Have they got public sympathy?

nathancom

That is the trouble, the workforce are told they need to 'modernise' their industrial relations but management has no reciprocal responsibility. And the word 'modernise' is just a catch all term to mean "do what we tell you" not "let's create a respectful relationship that shares power and responsibility between the workforce and management".

Until you have systems that both give a forum to the voice of workers and most importantly show the influence of this voice on the decision making process then you will have industrial dispute. This is not a problem solved simply by curtailing the rights of workers to withdraw their labour.

Workplaces are social entities to which people devote huge portions of their waking lives. If you want an engaged and committed workforce you need to give people a stake in the project. Currently too many services/corporations fail to provide this. So I agree that industrial relations need modernisation but the responsibility does not lie only with the workers.

ballysmate

ben@31 wrote:

Ballysmate wrote:

ben@31 wrote:

Show us where the FBU has said "it's not protecting the whole service but members only" ?

I'm sure the coal mining communities that were devastated by capitalism putting profit before people, would love the coal mines to remain open. Just ask all the American communities that are now in decline after American companies are relocating their factories to Far-East sweatshops. Was it in the news this week that Detroit has gone from the worlds biggest car producer to bankrupt ?

How very 'How Green Was My Valley'. Yeah we could have carried on digging coal that no-one wanted out the ground at exorbitant cost.
As regards the jobs being relocated to the far east, I am sure that you and everyone else would happily shun cheaper imported goods in favour of more expensive home produced items to keep factories open. Yeah, right! :roll:

Is most of our elecricity still produced from fossil fuel power stations such as coal?

.

"In the UK, thirty one percent of electricity currently comes from coal-burning power stations. However, a third of these power stations are expected to close by 2016 so that they meet EU air quality legislation. This means that Britain will become less reliant on coal as a source of energy and will need to look at alternative energy sources."


http://www.energy-uk.org.uk/energy-indu ... ation.html

Nearly a third of our energy is still produced from coal, albeit imported. No-one wanted to buy British coal because it was too expensive.
Perhaps you would have been happy to receive an electricity bill:- Standing charge, electricity usage, coal mine subsidy?

All the closures at home are not just about reducing cost. It's about maximising profit for the privatised shareholders. Im sure you could keep our factories open if shareholder profit was not the number 1 priority. When £3000 bikes are made in China or Taiwan, the worker on the shop floor is only seeing a fraction of that while how many billions is the owners of Trek or Specialized making per year? Maybe if the owners of Trek or Specialized were prepared to make a million a year rather than a billion, we still could have factories over here in the west

I suggest you join the real world. You can'y compete with a rival who has lower operating costs.

awallace

nathancom wrote:

That is the trouble, the workforce are told they need to 'modernise' their industrial relations but management has no reciprocal responsibility. And the word 'modernise' is just a catch all term to mean "do what we tell you" not "let's create a respectful relationship that shares power and responsibility between the workforce and management".

Until you have systems that both give a forum to the voice of workers and most importantly show the influence of this voice on the decision making process then you will have industrial dispute. This is not a problem solved simply by curtailing the rights of workers to withdraw their labour.

Workplaces are social entities to which people devote huge portions of their waking lives. If you want an engaged and committed workforce you need to give people a stake in the project. Currently too many services/corporations fail to provide this. So I agree that industrial relations need modernisation but the responsibility does not lie only with the workers.

I agree with the above. Look at this TED talk from 8:25 to 9:58 http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_wh ... anguage=en and its sums up why the challenges that private and public sector organisations face should be dealt with where people are at the centre of the decision making process.

slowmart

nathancom wrote:

That is the trouble, the workforce are told they need to 'modernise' their industrial relations but management has no reciprocal responsibility. And the word 'modernise' is just a catch all term to mean "do what we tell you" not "let's create a respectful relationship that shares power and responsibility between the workforce and management".

Until you have systems that both give a forum to the voice of workers and most importantly show the influence of this voice on the decision making process then you will have industrial dispute. This is not a problem solved simply by curtailing the rights of workers to withdraw their labour.

Workplaces are social entities to which people devote huge portions of their waking lives. If you want an engaged and committed workforce you need to give people a stake in the project. Currently too many services/corporations fail to provide this. So I agree that industrial relations need modernisation but the responsibility does not lie only with the workers.

This.

woody1545

Pross wrote:

ben@31 wrote:

All this while MP's give themselves a payrise from £67,000 to £74,000.

"We're all in this together " :lol all the way to the bank:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aUTZ0kinjaI



.

Um, they don't 'give themselves' a payrise. An independent commission decides their payrise. It was brought in to stop people moaning at MPs agreeing their own payrises. If I recall correctly they don't even get to vote on whether to accept the decision so they can't even do anything about it!

I'm pretty sure an independent commission also decided that NHS workers should have a measley 1% pay rise. Only difference being the government decided to block that. What a crock of sh*t.

rick_chasey

Slowmart wrote:

All the FBU have highlighted is their antiquated view of industrial relations and working practices of a service which is in dire need of modernisation.

What's the alternative, out of interest?

What's the modern version of 'antiquated' industrial relations?

A union's bargaining power is their ability to strike. That's broadly it.

slowmart

Rick Chasey wrote:

Slowmart wrote:

All the FBU have highlighted is their antiquated view of industrial relations and working practices of a service which is in dire need of modernisation.

What's the alternative, out of interest?

What's the modern version of 'antiquated' industrial relations?

A union's bargaining power is their ability to strike. That's broadly it.

Nathan's view hits the nail on the head. Of course this breaks down to mutual trust as a base requirement and only then can the business seek to tactically align their internal stakeholders and thereby agree a common vision.

Strike action is destructive and polarises positions and damages the business both financially and in terms of lasting internal divisions inside a business.


Re: Have they got public sympathy?
Postby nathancom » Tue Nov 04, 2014 9:44 am

That is the trouble, the workforce are told they need to 'modernise' their industrial relations but management has no reciprocal responsibility. And the word 'modernise' is just a catch all term to mean "do what we tell you" not "let's create a respectful relationship that shares power and responsibility between the workforce and management".

Until you have systems that both give a forum to the voice of workers and most importantly show the influence of this voice on the decision making process then you will have industrial dispute. This is not a problem solved simply by curtailing the rights of workers to withdraw their labour.

Workplaces are social entities to which people devote huge portions of their waking lives. If you want an engaged and committed workforce you need to give people a stake in the project. Currently too many services/corporations fail to provide this. So I agree that industrial relations need modernisation but the responsibility does not lie only with the workers.
nathancom

Posts: 1699
Joined: Thu Feb 23, 2012 7:13 pm
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ugo.santalucia

Public sector workers rely on decent pensions... it's the only way to make it viable. The pay is otherwise low and it's very difficult to get another job in the private sector if you wished to leave, as the skills are hardly trasnferrable... there are many downsides to being part of the "state", but at least you should get a good pension and in some cases you should be able to retire early.
If you remove this last "benefit", who would want to be a fire-fighter, or a nurse or a policeman?

I think Mr Osborne should shove a big carrot up his axxe and pay firefighters their pensions... period.

The University pension scheme (USS) is also going to the dogs, but of course we get less sympathy than fire fighters, which is probalby fair enough

arthur_scrimshaw

This used to be the case (ie great pension, poor salary) however I think you'll find this situation has changed rather (through pivate sector pay falling over the years) so actually the arguement doesn't bear scrutiny anymore.

arthur_scrimshaw

Here you go

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/pers ... nings.html

Stevo_666

Arthur Scrimshaw wrote:

Here you go

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/pers ... nings.html

And here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-26512643

Given this, I cannot see why public sector pensions should be so much better than in the private sector. In particular as it is people in the private sector who will have to fund these 'gold plated' pensions, mainly by having to work well after the normal retirement dates enjoyed in the public sector and paying large amounts of tax.

ugo.santalucia

Arthur Scrimshaw wrote:

This used to be the case (ie great pension, poor salary) however I think you'll find this situation has changed rather (through pivate sector pay falling over the years) so actually the arguement doesn't bear scrutiny anymore.

I don't know how much they earn, I assume it's around 30K and it's way too little.

I know how much we earn in higher education and like for like doesn't compare with the private sector (even if we leave out the extra education required to get these jobs and not those). Even the top dog, the Vice Chancellor has a package that barely goes above 100-150K.
Now, you go and find me the CEO of a private company of similar size in terms of number of employees and revenue that earns so little.

The head of Oxford is the highest paid in the country at 400K I reckon, which seems a lot of money, but find me a company of 12,000 employees (let alone the prestige) that pays their boss so little

tangled_metal

I used to know a nurse that got £35k and she was not even the degree qualified version of nurses that get a higher pay scale. She worked the system well. A lot of the things she got away with to make more money would not work in the private sector but I guess that is all down to the special way the NHS is funded (and other public sector institutions).

Sorry if I sound bitter but I hear about 1% pay rises or no pay rise for 5 years. Well I had my first in 12 years a year and a half ago. That was just after taking a huge pay cut following redundancy and re-employment. Seriously, whinge on about not getting a cost of living increase again please! Or whinge about your public sector pensions which are still in almost all public sectors better than the equivalent private sector pension. Then whinge some more about young mans game. You think manual private sector work is easy too?

Of course I do have a lot of sympathy for the Fire service, the police and the armed forces. They are doing a wonderful job in difficult circumstances and get a lot of public sympathy for it. Indeed criticise them at your peril and you will get short shrift from a lot of people in the services and outside them. I just hear what the unions say (well for the police and the fire service personnel but the armed services can't have a union voice) and it sounds more than a little like socialists wanting a socialist society that is unsustainable in one small country that is part of the larger, modern, global society. Let us give the FBU a better pension, better job security, earlier retirement (which also allows for a faster turnover of the generations). Let us continue to keep inefficient institutions running with all their staff and on costs. Let us make UK society like the French society. Unemployment is not nice and in France it is high especially for the young. As much as zero hours or low pay is a problem here, unemployment is more of a problem in France.
Sorry for not being a fan of unions. Also as someone who started a mining related degree that often led to working for the NCB only to find even the last mining operations weren't interested in such graduates any more I still do not agree with keeping our mines open when they were not economic. Things move on, we can't stick in the past. Face the future not look to the past (like unions often do IMHO).

tangled_metal

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/download?ac=8050

For academic pay (professors, non-professors and academic). Interesting really. My old universities vary. Leeds is fairly average but Liverpool has a higher average pay. £88k I think it was for professors. Now what is the equivalent position in manufacturing? All I know is that in the companies I have worked in the past few decades even directors of these SMEs got a lot less than 88k. Of course universities are personnel rich compared to SMEs so some of that is accounted for there with the man management side of things. Also the specialist skill set of professors being such experts in their field (in Liverpool it was a 5* research rated department, comparable with the best in the UK like Cambridge and the best in the world in that field like MIT).

I did see a recent professor job advertised in the field of my first and higher degrees in both the UK (Uni of Birmingham IIRC) and one in Australia. I do believe that they were on equivalent pay and benefits. Both were highly rated institutes in that field.

tangled_metal

One more thing, all the professors I've known get a lot more pay outside of their university as a nice supplement indeed. Same with senior lecturers and other academic ranks. I don't know if I've only been in the presence of highly entrepreneurial academics and they are not the norm but a lot of them seemed really quite comfortable indeed with all their earnings. Basic pay is not the whole picture with them. Could also be the field and the high research rating gets these consultancies. Off topic I know but academia was brought up.

One thing that confuses me is how to compare equivalency between public and private sector roles, pay and benefits. How do you work out that one public sector role is worth more or less than a private sector? Or that say a fireman';s role is harder than a role in the private sector which does not allow early retirement? Also where it is easily comparable in public and private, such as standard cleaners, are the pay scales the same in public and private? Do NHS office cleaners get the same as office cleaners in say a bank?

Pross

I would suggest that on those 'manual labour' type jobs the public sector pay is actually higher and has far better terms and conditions. Have a look at what care workers get paid in the private sector compared to an equivalent person working directly for the NHS or Social Services (and it's not always the employers fault - the money the Councils give them barely cover costs).

Pross

My own experience of working in public sector (local council) and private consultancy is that when I moved to private my salary increased (though not by much) but my pension became far worse although in my mid 20s that didn't even get considered. However, in the public sector every minute of extra time I did in work went into either an extra day off every 4 weeks in flexi leave or getting paid overtime at 1.5 x salary whereas in private sector it is just part of getting the job done. I also went from 30 days annual leave to 22 days. However, the main reasons I left were a) lack of career progression due to the amount of 'lifers' in more senior roles which included many who had taken big payouts for early retirement and then came back and; b) boredom. There were just too many people doing the job due to the move from time consuming drawing board work to new fangled CAD systems. I know things have changed and workforces have now shrunk but it is rare that I can get hold of a counterpart in public sector organisations after 4.30pm. Then again, the whole private sector v public sector debate is pointless as both have people who perform essential roles in many cases and in other cases they could all be made redundant and no-one would know until the bill for dole money increased!

rick_chasey

Stevo 666 wrote:

Arthur Scrimshaw wrote:

Here you go

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/pers ... nings.html

And here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-26512643

Given this, I cannot see why public sector pensions should be so much better than in the private sector. In particular as it is people in the private sector who will have to fund these 'gold plated' pensions, mainly by having to work well after the normal retirement dates enjoyed in the public sector and paying large amounts of tax.

Market competition innit.

Is harder for public sector to compete on salaries (joe public doesn't like their taxes being squandered on big salaries) and it's not the kind of environment where you get the opportunity to make significantly more money on performance related pay.

So how else do they compete for the talent?

You're a free marketeer aren't you? You should be encouraging this kind of competition for talent.

woody1545

ugo.santalucia wrote:

Arthur Scrimshaw wrote:

This used to be the case (ie great pension, poor salary) however I think you'll find this situation has changed rather (through pivate sector pay falling over the years) so actually the arguement doesn't bear scrutiny anymore.

I don't know how much they earn, I assume it's around 30K and it's way too little.

Firefighters currently earn £28,766. London might get more.

Last time I checked I paid 14.2% into my pension, although I think thats due to go up again soon. It might be gold plated, but it aint cheap!

ugo.santalucia

Tangled Metal wrote:

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/download?ac=8050

For academic pay (professors, non-professors and academic). Interesting really. My old universities vary. Leeds is fairly average but Liverpool has a higher average pay. £88k I think it was for professors. Now what is the equivalent position in manufacturing? All I know is that in the companies I have worked in the past few decades even directors of these SMEs got a lot less than 88k. Of course universities are personnel rich compared to SMEs so some of that is accounted for there with the man management side of things. Also the specialist skill set of professors being such experts in their field (in Liverpool it was a 5* research rated department, comparable with the best in the UK like Cambridge and the best in the world in that field like MIT).

I did see a recent professor job advertised in the field of my first and higher degrees in both the UK (Uni of Birmingham IIRC) and one in Australia. I do believe that they were on equivalent pay and benefits. Both were highly rated institutes in that field.

88K is for very senior professors, close to retirement.
I can tell you that these days a young lecturer cannot buy a house in London, maybe in Liverpool, but not in London. Older generation got it easier, their money went further, but now as a young academic you are hired around 30-35K and unless you get promoted to senior or reader you get stuck at around 40-45K, which is the top of the salary scale. To some it might seem a lot of money and maybe in County Durham it is, round here is well below average and certainly not worth the hassle.
Consultancies is something you do if your field of expertise is very much business related... law, engineering... if you are a physicist or a biologist you have fewer opportunities... most academics I know do none.

Paulie W

ugo.santalucia wrote:

Even the top dog, the Vice Chancellor has a package that barely goes above 100-150K.

I dont disagree with the general point that VCs given the level of responsibility, budget and resources involved are paid less than someone with equivalent responsibility in the private sector (whatever that means now given that universities no longer fit comfortably in the public sector), but I'd be interested to know how many VCs are on that kind of salary these days?! The average is more like £250,000.

arthur_scrimshaw

Paulie W wrote:

ugo.santalucia wrote:

Arthur Scrimshaw wrote:

Even the top dog, the Vice Chancellor has a package that barely goes above 100-150K.

I dont disagree with the general point that VCs given the level of responsibility, budget and resources involved are paid less than someone with equivalent responsibility in the private sector (whatever that means now given that universities no longer fit comfortably in the public sector), but I'd be interested to know how many VCs are on that kind of salary these days?! The average is more like £250,000.

'ang on - I didn't write that!

Paulie W

Arthur Scrimshaw wrote:

Paulie W wrote:

ugo.santalucia wrote:

Arthur Scrimshaw wrote:

Even the top dog, the Vice Chancellor has a package that barely goes above 100-150K.

I dont disagree with the general point that VCs given the level of responsibility, budget and resources involved are paid less than someone with equivalent responsibility in the private sector (whatever that means now given that universities no longer fit comfortably in the public sector), but I'd be interested to know how many VCs are on that kind of salary these days?! The average is more like £250,000.

'ang on - I didn't write that!

Corrected!

ben@31

@ Tangled Metal... If you are exploited, that doesn't make it okay for everyone else to be exploited as well.

People should stand upto this.

I don't understand why people side with the govt, when the govt then stabs them in the back and shafts them too?

If the govt wants to make cuts. So it can give billions to banks or "foreign aid" and it has 2 choices where to make the cuts. Who will it choose... The militant opposition who protects itself or the weak yes men who take every shafting given to them and believes the PR spin?

The govt should be scarred of its electorate not the other way round. The govt should work for you. If not, goodbye next election.

You might think I lean slightly to the left, but the current lot have done nothing for me. My generation is much worse off than my parents generation. I'm even seeing a decline in the standard of living over the past several years.

Pross

ben@31 wrote:

@ Tangled Metal... If you are exploited, that doesn't make it okay for everyone else to be exploited as well.

People should stand upto this.

Meanwhile, in the real world, people in the private sector were left with a choice (if they were lucky) during the recession which often went like this:-

'The company can't continue paying at pre-recession levels whilst the money coming in has taken such a big hit. Therefore we either need to make large scale redundancies or everybody can share the pain by accepting a large pay cut'.

It's not about being exploited or 'standing up for yourself'. The alternative is that other people who are often good mates (or possibly even yourself) lose jobs or even the company goes bust and everyone loses their job. I think it was possibly the first recession where employers offered the 'everyone takes a share' option rather than making wholesale redundancies. In my case this equated to a 10% pay cut (actual not 'real terms') and the removal of private fuel benefit that meant my travel costs increased by about £150 per month.

What we see in the public sector is a similar approach - the employer (government) is trying to get their bank balance balanced by asking all the employees to take a share albeit by a pay freeze / lower than inflation pay rise or reduction to their benefits. Added into the equation is a huge black hole where pension contributions don't cover the cost of pension payments. The alternative seems to be cut services even further, cut staff or ask those who are still suffering the effects of the recession on their own finances to pay more to ensure the public sector workers are OK.

Pross

ben@31 wrote:

You might think I lean slightly to the left, but the current lot have done nothing for me. My generation is much worse off than my parents generation. I'm even seeing a decline in the standard of living over the past several years.

At least we have an admission that this is driven by thinking of yourself. If only everyone could be so honest instead of dressing things up as some sort of socialism and worrying about others

ugo.santalucia

This country has the priorities set wrong.

No wonder people come in for benefits... it's a joke... it's easier to get benefits as a migrant than it is to get your pension, when you've actually paid and there is an agreement in place.
The benefit system has to change: you can't give everything to those who have nothing and nothing to the others... they have to understand that benefits are not charity you give to the homeless... benefits are there to help who need them and that can be a firefighter who needs to retire earlier...
If I was to lose my job tomorrow, I'd get nothing, until I have used up all my savings, while someone else lives for free in a flat in Earl's court and never worked a single day in his life... and I am aware of a few...
This is not left or right debate, it's about where your priorities are... do you stand on the side of the firefighters or do you take the side of the benefits seekers (immigrants AND not)?

Pross

Is there some law I am unaware of that stops a firefighter working elsewhere once he has to retire? Some of them still do part-time work either officially or not whilst in employment so surely they can transfer those skills? Personally I want all those who NEED support to be supported and all those who don't not to be irrespective of their background. Mixing it in with the immigration debate is a bit disingenuous.

ugo.santalucia

Pross wrote:

Mixing it in with the immigration debate is a bit disingenuous.

It's not about immigration... what pisses me off is that they keep cutting benefits for the hard working people in the public sector, but they never cut on those who have never done a day of work in their life... sociopaths, psychos, alcoholics and drug addicts are revered and get everything, free housing, job seeker allowance, you name it... you won't get a penny until you also become a sociopath...
In Germany it obviously doesn't work like that... you lose your job = the state kicks in to help you through the transition

Stevo_666

Rick Chasey wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

Arthur Scrimshaw wrote:

Here you go

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/pers ... nings.html

And here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-26512643

Given this, I cannot see why public sector pensions should be so much better than in the private sector. In particular as it is people in the private sector who will have to fund these 'gold plated' pensions, mainly by having to work well after the normal retirement dates enjoyed in the public sector and paying large amounts of tax.

Market competition innit.

Is harder for public sector to compete on salaries (joe public doesn't like their taxes being squandered on big salaries) and it's not the kind of environment where you get the opportunity to make significantly more money on performance related pay.

So how else do they compete for the talent?

You're a free marketeer aren't you? You should be encouraging this kind of competition for talent.

Do you think the public sector should be competing for talent like this?

You seem to have contradicted yourself by saying firstly (and quite rightly) that Joe Public doesn't like their taxes being squandered on big salaries, but then say that it's OK for the public sector to go out and squander taxes on big pensions? Either way it increases the cost to the taxpaying public.

The public sector should not be at a premium to the private sector long term otherwise you will damage the sector that pays for the other one.

Not the first time I've said this, but the size and unaffordability of the state/public sector is one of the main reasons why we are so far in debt as a country. The public sector needs to be subject to the same sort of financial constraints that the private sector experiences if we are to get the problem of excessive public spending and national debt under control.