3,000 Gwent civil servants could strike in pay row (From Free Press Series)

Talking about biting the hand that feedeth thee!

Some people are never satisfied, especially those who work for the government!

There blessed to have employment and earn so much!

Apart from those signing who will notice any change

When they are out striking the removal people should go to their offices and clear it all out, lock the doors then tell the useless paperclip counters and clock watchers they are all fired. Employ a hundred long term unemployed in their place for an immediate improvement in productivity.

Big Bus Driver wrote:
When they are out striking the removal people should go to their offices and clear it all out, lock the doors then tell the useless paperclip counters and clock watchers they are all fired. Employ a hundred long term unemployed in their place for an immediate improvement in productivity.

I'm liking the cut of your jib Sir lol

Big Bus Driver wrote:
When they are out striking the removal people should go to their offices and clear it all out, lock the doors then tell the useless paperclip counters and clock watchers they are all fired. Employ a hundred long term unemployed in their place for an immediate improvement in productivity.

Muppet!

wow, as if the passport office and stats office striking for one day is going to effect most workers, who cares and 28% its just proves, the majority arent pushed and brain washed by the unions.

Sorry to say just because you are civils makes no difference to the rest of us battling with every day pressures of work, many of us dont have pensions or any where near the perks public/civils get. Some of us are self employed working extreme hrs, no sick pay, no holidays, no 9-5! Get in the real world you think cos your strike the government are going to roll over - No they are not haven't you read about the deficit?

Open the window and have a look - there's no one doing better than you!

Floppy backed wrote:
wow, as if the passport office and stats office striking for one day is going to effect most workers, who cares and 28% its just proves, the majority arent pushed and brain washed by the unions.

Sorry to say just because you are civils makes no difference to the rest of us battling with every day pressures of work, many of us dont have pensions or any where near the perks public/civils get. Some of us are self employed working extreme hrs, no sick pay, no holidays, no 9-5! Get in the real world you think cos your strike the government are going to roll over - No they are not haven't you read about the deficit?

Open the window and have a look - there's no one doing better than you!

So it's a race to the bottom then?

It's far from a race to the bottom given the grossly inflated salaries being earned for the non jobs these places have created.

Your pension is unsustainable, it has to change or the black hole will constantly require plugging by the private sector employees already picking up your tab.

I was unlucky enough to visit the ONS once. A less productive bunch of cretins you will not find. Truly unbelievable until you witness it first hand.

brainfreeze wrote:
It's far from a race to the bottom given the grossly inflated salaries being earned for the non jobs these places have created.

Your pension is unsustainable, it has to change or the black hole will constantly require plugging by the private sector employees already picking up your tab.

I was unlucky enough to visit the ONS once. A less productive bunch of cretins you will not find. Truly unbelievable until you witness it first hand.

Not my Pension me old mate, not in the Public Sector and drawing a pension that I paid for. What I don't like are the attacks on the PS by people like you who blatantly have not a clue as to what you are talking about, I could supply you with a lot of figures too disprove most of the comments on here (mostly supplied by the world respected 'Office of National Statistics' but I suspect with a username like yours I would be wasting my time.

Only one fact is needed - public sector pensions are unaffordable in terms of future liabilities given current contributions, placing the burden on taxpayers. It's one big ponzi scheme.

People got into the public sector with excellent pensions, but lower pay. Well pay is now in line with the private sector, so the pensions must be reformed to make the public sector affordable.

A strike from these lot given their levels of pay, pension and lack of productivity is a kick in the face to everyone in the private sector experiencing wage deflation.

Wage deflation? When was the last time a Doctor, Nurse, Fireman, Teacher, Local Government worker etc had a pay rise?

The divide between the Public and Private sector, with median pay in the private sector rising at 2.6% pa while the median in the public sector was a big fat 0% pa for figures up to last September.

You allege a lack of productivity, wheres the evidence?

From the 'Economic and Social Research Council'.

http://www.esrc.ac.u
k/impacts-and-findin
gs/features-casestud
ies/features/24989/u
k-employees-are-less
-productivebut-not-i
n-the-public-sector.
aspx

"A UK Government cabinet office spokesman said: "It is disappointing that yet again the PCS insist on pushing for futile action which benefits no-one, and damages the services they deliver to the public. "

Of course it will be useless. There are only two ways striking will work. They can walk out en masse, and refuse to go back until they get what they want. Might work, might not, would certainly be a great financial strain on anyone involved.

The far more likely option for success would be to plan and execute a sustained campaign of co-ordinated secondary strikes across multiple sectors. Show 'em who's boss and that the Power of the People isn't just an oxymoron.

Of course, this does have the drawback of being highly illegal , and quite likely to incur 'chastisement' from the state, severe enough to make the November riots look like a Women's Institute picnic.

I can't really see public servants showing any real will to fight when facing off against the well armed, and highly trained purveyors of violence that is the Government's Public Order response of choice.

Howie' wrote:
Wage deflation? When was the last time a Doctor, Nurse, Fireman, Teacher, Local Government worker etc had a pay rise?

The divide between the Public and Private sector, with median pay in the private sector rising at 2.6% pa while the median in the public sector was a big fat 0% pa for figures up to last September.

You allege a lack of productivity, wheres the evidence?

From the 'Economic and Social Research Council'.

http://www.esrc.ac.u

k/impacts-and-findin

gs/features-casestud

ies/features/24989/u

k-employees-are-less

-productivebut-not-i

n-the-public-sector.

aspx

You don't have to look far for pay rises:

http://www.southwale
sargus.co.uk/archive
/2013/03/01/Latest+N
ews+%28swa_news%29/1
0259561.Cost_of_Caer
philly_council_bosse
s_pay_rises_revealed
/

I have witnessed the lack of productivity first hand in all of the public sector organisations in gwent and it really is truly staggering the lengths some of these workshy bean counters will go to to justify their existence.

Let's not forget turnout was 28% and only 61% voted yes - only 17% of their membership voted for a strike! Yet Mark will carry on his own agenda regardless.

The truth is no one will notice these charlatans are striking. Big bus driver has it right, change the locks, replace them with half the number of people and watch productivity soar.

Why is it that when anyone mentions the public sector it's always nurses, doctors, teachers etc.? when in fact they are the small (but emotional) part of it. In the last 15 yrs public sector has grown massively. It is now 20% of employment in the UK and 50% of GDP. Anyone who seriously believes the majority of that is justified is deluded. Is anyone suggesting there isn't waste in WAG in an industrial scale? Whilst healthcare and assoc services need to grow with an ageing population, there remains no incentive in the civil service or local authorities to remove surplus people. Pretending we can continue to fund this growing industry from tax is madness.

Usual well thought out Argus Union bashers and public sector bashers response. 'I dont get this or that why should they !!'

I'm always puzzeled with something, whenever theres an Industrial Dispute, according to our 'balanced' media, its always the Unions fault, never ever the management, - remember it takes two to cause a dispute.

The British Employer public or private is the WORST IN THE WORLD its a wonder there aren't more disputes

brainfreeze wrote:

Howie' wrote:
Wage deflation? When was the last time a Doctor, Nurse, Fireman, Teacher, Local Government worker etc had a pay rise?

The divide between the Public and Private sector, with median pay in the private sector rising at 2.6% pa while the median in the public sector was a big fat 0% pa for figures up to last September.

You allege a lack of productivity, wheres the evidence?

From the 'Economic and Social Research Council'.

http://www.esrc.ac.u


k/impacts-and-findin


gs/features-casestud


ies/features/24989/u


k-employees-are-less


-productivebut-not-i


n-the-public-sector.


aspx

You don't have to look far for pay rises:

http://www.southwale

sargus.co.uk/archive

/2013/03/01/Latest+N

ews+%28swa_news%29/1

0259561.Cost_of_Caer

philly_council_bosse

s_pay_rises_revealed

/

I have witnessed the lack of productivity first hand in all of the public sector organisations in gwent and it really is truly staggering the lengths some of these workshy bean counters will go to to justify their existence.

Let's not forget turnout was 28% and only 61% voted yes - only 17% of their membership voted for a strike! Yet Mark will carry on his own agenda regardless.

The truth is no one will notice these charlatans are striking. Big bus driver has it right, change the locks, replace them with half the number of people and watch productivity soar.

Funny you can recall personal experiences but offer no evidence.

Llanmartinangel wrote:
Why is it that when anyone mentions the public sector it's always nurses, doctors, teachers etc.? when in fact they are the small (but emotional) part of it. In the last 15 yrs public sector has grown massively. It is now 20% of employment in the UK and 50% of GDP. Anyone who seriously believes the majority of that is justified is deluded. Is anyone suggesting there isn't waste in WAG in an industrial scale? Whilst healthcare and assoc services need to grow with an ageing population, there remains no incentive in the civil service or local authorities to remove surplus people. Pretending we can continue to fund this growing industry from tax is madness.

'Why is it that when anyone mentions the public sector it's always nurses, doctors, teachers etc.? when in fact they are the small (but emotional) part of it'.

I think you will find on reading again that I also included LG workers although I started off with Doctors and Nurses as the NHS is the biggest employer in the UK so not just a small and emotional part of it.

'In the last 15 yrs public sector has grown massively'.

In 1997 there were 5,221,000 public sector employees. In 2009, there were 6,070,000 – an increase of 849,000. (Massively eh?)
At the same time, the total number of private sector jobs went up from 21,895,000 to 22,806,000 – a jump of 911,000. How many Private Sector jobs has this lot managed to create in three years from pursuing a policy of austerity instead of growth?
You might not care to admit that the last Tory administration ended up as reliant on the public sector as Labour was before the credit crunch. In 2008, 19.6 per cent of all jobs were in the public sector. In 1997, it was 19.5 per cent. Even today, the proportion of public sector jobs remains lower than it was at the end of the early nineties recession: 23.1 per cent of jobs were in the public sector in 1992, compared with 21 per cent now.


New research suggests 880,000 jobs will be cut in five years, reducing government jobs to their lowest level since the creation of the welfare state, having already lost nearly 700,000.

http://blogs.channel
4.com/factcheck/how-
many-public-sector-j
obs-did-labour-creat
e/2860

'there remains no incentive in the civil service or local authorities to remove surplus people'. What? read the figures above, your talking nonsense.

'Pretending we can continue to fund this growing industry from tax is madness'.

Again, look at the figures.

Mr Angry wrote:
Usual well thought out Argus Union bashers and public sector bashers response. 'I dont get this or that why should they !!'

I'm always puzzeled with something, whenever theres an Industrial Dispute, according to our 'balanced' media, its always the Unions fault, never ever the management, - remember it takes two to cause a dispute.

The British Employer public or private is the WORST IN THE WORLD its a wonder there aren't more disputes

That wasn't the crux of my arguement at all. I just said the country can't afford it. Over 50% of GDP is unsustainable by any economy. This isn't the Soviet Union.

Howie' wrote:

Llanmartinangel wrote:
Why is it that when anyone mentions the public sector it's always nurses, doctors, teachers etc.? when in fact they are the small (but emotional) part of it. In the last 15 yrs public sector has grown massively. It is now 20% of employment in the UK and 50% of GDP. Anyone who seriously believes the majority of that is justified is deluded. Is anyone suggesting there isn't waste in WAG in an industrial scale? Whilst healthcare and assoc services need to grow with an ageing population, there remains no incentive in the civil service or local authorities to remove surplus people. Pretending we can continue to fund this growing industry from tax is madness.

'Why is it that when anyone mentions the public sector it's always nurses, doctors, teachers etc.? when in fact they are the small (but emotional) part of it'.

I think you will find on reading again that I also included LG workers although I started off with Doctors and Nurses as the NHS is the biggest employer in the UK so not just a small and emotional part of it.

'In the last 15 yrs public sector has grown massively'.

In 1997 there were 5,221,000 public sector employees. In 2009, there were 6,070,000 – an increase of 849,000. (Massively eh?)
At the same time, the total number of private sector jobs went up from 21,895,000 to 22,806,000 – a jump of 911,000. How many Private Sector jobs has this lot managed to create in three years from pursuing a policy of austerity instead of growth?
You might not care to admit that the last Tory administration ended up as reliant on the public sector as Labour was before the credit crunch. In 2008, 19.6 per cent of all jobs were in the public sector. In 1997, it was 19.5 per cent. Even today, the proportion of public sector jobs remains lower than it was at the end of the early nineties recession: 23.1 per cent of jobs were in the public sector in 1992, compared with 21 per cent now.


New research suggests 880,000 jobs will be cut in five years, reducing government jobs to their lowest level since the creation of the welfare state, having already lost nearly 700,000.

http://blogs.channel

4.com/factcheck/how-

many-public-sector-j

obs-did-labour-creat

e/2860

'there remains no incentive in the civil service or local authorities to remove surplus people'. What? read the figures above, your talking nonsense.

'Pretending we can continue to fund this growing industry from tax is madness'.

Again, look at the figures.

Three big myths about public sector cost-cutting
By Andrew Wileman APRIL 13, 2010
Email Print
inShare

2010 ELECTION | ANDREW WILEMAN | DEBT | DEFICIT | ECONOMY
- Andrew Wileman is a independent business consultant and writer, most recently writing about cost management in the private and public sectors in “Driving Down Cost” (Brealey Publishing). The opinions expressed are his own. –

“We only need to cut cost because of the credit-crunch crisis.”

No, there is a deep structural problem that was there before the crunch. The public sector has been driving up its share of GDP for decades, in the UK, the U.S. and almost all advanced western economies. Its momentum will be painful to slow down, let alone reverse. This underlying trend was concealed in the nineties and noughties (when the talk was of “the end of big government”) by a debt-bubble-fuelled growth in the private sector. In the UK, we are already over a 50 percent state share of GDP.
In the U.S., post-Obamacare, the state’s share of GDP, already at 45 percent, could also rise to over 50 percent in the next decade. An American Rip Van Winkle from the 1950s waking up to a 50 percent state economy would think the U.S. had lost the cold war and become a Russian satellite.
“To do serious cuts in government services we will need to accept a major deterioration in the level and quality of front-line service delivery.”

This assumes that we cannot find ways to make front-line workers more productive and we cannot find ways to cut excessive overhead cost. Any private sector business that made the same assumption would go out of business in ten years. Of course we should be targeting productivity gains of more than 2 percent a year, and we should be trying to reduce overhead cost by more than 2 percent a year.
“We can fix the cost problem without really confronting the serious over-compensation of public sector workers”
No politician or civil servant dare speak this truth – nor do they want to, as this cost problem includes their own pay.
Public sector pay, which represents more than 40 percent of government spending, has escalated to such an extent that there is now a gaping chasm of unfairness and disadvantage between the 6 million in the UK who work for the government and most of the 24 million who work in the private sector and pay the salaries of the 6 million.
Public sector pay packages, including final salary pensions which add 30 to 40 percent to their cost, are now 50 percent higher than equivalents in the private sector. This gap increased by 5 percent in 2009 alone, in the deepest recession since the 30s – private sector pay declined by 1 percent and public sector pay went up more than 4 percent.
Edward Leigh recently stepped down from nine years as chairman of the Public Accounts Committee spending watchdog, and said: “There is not a shadow of a doubt that you can deliver the reduction in the deficit that we require by imposing massive efficiency savings and job cuts in the bureaucracy.” He attacked the soaring state payroll, calling the “massive” pay rises in local government “the worst scandal of all”.

Llanmartinangel wrote:

Howie' wrote:

Llanmartinangel wrote:
Why is it that when anyone mentions the public sector it's always nurses, doctors, teachers etc.? when in fact they are the small (but emotional) part of it. In the last 15 yrs public sector has grown massively. It is now 20% of employment in the UK and 50% of GDP. Anyone who seriously believes the majority of that is justified is deluded. Is anyone suggesting there isn't waste in WAG in an industrial scale? Whilst healthcare and assoc services need to grow with an ageing population, there remains no incentive in the civil service or local authorities to remove surplus people. Pretending we can continue to fund this growing industry from tax is madness.

'Why is it that when anyone mentions the public sector it's always nurses, doctors, teachers etc.? when in fact they are the small (but emotional) part of it'.

I think you will find on reading again that I also included LG workers although I started off with Doctors and Nurses as the NHS is the biggest employer in the UK so not just a small and emotional part of it.

'In the last 15 yrs public sector has grown massively'.

In 1997 there were 5,221,000 public sector employees. In 2009, there were 6,070,000 – an increase of 849,000. (Massively eh?)
At the same time, the total number of private sector jobs went up from 21,895,000 to 22,806,000 – a jump of 911,000. How many Private Sector jobs has this lot managed to create in three years from pursuing a policy of austerity instead of growth?
You might not care to admit that the last Tory administration ended up as reliant on the public sector as Labour was before the credit crunch. In 2008, 19.6 per cent of all jobs were in the public sector. In 1997, it was 19.5 per cent. Even today, the proportion of public sector jobs remains lower than it was at the end of the early nineties recession: 23.1 per cent of jobs were in the public sector in 1992, compared with 21 per cent now.


New research suggests 880,000 jobs will be cut in five years, reducing government jobs to their lowest level since the creation of the welfare state, having already lost nearly 700,000.

http://blogs.channel


4.com/factcheck/how-


many-public-sector-j


obs-did-labour-creat


e/2860

'there remains no incentive in the civil service or local authorities to remove surplus people'. What? read the figures above, your talking nonsense.

'Pretending we can continue to fund this growing industry from tax is madness'.

Again, look at the figures.

Three big myths about public sector cost-cutting
By Andrew Wileman APRIL 13, 2010
Email Print
inShare

2010 ELECTION | ANDREW WILEMAN | DEBT | DEFICIT | ECONOMY
- Andrew Wileman is a independent business consultant and writer, most recently writing about cost management in the private and public sectors in “Driving Down Cost” (Brealey Publishing). The opinions expressed are his own. –

“We only need to cut cost because of the credit-crunch crisis.”

No, there is a deep structural problem that was there before the crunch. The public sector has been driving up its share of GDP for decades, in the UK, the U.S. and almost all advanced western economies. Its momentum will be painful to slow down, let alone reverse. This underlying trend was concealed in the nineties and noughties (when the talk was of “the end of big government”) by a debt-bubble-fuelled growth in the private sector. In the UK, we are already over a 50 percent state share of GDP.
In the U.S., post-Obamacare, the state’s share of GDP, already at 45 percent, could also rise to over 50 percent in the next decade. An American Rip Van Winkle from the 1950s waking up to a 50 percent state economy would think the U.S. had lost the cold war and become a Russian satellite.
“To do serious cuts in government services we will need to accept a major deterioration in the level and quality of front-line service delivery.”

This assumes that we cannot find ways to make front-line workers more productive and we cannot find ways to cut excessive overhead cost. Any private sector business that made the same assumption would go out of business in ten years. Of course we should be targeting productivity gains of more than 2 percent a year, and we should be trying to reduce overhead cost by more than 2 percent a year.
“We can fix the cost problem without really confronting the serious over-compensation of public sector workers”
No politician or civil servant dare speak this truth – nor do they want to, as this cost problem includes their own pay.
Public sector pay, which represents more than 40 percent of government spending, has escalated to such an extent that there is now a gaping chasm of unfairness and disadvantage between the 6 million in the UK who work for the government and most of the 24 million who work in the private sector and pay the salaries of the 6 million.
Public sector pay packages, including final salary pensions which add 30 to 40 percent to their cost, are now 50 percent higher than equivalents in the private sector. This gap increased by 5 percent in 2009 alone, in the deepest recession since the 30s – private sector pay declined by 1 percent and public sector pay went up more than 4 percent.
Edward Leigh recently stepped down from nine years as chairman of the Public Accounts Committee spending watchdog, and said: “There is not a shadow of a doubt that you can deliver the reduction in the deficit that we require by imposing massive efficiency savings and job cuts in the bureaucracy.” He attacked the soaring state payroll, calling the “massive” pay rises in local government “the worst scandal of all”.

Sorry Martin, no brownie points for that one. I was expecting the Public Sector GDP to be used as an argument as it was pretty obvious from your previous comments that you have never looked at them. This is from HM Treasury not an independents?? personal view.

The Tory's are bragging that they can get Public Spending down to 39% of GDP by 2017 which although not bad is still substantially higher than it was under Labour for most of their term.

https://www.hm-treas
ury.gov.uk/psf_stati
stics.htm

UK PUBLIC SPENDING

.


£BN % of GDP
.
1963-64 12.0 38.5

.
1964-65 13.0 38.1

.
1965-66 14.5 39.6

.
1966-67 16.0 41.4

.
1967-68 18.3 44.6

.
1968-69 19.3 43.4

.
1969-70 20.3 42.5

.
1970-71 22.7 42.7

.
1971-72 25.2 42.6

.
1972-73 28.3 41.9

.
1973-74 33.4 44.4

.
1974-75 43.7 48.6

.
1975-76 55.7 49.7

.
1976-77 63.6 48.6

.
1977-78 69.5 45.6

.
1978-79 78.6 45.1

.
1979-80 93.6 44.6

.
1980-81 112.5 47.0

.
1981-82 125.6 47.7

.
1982-83 138.3 48.1

.
1983-84 149.7 47.8

.
1984-85 160.0 47.5

.
1985-86 166.6 45.0

.
1986-87 172.8 43.6

.
1987-88 183.3 41.6

.
1988-89 190.7 38.9

.
1989-90 210.2 39.2

.
1990-91 227.5 39.4

.
1991-92 254.2 41.9

.
1992-93 274.2 43.7

.
1993-94 286.3 43.0

.
1994-95 299.2 42.5

.
1995-96 311.4 41.8

.
1996-97 315.8 39.9

.
1997-98 322.0 38.2

.
1998-99 330.9 37.2

.
1999-00 342.9 36.3

.
2000-01 341.5 34.5

.
2001-02 389.2 37.7

.
2002-03 420.9 38.5

.
2003-04 455.2 39.3

.
2004-05 492.5 40.5

.
2005-06 523.7 41.2

.
2006-07 550.2 40.9

.
2007-08 583.7 41.0

.
2008-09 630.8 44.5

.
2009-10 671.3 47.7

.
2010-11 690.6 46.7

.
2011-12 690.9 45.2

.
2012-13 683.4 43.4

.
2013-14 720.1 43.6

.
2014-15 733.4 42.2

.
2015-16 744.1 40.5

.
2016-17 756.3 39

.


.
SOURCE HM TREASURY Last years from 2012-2017 are forecasts.

.
DATALINK https://www
.hm-treasury.gov.uk/
psf_statistics.htm

Sorry, the figures above have come out very close together. First column the financial year, second column the cost in Billions and the third column the percentage of GDP on Public Spending.

Gwent does not exist. It was a failed local government experiment. Born 1974 to universal hatred. Died 1996. SIXTEEN YEARS AGO!