Comments on: The perfect pay storm? By Heather Wakefield

By: Peter Gaskin

Peter Gaskin — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 17:36:39 +0000

John, why is that you feel councils cannot afford a modest pay rise for NJC workers? If you have a real good look at what is happening you will find that the politicians are stuffing the pockets of private companies and running down the remaining services in readiness to privatise them. If you feel any compassion in providing public services, run by public sector workers and run efficiently, you would rejoin a union and fight, as this is not business as usual. This whole problem is caused by extremes of bad capitalism via poor governance of the economy and our public services will be decimated in the process. There is room for a decent pay award and even more room to make efficiencies if services are run in-house. Don’t try to tell me otherwise as I can reel off plenty of scenarios.

By: Anita Thompson

Anita Thompson — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 13:49:21 +0000

Hasn’t anyone realised that we are pawns in a political game? By offering us no ‘cost of living’ increase at all, it ensures (the Local Government Employers believes) that we will succumb to the desired offer of 1%, which is what the government says local government workers can expect for the next two years, at least.
In local government, we are the ‘scapegoat’ workers of a political battle involving both political parties, central government and the politics of the council tax. Whilst the people in Whitehall help themselves to public money to fund their ‘expenses’, we in local government find ourselves increasingly unable to pay our way and unable to have the same standard of living as other workers. Local government workers are not only funding the service with their hands and brains, they are also paying with their pay-packets. We are paying for someone else’s mistakes.

By: John Davies

John Davies — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 15:55:50 +0000

We are continually reminded of the financial storm facing local government and yet Unison carries on as if it is business as usual. If Heather thinks councils can afford a pay rise this year I suggest she speaks to directors of finance across local government.

I now remember why I resigned from Nalgo many years ago – something to do with ostriches and sand.

By: Roger Willoughby

Roger Willoughby — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 13:46:59 +0000

Strong words Heather and largely welcome from this local government employee who thinks that, in times of hardship, it is the local authority’s support that tends be of most benefit to the local communities we serve. Not this time, though, as the reduced capacity through redundancies will inevitably lead to ‘rationalised’ (for that read ‘minimised’) services to the public. This will leave more of our community isolated at a time when they most need our support. But if that’s what central government (and, it seems, the Local Government Employers) wants, that’s what it will get. This will lead to higher costs to the public sector (NHS, social services, police) and therefore taxpayers in the medium to long term and therefore any notion of these imminent cuts being savings is, I fear, greatly misplaced.

By: Mark Burns

Mark Burns — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 13:23:12 +0000

Lots of comparisons to the public sector, but when outsourcing is a likely alternative to a pay freeze, then it’s the private sector equivalent that’s important too. They are usually paid far less than local government workers – especially if you take the generous employers contribution to our pensions into account. So the real option is: do we have a pay freeze or do we lose our jobs?