Public Sector Pay Freeze

Alistair not-a-Darling yesterday released his pre-budget report for the financial year 2011. He has to save a lot of money and make cuts due to the recession and I can honestly say that I wouldn’t want that job. I find it frustrating enough doing budget forecasting. However, I digress.

Amongst his plans, he has decided to enforce a 1% paycap on public sector employees from 2011. This fills me with rage, partially because I am a local authority worker.

I know many people will be sitting there saying that we are overpaid, shouldn’t be complaining, we get paid for pointless jobs and essentially not doing much, yada, yada, yada. Yes, I do Tweet and Facebook in worktime sometimes, however I very rarely take a lunchbreak, I am always in early, I sometimes work late and I am constantly doing extra work from home. I have a stressful job, which is often difficult and whilst for my age I am well-paid, my salary is not enourmous. I have bills to pay, just like everybody else. The cost of living rises for me every year, just like everybody else. My job in the private sector would probably be paying me in the region of 40-45k, at least. There would be annual pay reviews and possibly bonuses. We don’t get bonuses in LA.

Yes, there are some jobs in LA which probably are pointless and there are some jobs which probably do pay too much. But spare a thought for that man who collects the trash from your street and doesn’t get paid all that much for it. Is it fair that his pay is capped?

I’d also like to throw it out there that we also pay taxes, just like everyone else. So, in essence, we are actually contributing towards our own wages.

So, before you start saying that it’s just right that our pay is capped, I’d like to point out that most people in the private sector get rises in line with inflation and it’s only right that we should, also.