Pay guarantee is a gross injustice

“Have written to the mayor and other government and non-government bodies regarding this issue. The mayor says he supports the Living Wage as part of what seems like a political campaign and says low paid workers exempt from the Living Wage might be entitled to other benefits. He also acknowledges viewing this discussion thread.

I'm saddened when I hear of not-too-bright people in both the public and private sector complaining that they are somehow worth more than their 25-50k slaveries without any regard to the high proportion of British workers experiencing genuine in-work poverty. So little is now written about these workers. Raising the minimum wage for Leicester city council workers will lead to an unhealthy relationship between them and their devalued peers in the private sector.




Dear Sir Peter Soulsby

Thank you for your reply. You are working on the assumption that the living wage will be extended to the private sector, but there is no guarantee that this will ever happen. In the meantime, private sector workers earning less are paying for your policy through taxation.

Coupled with the fact that even the lowest paid public-sector workers are more likely to have benefits such as a pension and more holidays etc., you are creating a two-tier community in Leicester.

Just because you have a mandate, it does not mean that you can extort the least represented people of Leicester for political purposes. I know people who have tried to get benefits and council-tax reduction on minimum wage, but they have not been successful. If you really cared about declining living standards, you would ensure the council tax burden is reduced for everyone instead of giving wage guarantees for council workers only.

Your sincerely

Nick Di Perna”

“Have written to the mayor and other government and non-government bodies regarding this issue. The mayor says he supports the Living Wage as part of what seems like a political campaign and says low paid workers exempt from the Living Wage might be entitled to other benefits. He also acknowledges viewing this discussion thread.

I'm saddened when I hear of not-too-bright people in both the public and private sector complaining that they are somehow worth more than their 25-50k slaveries without any regard to the high proportion of British workers experiencing genuine in-work poverty. So little is now written about these workers. Raising the minimum wage for Leicester city council workers will lead to an unhealthy relationship between them and their devalued peers in the private sector.




Dear Sir Peter Soulsby

Thank you for your reply. You are working on the assumption that the living wage will be extended to the private sector, but there is no guarantee that this will ever happen. In the meantime, private sector workers earning less are paying for your policy through taxation.

Coupled with the fact that even the lowest paid public-sector workers are more likely to have benefits such as a pension and more holidays etc., you are creating a two-tier community in Leicester.

Just because you have a mandate, it does not mean that you can extort the least represented people of Leicester for political purposes. I know people who have tried to get benefits and council-tax reduction on minimum wage, but they have not been successful. If you really cared about declining living standards, you would ensure the council tax burden is reduced for everyone instead of giving wage guarantees for council workers only.

Your sincerely

Nick Di Perna”

“'Sophisticated, inclusive, social society', or out of control leviathan destroying western civilisation?

I understand that sensitivity has become more important than truth and feelings are now more important than facts. But this is a philosophical argument and it doesn't really matter whether a free market or privatisation would be more efficient than a state-run monopoly. These are managerial questions, not fundamental ethics.

The point I'm trying to convey is that something founded on force and coercion - like the state - is immoral at its very core. The fact that the state is willing to initiate force and imprisonment on those who refuse to fund its various, questionable social programs, is just plain evil. Policies based on voluntarism will always hold the moral high ground over the initiation of force which can never be successful as the foundation of a functional and fair society.

You seem to regard the state as protector, but we are already seeing parents having their children taken away from them for expressing the 'wrong' kind of views. It intrudes into our lives in many other ways and spies on us. The state has sent our citizens to their deaths in illegitimate wars that haven't served any purpose than to make us look even more ridiculous around the globe.

Despite massive spending in eduction, we have school leavers who can barely string a sentence together, never mind being capable of critical thinking. Our massively funded national health service provides some of the worst care in the developed world. The welfare state was designed to end poverty and all it has done is to trap millions of people into the poverty of state dependency which takes away their incentive to progress as human beings. The real crime here is that many of these people will never even reach a fraction of their true potential.

And what do state advocates say the answer to all these problems are? You got it, more state spending. Do you see a pattern emerging yet?

Even with the lay-offs and so-called cuts, spending and debt is STILL increasing.

People like Soulsby talk about humanity and fairness, good pensions and wage guarantees for state workers, but there are no plans to extend these privileges to the oppressed class it leeches off. The new oppressed class is the private sector tax-payer, particularly the lowest paid who get hammered the most for tax.

If this new oppressed group somehow obtains victim status from the state, then it will just mean even more spending and jobs for bureaucrats. It's a vicious circle because the state has to go on extorting one group to liberate another. This is all being done for our own good, of course...”

“Nick, I'm not asking you to leave the country - that's an option you introduced when you declared you wanted to withhold your contribution but were aggrieved that it could cost you your property and/or liberty, and presents the alternative choice you have.

The sophisticated, inclusive, social society is here, now, and you do have the prerogative not to take part - your choices presently are laid out above.
There is merit in your argument against nanny state intrusive local and national government, however stripping it back to bare minimum also reduces the checks and balances in place that ensure the needy get what they want and that unfair advantage is not taken from the system - I'm not sure we have the balance correct yet, and democratically speaking I'd also have to admit the 'system' isn't perfect (recent local issues such as proliferation of student accomodation, travellers' sites, scout hut use, inner city development, bus lanes, et al, all demonstrate this), but it's the best of the options available at present.

The best chance for change is to drive it from within. I'm commonly a critic on these pages of how policy is decided and applied - and I'd disagree with your comment that the bloated government is resisting cutting back, there's some evidence it's too stringent in places. But, like I stated previously, pigeonholing all the providers of society's support in the same manner as you have done, does not endear those people to sympathise with you, nor convey your argument particularly well...”

“Again, I'm not asking you to leave the country because I don't like your views but that's what you expect from me if I don't like the current state of affairs. I'll have to re-evaluate history because maybe Gandhi and Martin Luther King were just a couple of whingers.

Where's your "sophisticated, inclusive, social society" going to get its funding from?

It's pretty conclusive that the state has become too bloated and that governments are unwilling to cut back spending until complete bankruptcy ensures.

But limited government = minimum corruption & maximum prosperity. Because individuals and businesses spend far more wisely than a bureaucratic tyranny.

Just found this Channel 4 documentary which explains things a lot better than me:

http://tinyurl.com/3ye2bth”

“Wow! Nick, that's a lot of baggage you're carrying there...

Truth is, a lot of the functionality of the 'public sector' is in providing services that are necessary but totally unviable (notionally) to private concerns (until you consider the recent privatisations of the utility suppliers over the last 25/30 years - where prices are now soaring beyond what they would have were the suppliers concerned remained in state monopoly, simply to sate shareholder 'thirst').

Many privatised industries now offer limited choices of carefully manufactured services, tailored in such a way as to maximise their income from the consumer - at least when State run they were a one-size fits all universal service obligated source of whatever product was their 'bag'.

Despite some very clever accounting models, health, welfare, social care, sanitation, education, and much of the essential utilities we require in society cannot be run profitably, as the previous nationalisations earlier in the last century of telephone, coal, water, gas, electricity and creation of the NHS prove (the private suppliers then fell foul of having a procuct so expensive they priced it beyond their consumers, or alternatively had to supply it so cheaply it ceased to be profitable).

We live in a sophisticated, inclusive, social society, where the items we take for granted (and as you say those public services occasionally leave us unsatisfied), are paid for jointly by our taxes. Some of us pay more, some pay less, but ultimately they do need to be paid for, and for all your denigration of the 'worker bees', our hive wouldn't operate without them.

If you're really as unhappy with this life as you seem, stop this anarchical rant and go and live off-grid on an island somewhere. But tell me, who will you complain to when the freshwater stream dries up, your hut catches fire, you break your leg, or the tide starts washing your waste back up on the beach?”

“If I'm not satisfied with public services and refuse to pay council tax then my property is confiscated and I go to jail. If I have the audacity to criticise public servant pay then I'm warned that I could be blacklisted from the services I've already paid for, along with other subtle threats. Many of the people here would have flagged my comments and had them deleted if the Mercury had such a facility. In my original commentary, I made the seemingly outrageous assertion that state workers are a 'control group'. Interestingly, this is exactly how a control group operates. Thanks for proving my point.

This is why any pro-state argument is morally bankrupt from the beginning. Because in a mature society everything expected from the citizen is done voluntary and without the threat of violence. Gentle persuasion for mutual benefit instead of state coercion.

Even though I don't agree with you, I would never flag your comments, confiscate your property or advocate you going to prison. But I may just get fed up with being a tax-salve and stop producing things. If more tax-payers decided to drop out then just who are you going to extort to pay for your wages and pension?”

“TUC report:
"Overall, nine in 10 public sector employees are in a pension scheme, compared with fewer than half – 42pc of men and 35pc of women – in the private sector. Part-time workers in the private sector are even less likely to have a pension. Only 8pc of male part-timers belong to a scheme, compared with 17pc of women. It's a very different picture in the public sector, however – here, 73pc of male part timers and 58pc of the female counterparts have a pension."

Figures released by the Communities Department showed:
"Council workers paid in only £1 for every £4 paid out in pensions last year. Nearly £6billion of the £8billion cost of the schemes came from taxpayers. Council workers stumped up just £1.8billion."

A report on public-sector pay by Policy Exchange:
"The median salary in the public sector is 12% higher than in the private sector, and on an hourly basis (including longer holidays and shorter working hours) the median public-sector salary is 30% higher".

http://tinyurl.com/34smlpd

"Much commentary appears still to regard public sector workers as low-paid. This may have something to do with high profile media reports of very high remuneration at the top of the private sector pay scale (multi-million pound 'mega-salaries' and bonuses in financial services, for example) and an implicit misunderstanding of job comparability."

"The public sector enjoys a remarkable 38% premium for paid holidays, with 29 working
days a year compared to an average of only 21 days in the private sector. In some
sectors, the difference is even more stark: distribution, hotels and restaurant staff have
only 18 days off per year, giving the public sector a 61% premium. Some public
workers enjoy even greater entitlements: firefighters and teachers can accrue up to 33
and 35 days' holiday respectively, while the Civil Service enjoy an additional 2.5 'privilege
days' on top of their usual vacation days and public holidays."

"Public sector workers also have significantly longer absence rates due to illness.
The average public sector organisation loses an average of 9.7 days per employee
per year through absence compared to just 6.4 days in the private sector: around
50% more. This situation is perhaps compounded by the very generous terms of public
sector sick pay."

"Before the General Election, the then Prime Minister Gordon Brown spoke of a
'culture of excess' in the public sector which 'can change and must change'. The
then Chancellor Alistair Darling signalled pay cuts for some recent public sector
posts and a curtailment of bonuses which 'don't pass… the next-door neighbour
test. If you can't justify them to your neighbour, you've probably got it
wrong'."



Also public-sector unions force private-sector workers without pensions to provide for their retirement plans instead of calling for a general rise in the state pension. But my augment is really about a Mayor taking money from the poorest workers in Leicester (of which there is an abundance) and using it to significantly increase the minimum hourly rate for council workers. No amount of personal anecdotes or pro public servant platitudes can justify the moral illegitimacy of his actions. You can't have a progressive society where the state has to prey on its weakest members for political gains. Sadly, many who claim to be on the left (pro-fairness and all that) have come to see low-paid workers as nothing better than functional serfs, a means to an end.”

“"But in reality, it is a desire to maintain their privileged status that is oppressing the poor"

This is not just nonsense but insulting. You are clearly incapable of making a balanced argument, just showing your blind prejudice.”

“What absolute claptrap Nick Di Perna expounds.

My other half is a nurse at the LRI, and so qualifies as a 'public sector worker' - I can assure Nick that she does not receive a gratuitous salary, enjoy more favourable job security than anyone else and can neither look forward to a generous pension nor assume any perks to speak of.

What she can look forward to daily, is regularly finishing after her scheduled time, an increasing expectation of productive activity from the UHL's higher echelon, less investment in the kinds of support and training necessary in an evolving health service, fewer colleagues as those leaving aren't replaced, and regular disrespect from an unappreciative minority of the general public.

There are some high earners in public service just as there are in the private sector, and that's how it should be, but he should remember that plenty of people employed within the public sector as footsoldiers and in support roles (both throughout the health service by the NHS and by councils) are only earning basic wages, and Mr Di Perna does them an utter disservice in tarring everyone with the 'you've got it made' brush.

I'd suggest he keeps his opinions to himself when the dustmen are in his street, the fire brigade show up to his home when ablaze, or his bedpan is being emptied, etc, etc...”