where I work currently, the staff pays for their own tea, coffee, it is called the coffee club and has existed in every single public sector organisation where I have worked.
Public sector workers are mainly contractually obliged to work 37 hour weeks, this has not changed in the last 30 years at least, and the intensity of work in the public sector has multiplied greatly over this time with reduction in staff etc through ‘efficiency’ savings. Pay has not matched this increase in intensity and flexible working schemes actually suit the bosses because they can now open buildings for longer during the day because workers are not on call from just 9 to 5 anymore but more like from 7 to 7. And flexible working is not handed out like confetti but a case must be put forward and I can assure everyone that many many people are turned down.
Currently a full blown attack on public sector pay and conditions is taking place. Overtime payments are being withdrawn from people who do duties outside normal working hours, those on standby duties for example, also a systematic reduction in the value of workers is being introduced. For example a Design engineer may be currently on £35k a year but if someone leaves their post they are being replaced by someone on £25k year. Yes you heard right, Design engineers are seeing their job devalued by £10k a year. I know this because I am currently preparing budget estimates for the 2010/2011 year; I think that puts me in a far better position than Julia to assess the situation.
Julia is just a rotten stinking lackey of the ruling class; do not listen to the witch.
Good post on this topic a few week’s ago by Ben “Bad Science” Goldacre:
http://www.badscience.net/2010/01/if-you-want-to-be-trusted-more-claim-less/
I love irony, don’t you? This had me chuckling and chortling this morning:
“the [public sector] staff pays for their own tea, coffee”
“Public sector workers are mainly contractually obliged to work 37 hour weeks, this has not changed in the last 30 years”
That Dean is a proper card, isn’t he, does he write part-time for Private Eye?
Vituperation aside, can anyone give a youngie sound advice?
“Auntie Vera, you’re a lot older than I am and you’ve been around the block, right?
What’s the best cushy number that’s pretty much recession-proof and offers all the bennies and no hard graft or danger?”
David Duff,
I was responding to your fellow ruling class lackey who claimed that public sector staff didn’t have to pay for their own tea etc. It is important to expose these lies. Try following the argument.
As for the 37 hour week, the point is that for decades hourly pay rates and conditions have not improved in the way Julia suggested. And it is important to know that the living standards of public sector workers are under attack.
But it is good to know that the right’s vision of the future is workers living on a minimum subsistence as slaves of the ruling class. That knowledge keeps us fighting.
Your disdain and open hostility towards public sector workers, the cleaners, engineers, social workers etc etc is quite pathetic as I am certain these people do a far greater service to society than you.
And your lies are specifically designed to aid the ruling class in reducing workers living standards, I think this fact is useful to know, especially when you try to claim to be on their side when pushing your racist immigration ideas.
It is a pity that an otherwise reasoned defence of the public sector is spoilt by this childish and sexist nonsense:
“Julia is just a rotten stinking lackey of the ruling class; do not listen to the witch.“
Cheers modernity, I’ll admit that stung slightly!
I did some work for Unison while I was in my last public sector job and went out on strike over the pensions question, so it’s a surprise to learn that I was being a stinking lackey while standing on that picket line.
What I wanted people to take from my comparison was that increasingly private sector employees are being left behind: many of them can only dream of the benefits in pensions, flexible working and training/development that exist in the public sector.
I think the unions could do more to engage with private sector employees, so that they can see the benefits of organising branches and negotiating with employers collectively to try to get improved conditions and benefit packages.
The other thing is that, of course, workers ARE divided – even to talk about “the private sector” is slightly ridiculous when there is a huge gap between what the big companies offer (they can usually afford flexible working, training, bonuses etc) and what your average SME is minded to do. Many of this last group offer the bare legal requirement only and if you want to argue, they’ll be happy to replace you. That’s something I would like to see change.
Perhaps that does make me a witch though. In which case, there’s only one possible thing to be done:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrzMhU_4m-g
Happy Friday everyone (incl Dean)
So Julia
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.
Of course it’s not just that private sector workers often have rubbish pension provision. But it’s not “just” either to cut public sector workers’ pensions (average LGPS payout: £4,000pa) in order to somehow make the private sector workers feel better about their own lack of pension provision.
That’s a false dichotomy. And it’s not helped by wild generalisations about working in the public sector being a doss.
Me and my friend were arguing about an issue similar to this! Now I know that I was right. lol! Thanks for the information you post.
People, people, why are we fighting?
Brother Dean makes some interesting points, in among the adolescent defensive retro-lefty rhetoric; so does the Witch Julia, with her broomstick-elevated view of more-than-one-sector experience.
Dave’s point is perhaps obscured in all this worker class scrapping. Anyone taking a wage is a lackey for someone. The problem is perhaps not whether public sector worker x gets 25k for doing the same job in 35 hours that private sector worker y does in 45 hours for 22k… it’s manager z in either organisation getting 60k plus bonus for sacking people, or ‘rationalisation of non-key departments and roles’, for the BCC people reading.
Julia with yet more witchery to hoodwink the gullible,
“What I wanted people to take from my comparison was that increasingly private sector employees are being left behind: many of them can only dream of the benefits in pensions, flexible working and training/development that exist in the public sector.”
But all these ‘dream like’ ‘benefits’ you talk of are under attack. Flexible working exists in most large scale organisations, both public and private sector; this has been introduced because it suits the employers and the type of work!! Do you get that or not!! And do you understand the idea that not everyone is just given flexi working as you previously stated. I will give an example of where I work. There are 11 in the office, we have to have 4 people covering the office before 8.30am, between 8.30am and 12.00 we have to have 8 covering, between 12.00 and 2.00pm we have to have 4 people, between 2.00pm and 4.30pm we have to have 8 covering, from 4.30 to 5.00pm it is 4 people and from 5.00 to 5.30pm we need 3 people. There is one person out of the 11 on flexi working, they work 37 hours in 4 days, and this is because they have a child under 5, once that child turns 5 they have to go back on normal working. Recently a member of the team was refused to go 4 days because management felt it could not be accommodated.
It is a lie to say flexi doesn’t exist in the private sector. It is a lie to say private sector workers are being left behind in relation to Public sector workers, the ruling class attacks are now firmly concentrated on Public Sector workers also, which has been the case for a few years now. You have presented a ridiculously distorted and generalised view of public sector workers; this can only be a deliberate ploy on your behalf.
You will have to show me evidence of better training and development in the public sector, one of the budgets areas we are cutting (or as Duff would call it efficiency saving) is training and development and the T & D budget has been used to balance off areas of over spend in recent years. And training is for the benefit of the organisation anyway!!! Do you understand that training is for the benefit of the employer (and society for that matter) or not?
It is clear from your comments what game you are playing, you are trying to divide public sector workers from private sector workers by telling lies, only a idiot like Modernity can’t see you for what you are and feels the need to spring to your defence. He is often springing to the defence of people like you, so I wouldn’t feel too flattered.
Markwoff,
I tend agree with your observations about management but this Julia Smith is a fraud in my opinion. Her lies have to be countered, that isn’t being defensive it is putting the record straight.
If she is claiming to be on the workers side then I would advise her to urgently change her tact.
Isn’t that the problem with blokes? That tendency, the desire to be dismissive of women’s opinions.
I suspect, that the condescending attitude, which is dismissive of others’ experiences, means that SWPers like Dean are really piss poor in convincing people of their own ideas, or winning them over.
That’s because a lot of blokes, and SWPers included, can’t articulate an argument without including invective and insults, so all of their political opponents must seem to them to be either: “liars, racists, lackeys of the ruling classes or witches, etc etc “.
These SWPers seem incapable of relating to people on their own level or through their experiences and if you can’t relate to people then it is unlikely that you will convince them to take your arguments seriously.
And if they don’t take your arguments seriously, because you purposely alienate people by your attitude, then you are a deficit to socialism and trade unionism, because whenever anyone remembers their encounter with you, they won’t remember a halfway decent ideas that you advanced, rather then remember how obnoxious, condescending, insulting and sexist you were, Dean.
Maybe it’s time for a bit of reflection on your poor attitude and sexism.
Is Julia Smith related to Winston Smith?
Is this the same Modernity who wanted to ban any commenters he didn’t approve of or the same Modernity who heroically told Bill Corr to fuck off or the same Modernity who is Jim Denham’s chief advocate?
Instead of the tired old Statler and Waldorf routine from the Muppets, try engaging with the actual argument Modernity.
Having read Julia’s comments I would guess her main sources are the Daily Mail and Daily telegraph. I.e. They are full of half truths, moronic generalisations and reactionary implications.
There is another example, it just shows you how blokes can spout sexism, called women names and be completely unapologetic about it.
To the Ultra Leftists here, Dean & Johnno, abusing people is a way of life, a very lonely way of life.
Dean and Johnno both haven’t got the brains to understand that you can disagree with someone without using sexist language, or calling them a “witch”.
They haven’t understood that the public sector and in particular the public sector unions contain a majority of women, and they can’t relate to that.
They can’t find any common ground, any point of agreement, and any shared experience of someone who’s been on strike, as Julie has been.
No, instead they abuse people.
They are their own worst enemy’s, they are part of the reason that socialism in this country has such a bad name.
They are offensive and thick, they can’t see that their own antics put people off of socialism and trade unions.
But I suspect Dean and Johnno don’t care.
They don’t really care about socialism or whether it is successful, or whether or not trade unions grow again. No, more than likely it’s just an opportunity for them to rant, to play Mr Angry.
It is very sad that the discussions, which could be so worthwhile, descend, unnecessarily, into slanging matches.
However, that’s the problem of the Ultralefts they cannot create anything, anything that is created they’ll probably destroy, not forgetting their knack of alienating people along the way, this is evidenced by the SWP’s (Dean’s party) activities around Socialist Alliance, Respect, etc and much more.
There are few enough women who take the trouble to debate politics in these forums and the activities of Dean and Johnno are sure to put more off with their abusive mannerisms.
As long as the Ultralefts remain that way then they are not a threat to anyone. Same old windbags I listened to for decades. You need to be in power to legislate. All the mouthing off from the sidelines is a waste of time.
I’ll admit, 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.
Everything I wrote was true, as I saw it, in those organisations. (Not taken from the Mail or the Telegraph, Johnno.) For example: someone in my public sector department really did put all the teabags and coffee through on a cost code, whether that’s within the rules or not, is probably another thing…
We could argue forever, but I’m not sure what it’d achieve, so I think I’ll leave it there now. I’m a moron, a liar, a witch and a splitter and thank you all for putting me straight on that.
Modernity is being his usual sententious self. He never says anything political, he just chunders on about morality. Although I don’t agree with most of what Dean and Johnno write here, I think on this issue they are right. In my experience, it is ridiculous to claim that in the public sector teabags or coffee granules are provided. Maybe Julia is getting confused. I do remember that I had a holiday job in a tax office about thirty-five years ago, and I think a tea lady did come round with a free cup of tea (can’t remember if biscuits were involved or not), but that was THIRTY-FIVE years ago (probably before Johnno or Dean were born!!). I think the perk of a free tea was got rid off a long time ago.
Sue,
I can talk politics until the cows come home, but it is rather hard to have an exchange of views with people, like you (as a bigot) or Dean and Johnno (as Ultraleft cranks) when you have such a low level of political consciousness.
Quite frankly, if you can’t get the basics right then trying to understand anything a bit more complex is probably beyond you, and I find it perplexing how many otherwise intelligent people have regressed from being Trotskyists to something like a Daily Mail reader on coke, as you have.
As I remarked, Sue, but you couldn’t get it, I thought Dean made some good comments, but they were spoiled by his abusive nature.
And that’s the thing that many of you ex-politicos just don’t get it is not always what you say, but how you say it that is important.
As it happens I am a BIG fan of the public sector, and I’ve worked in many places, but unlike ex-politicos like you I wouldn’t generalise or make sweeping statements on the topic.
I wouldn’t be quick to dismiss anyone’s own experiences, whilst I might disagree with their conclusions.
And I think the sooner the British try to stop doing things on the cheap and realise that the public sector needs to be funded fully, does away with the legions of private consultants, hangers on and the PFI, etc and lays off the Birt-speak, the better.
Modernity, you’re probably on a hiding to nothing. The level of po-faced, adolescent hysteria from Dean and Johnno is amusing but fundamentally impossible to enagage with.
The smallest deviation from whatever bizarre little doctrinal positions they’ve currently adopted is met with formulaic denunciations that read like a Pythonesque parody of a Stalinist show trial.
So a few casual comments from Julia Smith are endowed with cosmic signficance: she’s trying to divide workers; she’s in league with the Daily Telegraph; she’s a Witch (Wiccan, please), etc. The only element missing is the ritual accusation of BNP membership – the modern equivalent of a Witches pact with the Devil for our little Trot heresiologists.
I suppose their comments provide an interesting insight into the psychology engendered by membership of the many sectarian cults that disfigure socialism: irrationality; paranoia; fear of dissent; a deadening literalness, hatred and insularity.
For all their many crimes, the Prostestant sectaries that once littered Europe at least had the good grace to leave us some works of enduring beauty.
The inevitable demise of the sectarian ‘Left’ will leave us with nothing but the fading stink of bad rhetoric, stale politics and adolescent stupidity.
I agree with Dean
I may twitter it and that.
I may even start a facebyook group about it and that.
OMG. WTF.
Julia is a wiTch as wwell. Black cat and broomstichhkkk having byiaaiiatch.*
(that means i hate womennehen and that)*
me too
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/jan/23/politics-of-sharing-a-bed
Charlie Brooker
I find it difficult enough to face people during the day, let alone at night, when I’m trying to sleep. Whenever I share a bed, I find it impossible to nod off without turning my back on the other party. I can’t lie there breathing toward someone else’s body. They might move and accidentally kick me in the mouth or something. And I can’t lie on my back or on my stomach all night – that’s just weird. I think it’s down to slight claustrophobia. I can’t seem to sleep without having a free line of escape, and all my limbs devoid of restriction. Even on the coldest night, I have to keep at least 30% of my body outside the duvet (roughly 30%, anyway; I don’t measure it. I’m not a psychopath). So at least I’m not a duvet hog. That’s one small point in my favour. On the downside, I have a tendency to wake in the night and scream and stab people.
“The public sector: flexible working even if you don’t have kids so had the option to do a nine-day fortnight, 7 hour days and overtime or TOIL for anything over, as much free tea as you could drink, no calls out of hours, expenses paid for visits to partner organisations, could accrue TOIL for extra days holiday, full pay for up to 6 months sickness, full pension rights with generous employer contributions.”
“Fact is and even the most dedicated lefty can’t argue against it (I know, I’ve tried and failed): private sector workers with no hope of decent pensions for themselves are subbing through taxation an exceptionally favourable pension scheme for public sector workers. It isn’t just. And the old argument of ‘well the pension is to compensate for the lack of earnings’ doesn’t hold water: I got a pay rise when I moved from a magic circle law firm to a local council. And I never had to work through the night at the council.”
Printed above are Julia’s ‘casual’ comments about Public sector workers, which those ‘saviours’ of socialism from left infantilsm Winston and Modernity sought to defend to their last libertarian breath. Winston even goes so far as to say Julia’s comments are a small deviation from left wing views. Go on look at the comments again.
Now I don’t know what I said in particualr that was so hysterical but maybe Winston could enlighten us.
Now lets linger on Julia’s comments, go on do it. Can no-one detect the slightest hint of distortion, of generalisation or half truth’s contained within them. Can no one see the reactionary implications of the comments above?
Why did Modernity not pick up on this attack on flexible working as an attack on women, he was quick to scold Dean for such a crime? Get rid of flexi working and you force many mothers back into the home and out of the workplace, is that sexism acceptable to the ‘new left’? Are the comments above not worthy of ridicule and scorn?
Do we allow every right wing distortion to go unanswered because Julia doesn’t occupy a cosmic level of influence over the world?
Is the new left more worried about age old words like Witch and less concerned with workers right’s in the workplace?
I rest my case.
It’s fairly obvious that the Deans and Johnnos of the world are seriously detached from reality.
Because of that won’t they would understand that it’s very difficult, if not impossible to fight for workers rights in the public sector when you exude sexism, as Dean does.
And that is because a majority of workers in the public sector are, er, women.
But, Julia admits she is a witch. She talks about working for ‘a magic circle law firm’. What’s that if not an admission of being some sort of magician? As for modernity, I sure he’s a lovely fellow, but he always makes me think of the Britney Spears ditty, ‘Womanizer’, where she rasps ‘Your’re a womanizer…’; only, in his case it’s ‘Moralizer.’.
Why shold would we tolerate racist Wiccanaphobia from Dean and Johnno? Surely these BNP fanatics can blog to rapturous applause over at ‘Stormfront?’
It is a pity that bigots like Sue R, haven’t yet managed to learn how to use Google, because if she had she would see that the “Magic Circle law firms” is merely a term, a bit like ‘blue-chip’ companies.
But no one, including latter-day Daily Mail readers, like Sue R, would assume that people walk around with chips in their pockets, it is merely an expression to mean the top law firms in Britain.
However, that does detract us from the original point, I wonder if Sue R, as a onetime member of the IMG and probable feminist, appreciates that bullying and sexist attitudes are a problem in the public sector?
Check out TUC blog on the truth behind pay. http://www.touchstoneblog.org.uk/2010/01/public-sector-pay-some-unstraight-statistics-from-the-sunday-times/
OK so I am detached from reality am I. Modernity and Winston want to set up a straw man here, nothing I have said is hysterical but let us look at Winston’s contribution,
“Why shold would we tolerate racist Wiccanaphobia from Dean and Johnno? Surely these BNP fanatics can blog to rapturous applause over at ‘Stormfront?’”
BNP fanatics? This coming from a man who often posts comments showing the BNP in a positive light!! One minute I am ultra leftist, the next BNP, what a way to conduct an ‘argument’!
But back to being divorced from reality. We are currently being subjected to a coordinated attack by the right and their representatives (Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail etc etc etc) about the bonanza that public sector workers enjoy on our behalf. This is clearly being done to whip up division in order to attack workers rights and provide an impetus to the Tory election campaign. Any one sensitive to this reality couldn’t help but see Julia’s comments were a part of this strategy and using the same distorted arguments. This is a battle socialists are battling every day, it is no wonder that sometimes people loose their rag, especially comrades who work in that sector and feel it more keenly.
But Modernity and Winston seem oblivious to this reality. This shows how politically blind and inept Modernity and Winston are and how far they are removed from the movement. They are just internet trolls, this is clearly demonstrated by their contributions here.
And all these 2 dullards (Winston and Modernity) can manage is to divert the argument to the use of the word Witch and their sectarian obsession with the SWP. Modernity even joins the public sector hysteria by saying, “bullying and sexist attitudes are a problem in the public sector”. Winston seems to think that “Rest my case” is some kind of argument. Pathetic.
P.S. Have read John Gray’s articles and it is good to see someone fighting these myths, lies and distortions.
I’m sorry Johnno feels the need to attack social minorities like Wiccans and Muslims, and all to score a few sectarian points.
His defence of patriarchy and sexism is certainly of a piece with his other reactionary positions.
Let’s hope he spends more time with his comrades on Stormfront, and less time annoying the rest of us.
No, no, no modernity, I meant ‘magic circle law firm’ as in the partners are shape-shifting lizards who grow fat drinking the blood of the workers in boardrooms while the gospels are read out backwards. ooops might have said too much there!
I’m not part of any concerted campaign. So to be called a liar and distorter because I wrote a comparison of circumstances in two jobs which I had done in the last 5 years seems odd. These are things which had actually happened to me and which I’d seen first-hand, not had dictated to me by Dacre and Lewis.
Johnno pulled out some of my posts. I won’t go through all the examples, but here’s one I mentioned: full pay for up to 6 months sickness. A public sector colleague got cancer and, although some senior managers moaned, she was off on full pay and helped back to work gradually after treatment. To contrast that, I once represented a man who had been sacked by his private sector employer when terminally ill with a brain tumour. We won a substantial settlement but the man had to spend some of his last days with lawyers worrying if his family would be ok. He died soon after we received confirmation that the company would honour his death in service benefit.
Now, I hope that no public sector organisation would be so callous as to sack a dying man to avoid a pay out. But the private sector are more than content to avoid playing by the rules, reckoning that few people will sue, I suppose. And I don’t want to see the public sector become more like the private, far from it. As Doug mentioned above, where the public sector does have better t+cs and bens, it’s because the unions have helped to fight for them. And as the Witchfinder noted, it is more difficult to get private sector employers to engage with the unions.
I don’t have all the answers to that, but I hope we can get beyond name-calling to figure it all out. Because the management consultants and 60k-a-yearers are laughing all the way to the bank while we fight amongst ourselves on internet forums…
Why did I know you would bring the Muslims into it and in the most pathetic way, equating real attacks on Muslims (many physical) with an internet comment about witches. Your BNP sympathies are exposed yet again! All you have done is reduce this argument to the infantile, ultra-bourgeois disdain for crude language.
Intelligence and consciousness are all about making connections. Dean saw the connection between Julia’s comment and the current right wing attack on public sector workers. As a worker in that sector and as a socialist he acted in a hostile way, he was correct to do so.
Modernity and Winston didn’t make the connection, which shows they lack intelligence and a socialist consciousness. Clearly they are just internet time wasters with no real link or interest in the socialist movement. Their whole raison d’etre seems to be their desperate attempt to undermine the SWP, probably because of the SWP’s anti imperialist stance. Modernity and Winston have clearly demonstrated that they have no interest in the workers movement; they were oblivious to the attack on public sector workers for god’s sake. They are oblivious to the reality that the Tories and their allies have been involved in a systematic attack on public sector workers since the Banking crisis dust settled and the election countdown began in earnest.
You guys are charlatans, pure and simple, you have been exposed.
Now YOU stop annoying us.
Bringing this back to the attacks on public sector workers I would urge people to read John Gray’s articles and other socialist sites which provide excellent counter arguments to those put forward by the likes of Julia and defended by the 2 trolls.
Julia,
Do me a favour I didn’t take snippets out of your first contribution, they were chunks of what you said. Anyone can see for themsleves. The tone was obvious to anyone who has been arguing against these distortions for months on end now.
And socialists who had been fighting these distortions would simply not form the argument the way you have been.
As Witchfinder said about your contribution,
“That’s a false dichotomy. And it’s not helped by wild generalisations about working in the public sector being a doss.”
Or as E10 rifles so astutley responded to your initial comment,
“So Julia, you basically think that the answer to you having crappy work conditions in the private sector, is that everyone else has crappy work conditions too in a race to the bottom. I think this is called “the politics of envy”.
Johnno. Members of which parties do you exclude as socialists? What parties are socialist?
OK Johnno, so I framed what I was saying in my own clumsy way and not how a proper socialist would. Bring on the burning, right?
I don’t think I made any wild claims of the public sector being a doss. I know it’s a difficult, demanding environment to work in and it deserves to be able to attract talented people to work in it. But the private sector has its own demands and workers there often have to manage without unions to protect their interests, unlike in many public sector environments I’ve known.
I would disagree with E10 rifles comment, because I don’t think that the answer to crap working conditions in the private sector is to export those conditions to the public. I think the exact opposite. I would like to see people who know how to win the battles on workers rights pass their experience on to people who don’t have it but need to sort out their own crap conditions, whatever sector they’re in. Isn’t that something to agree on?
The trouble JOHNNO with unemployable armchair university socialist graduates is they need to get a job. It is OK to lecture the working class but avoid them like the plague.