NHS Strike

[law74]

Let market forces and the law of supply and demand decide the rate, after all it worked so well with our financial institutions

 

[urmston]

Talking to a london paramedic today and he told me that the london ambulance service is losing between 40 to 50 staff per month.
they are now recruiting from Oz as there are not enough people in this country applying.
So where is this long queue of people that Urmston thinks there is to fill the roles?
Supply and demand.....not quite

The ones leaving are being paid better in the private sector

And the strange thing is that these private ambulances are being hired by the NHS to help out!!!! Ycmiu

It's a simple effect of the disruption of the laws of supply and demand by intransigent public sector unions.

I've no problem with NHS staff in shortage areas getting higher wages if that is needed to recruit and retain them.

But the NHS unions always object. Public sector unions are terrified of supply and demand wages for their members. While wages would increase for staff in areas like London which are economically well off with many other well paying jobs available, they'd plummet for public sector staff in areas like the North East where public sector staff are very easy to recruit because national pay rates make them superbly paid for the area and there aren't many other decent jobs available anyway.

 

[PragueBlue]

Quick question for urmston; How much does a bog standard fully qualified nurse get in the NHS and what's the equivalent rate in the private sector for the same job?

I was interested by this question and a quick search would seem to indicate that public sector nurses fare better than private sector nurses when pensions are factored in.

From the Telegraph and dated October this year:

The true scale of the gulf in pay that separates private and public sector workers is revealed today in an report that includes the impact of "gold-plated" pensions for the first time.
Workers in the state sector received a fifth more than counterparts at private firms when pensions were factored in, according research published by the Institute of Fiscal Studies.
The think tank said teachers, doctors, nurses and other state employees received an average of £28,000 a year, while private workers received £27,000.
However, generous pensions added £6,000 to public workers' pay, boosting the total to £34,000 a year.
By contrast, the pensions offered to private workers added just £2,000 a year, giving £29,000 overall, the report found.

The £5,000 gap was worth almost a fifth of the salary of someone in the private sector.
Experts said the figures indicated state staff were "on an incredibly good deal" because the vast majority still had generous final salary pensions.
Malcolm McLean of pension consultants Barnett Waddingham said: "Public sector pensions are streets ahead of those in the private because they have such valuable pensions, and the gap is growing."
The IFS said just 12 per cent of private sector workers had a final salary pension today, down from 38 per cent in 1997.
By contrast, almost all employees in the public sector had a pension worth a percentage of their salary, rather than the growth of money invested in stock market.
The study took into account age, region and education to create a fair comparison between similar workers in the state and private sectors.
Jonathan Cribb, author of the report said: "There is substantial variation in the estimated differential between public and private sector pay for different types of workers and across different parts of the country. This might suggest differentiating pay awards going forward.
"The uncomfortable truth is that it is lower paid workers, women and those in poorer regions who do best in the public sector, relative to the private sector."
Danny Alexander, the chief secretary to the Treasury, has promised public pensions would remain untouched "for 25 years".
The statement, made in 2011, was made to appease public workers threatening to strike over proposals to increase the age at which they qualified for a pension from 60 to 65 and water down inflation-linked payout rises in retirement.
The IFS took these reforms into consideration and said there would still be a 17 per cent gap between the total pay and pensions given to staff in the two sectors this year.
The gap was largest for women, where state staff earned 21 per cent more each hour on average. Men, by contrast, earned 10.5 per cent more in the public sector when pensions were included.
Younger and older workers were also relatively better off, the IFS found, while for those in middle aged the benefits were less pronounced.
John O'Connell, director of the Taxpayers Alliance, said: "It is unfair to expect the majority of taxpayers, many of whom have seen the value of their pensions fall in recent years, to subsidise generous retirement deals that they themselves cannot afford."
Mr McLean said: "We mustn't drag public pensions down to the lowest common denominator but raise the standards of pensions in the private sector, boosting workers' retirement prospects."

 

[Rascal]

John O'Connell, director of the Taxpayers Alliance, "

The Taxpayers alliance are notorious for misrepresenting facts. They are further right than most of the RWNJs on here


And im sure Urmston is probably a big fan, because Urmston has failed time and time again to acknowledge that everyone pays tax regardless not just private sector workers.

 

[PragueBlue]

John O'Connell, director of the Taxpayers Alliance, "

The Taxpayers alliance are notorious for misrepresenting facts. They are further right than most of the RWNJs on here


And im sure Urmston is probably a big fan, because Urmston has failed time and time again to acknowledge that everyone pays tax regardless not just private sector workers.

I have no idea who they even are but I think they just commented on the story, it wasn't their research It says the research was carried out by the Institute of Fiscal Studies (who I equally know nothing about).

 

[Tim of the Oak]

John O'Connell, director of the Taxpayers Alliance, "

The Taxpayers alliance are notorious for misrepresenting facts. They are further right than most of the RWNJs on here


And im sure Urmston is probably a big fan, because Urmston has failed time and time again to acknowledge that everyone pays tax regardless not just private sector workers.

I have no idea who they even are but I think they just commented on the story, it wasn't their research It says the research was carried out by the Institute of Fiscal Studies (who I equally know nothing about).

There seems to be a big gap in the article / "research" about pension contributions - unless I have missed the obvious?

 

[Rascal]

John O'Connell, director of the Taxpayers Alliance, "

The Taxpayers alliance are notorious for misrepresenting facts. They are further right than most of the RWNJs on here


And im sure Urmston is probably a big fan, because Urmston has failed time and time again to acknowledge that everyone pays tax regardless not just private sector workers.

I have no idea who they even are but I think they just commented on the story, it wasn't their research It says the research was carried out by the Institute of Fiscal Studies (who I equally know nothing about).

The Taxpayers alliance hate all forms of taxation. They believe in a flat of tax across the board and are basically anti tax, anti state, supra Neo Liberals. The IFS are a right wing think tank that was created to investigate taxation issues in the UK but now has a wider remit. IFS reports as most think tank tank reports to be fair are in my opinion guilty of inherent bias

 

[PragueBlue]

The Taxpayers alliance are notorious for misrepresenting facts. They are further right than most of the RWNJs on here


And im sure Urmston is probably a big fan, because Urmston has failed time and time again to acknowledge that everyone pays tax regardless not just private sector workers.

I have no idea who they even are but I think they just commented on the story, it wasn't their research It says the research was carried out by the Institute of Fiscal Studies (who I equally know nothing about).

There seems to be a big gap in the article / "research" about pension contributions - unless I have missed the obvious?

No idea what you mean there. Just copied it from <a class="postlink" href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/pensions/11152840/Public-vs-private-sector-pay-gap-is-5000-or-a-fifth-of-earnings.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/pers ... nings.html</a>

 

[urmston]

John O'Connell, director of the Taxpayers Alliance, "

The Taxpayers alliance are notorious for misrepresenting facts. They are further right than most of the RWNJs on here


And im sure Urmston is probably a big fan, because Urmston has failed time and time again to acknowledge that everyone pays tax regardless not just private sector workers.

I wasn't aware an acknowledgement was necessary. Everyone knows all workers pay tax.

NHS workers pay tax because they are like all employed workers.

They sell their labour to their employer.

They are a cost to their employer like everyone else is.

NHS staff are members of the public like anyone else. They are not owners of the NHS any more or less than any other person, and they should not be granted privileges like artificially boosted pay simply because they sell their labour to the NHS rather than any other employer.

As both an employer and a tax levying authority our government has a duty to treat all workers fairly, and not to give unfair benefits to the people it employs. To reward some workers with higher salaries than the market requires just because they happen to work in our health service means taxes go up for all workers but wages only go up for NHS staff. And that is unfair and immoral.

It's about time striking NHS staff stopped claiming that they are some kind of special breed of worker which the rest of us should venerate and shower with money their skills don't warrant. They should realise they are workers like everyone else and accept that they will be paid for their skill levels, no more and no less.

We should freeze NHS pay for 3 or 4 more years and reduce the generosity of the NHS pension scheme. I doubt there'll be any difficulty in staffing the NHS while we do this, as given the economic conditions recruitment and retainment of NHS staff is very unlikely to be a problem.

 

[DelToro]

urmston has doubled his post count on this one thread alone.