Nationalisation

[clivex]

The private sector also provides pensions Clive, as they do share options and bonuses. The public sector isn't allowed to offer PRP.

The average private sector worker will not receive share options to any great value and bonuses are claculated within the avergae salary figures that you quote

Brown has protected the state sector pensions with tooth and claw but notoriously and spitefully hammered private employer pensions

 

[simmo]

Why wouldn't I or anyone for that mater aspire to try and get the best for people. Can you not see that this silly jealousy thing so beloved by radio 5 phone ins is just an atempt to play worker off against worker instead of turning on the employer who can frequently be making massive profits.

I believe Betsmate's quote covers my thoughts on that subject.

In the first case, only the better paid public sector jobs get advertised in the mass media due to the costs involved.

These were on the internet, and there was a very broad range of positions available, from cleaners to directors.

http://www.jobs.scot.nhs.uk/version2/results.aspx?type=query

This will therefore inflate the alleged average salary.

It wasn't alleged, it was "reckoned". I am happy to accept your figures as accurate.

The other point concerns respective pay. In the first case you need to remember that there is a vast wealth of very poorly paid private sector workers in significant industries such as retail, leisure, tourism etc ..... If you were to wipe those out the private sector salary is the larger.

Why would I want to do that? For that matter why would you want to do that? Are they that irrelevant? Do they not deserve treatment on a par with cossetted council workers and nurses? (Compared to whom they work a damn sight harder)


None of your post addresses the fundamental issue that providing state funded services in this country costs significantly more than it should due to the way we run it (of which payment of exorbitant wages to workshy fops is part).

Just think of the reduction in taxes to all that could result if they stopped holding the country to ransom every couple of years.

Think of the beneficial effect that would have on the poorly paid private sector workers you are so happy to dismiss as irrelevant.

 

[Warbler]

i think its worth remembering that we are just talking about financial institutions here. There are not the be all and end all of the free market by a very long chalk.

But is access to finance and flows of capital not the very cornerstone that the system relies on? It has to be very doubtful that the system could really survive a wholesale meltdown of the sector, and that's before you consider the effects it would have on society, once people realised they no longer had any money in their accounts. I suspect you'd get a systematic collapse into lawlessness as people looked for new models to provide.

 

[Warbler]

Not sure I called them irrelevant Simmo, that was a word you used. All I was doing was merely pointing out for the purposes of interpreting data, that with something like 22% employed in such industries, you have a very significant bottom two deciles impacting on the average. In that respect you're not really comparing like with like, as the public sector doesn't have an equivilant grade, and certainly in nothing like the numbers.

What happens is that the worst paid people in the public sector are better paid than their private sector counter-parts (bottom deciles, not job descriptions because the public sector clearly doesn't run fast food burger chains etc). As you move into the professional grades this gap narrows. At some point the private sector over-takes the public sector, until eventually you see Senior Managers and Directors pay where the differential is now massive, and much more disproportionately out of kilter.

As regards holding the country to ransom.... ha ha ha. If only we could. We've had a differential erosion of 17% over the last decade, and I've certainly yet to see anything for the fruits of industrial action. We might get something like 0.2% if we're lucky. The only significant pay rise above inflation I can think of that's recently been achieved (outside of celebrity and talk show hosts) is the tanker drivers who got their money largely because the rich company multi-national they drive for, could easily afford it havign again recorded record profits.

 

[Grasshopper]

Putting aside starting salaries, it's wrong to suggest that public sector employees have been communally "holding us to ransom" every couple of years.

They have, for the most part, been offered below-inflation pay rises (in effect pay cuts) in recent years, and have rightly exercised their right to withdraw their labour.

You either believe in this principal, and put-up with the inconvenience, or you don't.

Private sector employees tend not to have the power of numbers behind them, as they have no union representation. They are then forced to accept paltry (or no) pay-rises, because withdrawal of their labour is not an option. If they tried it, it would result in instant dismissal.

This explains why private sector jobs are lower paid than public sector jobs. The private sector employees are not saints who refuse to strike on the ground of principal - they are too shit-scared to take action, because the principle would lead them down a one-way street to the nearest Job Centre.

It's a fairly clear choice. You either believe in people's right to withdraw their labour, or you believe that the power should be in the hands of the employers. I know which option I think is fairest, and which is most open to abuse.

 

[simmo]

I haven't see a single denial of my accusations of laziness and inefficiency from you Warbler. Time is money, as they say, and there is a cost to all from this.

If there has been a differential erosion of 17% (presumably against inflation?), what was the gap between public and private sector like before?

 

[simmo]

It's a fairly clear choice. You either believe in people's right to withdraw their labour, or you believe that the power should be in the hands of the employers. I know which option I think is fairest, and which is most open to abuse.

I don't believe it that clear cut. As I've mentioned several times already, I don't feel that the service provided is in line with the amount it costs the country.

In my opinion, the provision of labour should be a 2 way street - you can call it a fair days' work for a fair days' pay if you like. I do not believe that we receive the "fairs days' work" part of that from state funded services at this time. If I did, then I would give my support to any action.

I would, however, agree with the sentiment that far too much profit in larger companies is taken by investors/owners, although I find it difficult to reconcile where the level of reward actually should be. Of course, an alteration of the fundamentals of that would then result in a shift in the perception of a fair days' pay.

To summarise, you should only be allowed to strike if you are (collectively) not a lazy shower of incompetents.

 

[Grasshopper]

Aye, fair enough Simmo, though it's hard to agree with the assertion that nurses (to use just one example) can be swept into a pile of the feckless and incompetent.

I think it's far too much of a generalisation to suggest that "public sector workers" are all one and the same.

 

[clivex]

It's a fairly clear choice. You either believe in people's right to withdraw their labour, or you believe that the power should be in the hands of the employers. I know which option I think is fairest, and which is most open to abuse.

Power should definately be in the hands of the employer...because they are THE EMPLOYER


You hire a plumber... You think that half way through the job he should be able to walk off and demand more cash for completion?

I am not against the right to strike but it has been wildly abused. Striking is freuqently a selfish short term act. The only responsibility exercised is to "the worker" The employer has responsiblities to the workforce and the shareholders. Few companies that treat their staff badly experience long term success

And quite frankly, if all businesses were determined on the basis of "workers control" or "workers commitees", then who the fuck would want to risk everything and work his bollocks off to start up?

 

[simmo]

I know several nurses. Only a couple of them would argue that they actually work that hard (and then only half-heartedly, with grudging admissions of guilt when pressed).

Also based on their evidence, I estimate that several million pounds worth of "stuff" (for want of a better word) is stolen from the country by those in the employ of the NHS. And they all say that they are among the least light fingered.

Each and every one of them, all from different hospitals, speak of "someone on their ward" who has been off sick for several years, using the extremely lax system to ensure that they never quite reach the point of being dismissed.

I would include nurses.

 

[Grasshopper]

Clivex - we have moved on from the 1970's, in case you hadn't noticed. The right to strike has been wildly curtailed in the last 20 years, not widely abused!

And who here is advocating all business should be "determined on the basis of 'workers controls' or 'workers committees' "? Precisely no-one, that's who (well, perhaps Warbler is).

I'm simply suggesting that the right to withdraw labour - as a principle - is the only genuine way to prevent abuse at the hands of an employer. And that the principle rarely applies now in the private sector.

FFS, they way you rattle-on in your own, inimitable fasion, I wouldn't be surprised if you advocated under-sevens going back down the pits, and the re-opening of Victorian workhouses, to keep undesirables off the street.

Your wardrobe must be full of clobber from Primark.

 

[clivex]

FFS, they way you rattle-on in your own, inimitable fasion, I wouldn't be surprised if you advocated under-sevens going back down the pits, and the re-opening of Victorian workhouses, to keep undesirables off the street.

Dont be ridiculous. there are no pits to go down

If the market dictated there there was a particular demand for smaller employees and there was a shortage of dwarfs, then so be it...

Your wardrobe must be full of clobber from Primark.

Not a chance. I only buy designer labels where child labour has been used so that i can respect the excellent enterprise and profit motives of the company as well as being able to wear stuff that no council employed layabout striking commie could ever afford

 

[Warbler]

I haven't see a single denial of my accusations of laziness and inefficiency from you Warbler.

You get that in both sectors, (and yes I've worked in both). My experience has been that the size of the organisation is more symptonmatic to the work ethic, rather than which sector it is in. I've come across plenty of bone idle and inefficient private sector companies who routinely employ staff based on how much they can get away with paying them, rather than if they can do a job well and provide a service.

In terms of laziness and inefficiency, there's no shortage of it in the public sector, but I think you need to make another differentiation, and that is between management and front line staff. My experience has been that the biggest charlatans are normally the management, who immerse themselves in supposidly strategic partnership meetings. These they invariably over-run and also produce a load of shite by way of input. I'll give one example taken from our supposed 5 core corporate priorities

"Building on the strengths of the city’s knowledge and culture economy and​

enhancing the quality of the city’s retail and leisure offerings".

Leaving aside the fact that its grammatically incorrect, the strategic objective clearly betrays a lack of understanding. What someone has clearly done is look at the employment structure of the city in question, and noticed that it has a lot of people employed in said industries. Rather than think about the true implications of this though, they've automatically assumed its a "strength" because of its size. Wrong!!!.

A lot of people employed in the cultural, retail and leisure sectors is not a strength. Quite the opposite. It's a weakness. That such jobs are low-paid, low-skilled, often involve shite terms and conditions and are chronically vulnerable to the fickle whims of trends in consumer spending seems to have sailed over the heads of the great strategic management and their consultants. People who hold a degree of understanding in this (me) can only weep at this paucity of interpretation, and even more so given the unique advantages and opportunities we have to grow 'sunrise' industries. It's actually made worse given that the 3rd priority on the list concerns the availability of affordable housing!!! Yeah, right. I'd be very interested to see how they think they're going to make that happen by promoting an economic development programme based on £7.50 an hour.

To put it another way, would we look at our economic structure and say 20% of our workforce are unemployed, hey, we're good at that, lets make more of it?

 

[redhead]

Too many chiefs, not enough indians, much like the Health Service is these days.

Hear, hear!

 

[Merlin the Magician]

Railways now receive more monies pro rata than they were when nationalised........

Water should be renationalised along with GAS and Electricity companies as a matter of urgency. why should people-investors get dividends from basic things you need to make your life semi comfortable or just livable????****

p.s. A mate of mine who is a nuclear physicist having retired gets 3/4 of his basic pay ...that's £60,000 per annum + consultation work he still does on a part time basis he was in charge of a few nuclear power stations here and in France at varying times.......

***Not forgetting Thatcher sold them off for a song but the average working class families had no spare monies to buy any of them and they were mostly bought by the upper echelons -conservative supporters, after she closed ALL the mines and heavy engineering works..............arsehole........ she and only her and her cronies, started the enevitable situation we now find ourselves in.........

 

[cricketfan]

Rather than under a Labour government that manages the economy into a position of long term, sustainable growth, that has cities that you (or, come to think of it, the police) can walk the streets safely at night, that treats adults like adults and children like children and that is cleaner than clean and doesn't take bungs for gongs or cash for questions...... yes it's all Maggie's fault.

 

[clivex]

I've come across plenty of bone idle and inefficient private sector companies who routinely employ staff based on how much they can get away with paying them, rather than if they can do a job well and provide a service.

So have i. But any business that continues to be overstuffed with unproductive staff and lazy management will soon find competitors snapping at its heels. It could happen quickly or slowly, but it will happen. The market is a natural check and balance.

But where are the checks and balances in the nationlised monopolies and public sector? what pressure is there to keep staff productive? None...