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Search forDesperation is driving the public-sector pay claims
Wednesday, November 19, 2008, 08:00
When suggesting that "contrary to previous beliefs, public sector salaries are now generally £3,000 per annum greater than those in the public sector", the key words are "previously" and "now".
Is Mr Rainey talking about the past or the present?
Public-sector pay, on average, was always lower, but not now. Why?
The comparison is based on the median, the value below which 50 per cent of the employees fall, so we are talking about the low-paid here.
Over the years, critics of the public sector has insisted that more efficiencies are found.
The result of this is that low-skilled jobs were outsourced, eg, cleaning, so the low-paid in the public sector moved to the private sector. Hence the shift in pay balance.
The only people left actually in the direct employ of the public sector are professional people such as doctors. I would like to think that the doctor treating me is being paid at market rate, otherwise they could make mistakes because they've been stacking shelves in the supermarket all night.
The low-paid that were in the public sector are now employed by the private sector, hence the statistical change.
The public sector does what it does because you as voters appoint politicians to direct it.
The union suggesting that industrial action might have to be used as a last resort has been offered just over a two per cent increase as a pay settlement, when the average private-sector rise was 3.5 per cent.
Consider the massive price hike in fuel and food. These people are desperate. If they don't get a cost of living pay settlement they will lose everything anyway.
You can use statistics for any purpose you want. Trying to use them to create an us and them in society is the first step to tyranny.
One can't help but wonder that if the public sector is such a bed of clover why everybody, including Mr Rainey, hasn't tried to join.
Chris Smith Devizes Wiltshire
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