Who Gets What and Why?
The BBC used this chap as a 'case study' in its coverage of the recent health workers strike in England, Wales and Northern Ireland (Scotland was not affected, by the way, because the Scottish Government agreed to pay the 1% 'across the board' increase recommended by the Pay Review Body).
Anyway back to Mick Bowman who is a mental health social worker and does a very demanding job for Northumberland County Council.
But what the BBC report doesn't tell us is what Mick gets paid by way of a salary because that would tell you whether his job is low paid or relatively low paid - or whether he is in a higher earning job and, depending on his grade as a social workers, that might well be the case.
So as much as I might empathise with Mick, the people who are really feeling the pinch are those on very low pay, the thousands of NHS employees at the very bottom of the pay ladder.
Something else that would be instructive to know is whether Mick has a mortgage because if that is so, then his housing costs are likely to have fallen substantially over the past some years, as a consequence of artificially low interest rates the UK has enjoyed since 2008.
Compared to, say, a very low paid NHS worker who doesn't have a mortgage and pays rent to a housing association, local council or a private landlord.
So the business of who gets why and why is more complicated than just pay increases - what counts is the bigger picture and what other costs need to be taken into account in a debate over the cost of living.
Case study: 'My lifestyle is pressured'
Mick Bowman, 56, is a mental health social worker for Northumberland County Council who lives in Newcastle and is taking part in the march in London.
"I've not had a pay rise for four years so with the cost of living rising, that's a very substantial pay cut," he said.
"At the same time my workload has increased and my job's become more stressful.
"At the end of every pay month I have to use my credit card to live on. I last had a holiday three years ago. So my lifestyle is pressured.
"I feel extremely angry about this. The national deficit was manageable and the way to deal with it is not to cut jobs and shrink the public sector.
"It's time to invest more in the public sector and get people into a position where they are able to spend more and put more money into the tax system."
For more reaction from the protests click here.
I'm sure Seumas Milne thinks of himself as a radical, progressive kind of guy, but his latest comment piece for The Guardian just goes to show that he doesn't know what he's talking about when it comes to trade unions and the recent health workers strike.
Public service strikers are standing up for the real Britain
David Cameron and Nigel Farage want to change the subject, but austerity and privatisation are slashing earnings
By Seumas Milne - The Guardian
What Do We Want? (20 October 2014)
I'm sure Seumas Milne thinks of himself as a radical, progressive kind of guy, but his latest comment piece for The Guardian just goes to show that he doesn't know what he's talking about when it comes to trade unions and the recent health workers strike.
Because the strike is not about anything other than restoring an across the board 1% pay increase recommended by the Government's pay review body.
Now the Government chose not to follow the review body's advice, in full at least, and decided instead not to pay the 1% increase to staff who are due an annual increment in 2014/15 which means that around 55% of health workers in England will receive an incremental increase worth, on average, 3% while the remaining 45% (who are the lowest paid) will get only 1%.
So if the strike is successful in moving the Government which looks highly unlikely any further increase in pay will benefit only just over half the workforce, while the lowest paid workers will see no improvement at all in their position.
And while Seumas bangs on about falling living standards, this is only true for certain people, of course, because people with a mortgage, especially a big mortgage, have done relatively well since interest rates dropped to artificially low levels in 2008 which means that they housing costs have fallen substantially as well.
A fairer way forward would be to devise a pay strategy that benefited the lowest paid and/or workers who pay rent to put a home over their heads instead of a mortgage, because it is this group which has been hardest hit of all over the past 6 years.
But that is not what the strike is all about, of course, and in terms of tackling low pay it's not very progressive at all.
But that is not what the strike is all about, of course, and in terms of tackling low pay it's not very progressive at all.
David Cameron and Nigel Farage want to change the subject, but austerity and privatisation are slashing earnings
By Seumas Milne - The Guardian
Midwives went on strike this week for the first time ever. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA
After years of real pay cuts, public service workers are striking back. Up to a million public sector employees walked out in July in protest against continuous cuts in living standards. On Monday, hundreds of thousands of health service workers went on strike after the government refused them even a 1% pay award.
Midwives took action for the first time. On Wednesday, they were joined by low-paid workers from courts and job centres to airports and driving test centres – some of whose take-home pay has fallen by 20%, courtesy of year-on-year wage freezes, pay caps and rising pension contributions.
There’s bound to be more of this. For all the government’s talk of pay restraint saving jobs, hundreds of thousands of public sector jobs have been lost under the coalition. And however much coalition or Ukip politicians try to change the subject or shift the blame – from hailing recovery to blaming migrants – falling living standards and rising job insecurity is the reality for most people in David Cameron’s Britain.
British workers have had the longest and deepest fall in real earnings since the 1860s: an average 8% cut since 2007. Even as inflation has fallen to 1.2% – and the rate is double that for the low paid – pay is still lagging behind, as rising inequality in the UK has outstripped the other leading economies.
When you add in four years of sweeping cuts in benefits, the impact is severe. You can see it on the streets of a town like Blackpool, where each working-age resident will have lost £900 a year as a result by 2015. Ministers trumpet the drop in unemployment, but the swelling number of involuntary part-time, self-employed and zero hours workers tells another story.
Among those resisting this government-driven race to the bottom are 70 former NHS care workers for the disabled in Doncaster, who have taken a total of 85 days’ strike action after their jobs were outsourced, holidays cut and take-home pay slashed by up to 35%. Care UK, which won the contract by underbidding the NHS, blames Doncaster council and George Osborne’s cuts. John Nash, chairman of the company, which is owned by private equity firm Bridgepoint Capital, was made a peer after donating £247,000 to the Conservative party.
Bridgepoint’s European advisory panel is in turn chaired by Alan Milburn, former New Labour health secretary. Those care workers taking industrial action include former miners who went on strike 30 years ago to defend their jobs and communities against Margaret Thatcher’s government.
In that string of connections, the battle at Care UK encapsulates the world that Cameron and Osborne champion – as well as how we got where we are today. It also underlines the role of privatisation, not only in extracting wealth from public services, but in driving down pay and conditions for those at the sharp end of the labour market.
Privatisation undermines unions, the only organisations holding the line against that downward spiral – which is of course part of the Conservatives’ intention. They have weakened protection for outsourced workers and now plan to put most industrial action outside the law if re-elected.
The combination of privatisation and austerity is especially toxic – reflected in the Tories’ ever-closer union with their City, corporate and oligarch funders. Health and social care are its frontline. But the Tories are restless to go further. Having privatised a slice of Royal Mail far below market price, they plan to sell off our stake in Eurostar.
Put to one side the disastrous record of rail privatisation – its fragmentation, costs, low investment, high fares and exorbitant subsidy – or the miserable performance of one privatised corporation and contract after another, from energy and water to G4S and Serco. By selling off Britain’s share in Eurostar, which made £19m profit last year – unthinkable for their French counterparts – they are exchanging a strategic public asset with a long-term stream of income for a windfall that will barely dent the public debt.
It’s ideologically driven, of course, but also a form of the short-term fiscal irresponsibility Cameron and Osborne are supposed to oppose with every fibre of their being. Which, in practice, they don’t. In fact, the Eurostar sale is all of a piece with their announcement of one unfunded tax cut after another aimed at the well-off – scheduled for well before the deficit they made their lodestar is due to be paid off.
That at least has the advantage of opening up room for economic manoeuvre if Labour wanted to take it, and of eroding the fetishisation of the deficit, which is only a reflection of wider economic failure. Despite all the talk of recovery, the economy is simply not delivering for the majority – even if it’s still filling the pockets of the wealthy.
The credit-fuelled recovery is already showing signs of faltering and the budget and balance of payments deficits are both growing, while investment and productivity are stagnating. In fact, one of the key reasons Osborne has failed to hit his borrowing and deficit targets is because the new jobs are so low-paid they are squeezing tax receipts.
Turning round the living standards crisis demands a radical programme of public intervention and investment, not a slower programme of austerity. But this week’s strikes – and the TUC’s pay march at the weekend – offer a chance to shift the political focus from Westminster infighting and the arch privatiser Nigel Farage, to the crisis actually faced by the majority. It’s Care UK, health and public service workers who represent the real Britain.
The TUC and other trade unions seem to be stepping up today their campaign of opposition to pay restraint in the public sector.
Under the theme of "Britain Needs a Pay Rise" rallies are taking place in London, Glasgow and Belfast and the Scottish TUC is taking part as well highlighting the fall in real terms wages since 2008.
Good luck to them I say and I might even wander along to Glasgow's George Square later to hear what the speakers at the rally have to say because what I'd like to know is what the STUC and its member trade unions haven't been holding similar protests in relation to equal pay - years ago.
Because the sums of money involved in equal pay are much more significant and the pay gap has been known about for years, yet the trade unions have been largely silent which is a very staging state of affairs.
For sure there have been no big TUC or STUC campaigns in support of equal pay over the past 10 years and that makes the trade unions look ridiculous, as if they only get 'brave' and start to pull out all the stops when the Conservatives are running the show at Westminster.
So if you ask me, as well as a pay rise Britain needs better, more progressive, less partisan and pro-Labour trade unions.
Apparently he's a man with a mission, a mission to tell the unruly Scots that Labour has changed and that if we only vote No in the forthcoming independence referendum, then Labour will definitely win the 2015 general election and with Ed as Prime Minister all will be well with the world once again.
Well that's a load of old bollix if you ask me, because I heard Ed burbling away on the radio this morning, on his way from or to Blantyre in South Lanarkshire - the heart of darkness when it comes to equal pay.
Because this Labour led council fought the mother of all battles against equal pay for 10 whole years - in defence of male council jobs being paid much more than their female colleagues - until they were finally defeated by Action 4 Equality Scotland.
The resulting settlement as reported in the press and media allegedly cost the Labour council over £70 million - and yet the Scottish Labour Party had nothing of substance to say on what amounts to a national scandal.
Yet Ed Miliband was the UK Labour leader throughout that period and his Scottish leader, Johann Lamont, has been in charge of events north of the border since 2011.
"So what's changed?" I ask myself, somewhat cynically.
Now if any readers of the blog site get the opportunity, I would ask Ed Miliband what he has to say about Labour's track record on equal pay and South Lanarkshire Council.
In fact I'd also ask him about North Lanarkshire Council as well, another Labour council which has made a complete mess of equal pay and has had to admit that senior managers have made fundamental 'mistakes' and 'errors' with the evaluation of thousands of female dominated jobs, such as Home Carers.
"So what do you say to that, Ed?" I would ask Mr Miliband given half a chance, but I suspect that a deafening silence would follow.
After years of real pay cuts, public service workers are striking back. Up to a million public sector employees walked out in July in protest against continuous cuts in living standards. On Monday, hundreds of thousands of health service workers went on strike after the government refused them even a 1% pay award.
Midwives took action for the first time. On Wednesday, they were joined by low-paid workers from courts and job centres to airports and driving test centres – some of whose take-home pay has fallen by 20%, courtesy of year-on-year wage freezes, pay caps and rising pension contributions.
There’s bound to be more of this. For all the government’s talk of pay restraint saving jobs, hundreds of thousands of public sector jobs have been lost under the coalition. And however much coalition or Ukip politicians try to change the subject or shift the blame – from hailing recovery to blaming migrants – falling living standards and rising job insecurity is the reality for most people in David Cameron’s Britain.
British workers have had the longest and deepest fall in real earnings since the 1860s: an average 8% cut since 2007. Even as inflation has fallen to 1.2% – and the rate is double that for the low paid – pay is still lagging behind, as rising inequality in the UK has outstripped the other leading economies.
When you add in four years of sweeping cuts in benefits, the impact is severe. You can see it on the streets of a town like Blackpool, where each working-age resident will have lost £900 a year as a result by 2015. Ministers trumpet the drop in unemployment, but the swelling number of involuntary part-time, self-employed and zero hours workers tells another story.
Among those resisting this government-driven race to the bottom are 70 former NHS care workers for the disabled in Doncaster, who have taken a total of 85 days’ strike action after their jobs were outsourced, holidays cut and take-home pay slashed by up to 35%. Care UK, which won the contract by underbidding the NHS, blames Doncaster council and George Osborne’s cuts. John Nash, chairman of the company, which is owned by private equity firm Bridgepoint Capital, was made a peer after donating £247,000 to the Conservative party.
Bridgepoint’s European advisory panel is in turn chaired by Alan Milburn, former New Labour health secretary. Those care workers taking industrial action include former miners who went on strike 30 years ago to defend their jobs and communities against Margaret Thatcher’s government.
In that string of connections, the battle at Care UK encapsulates the world that Cameron and Osborne champion – as well as how we got where we are today. It also underlines the role of privatisation, not only in extracting wealth from public services, but in driving down pay and conditions for those at the sharp end of the labour market.
Privatisation undermines unions, the only organisations holding the line against that downward spiral – which is of course part of the Conservatives’ intention. They have weakened protection for outsourced workers and now plan to put most industrial action outside the law if re-elected.
The combination of privatisation and austerity is especially toxic – reflected in the Tories’ ever-closer union with their City, corporate and oligarch funders. Health and social care are its frontline. But the Tories are restless to go further. Having privatised a slice of Royal Mail far below market price, they plan to sell off our stake in Eurostar.
Put to one side the disastrous record of rail privatisation – its fragmentation, costs, low investment, high fares and exorbitant subsidy – or the miserable performance of one privatised corporation and contract after another, from energy and water to G4S and Serco. By selling off Britain’s share in Eurostar, which made £19m profit last year – unthinkable for their French counterparts – they are exchanging a strategic public asset with a long-term stream of income for a windfall that will barely dent the public debt.
It’s ideologically driven, of course, but also a form of the short-term fiscal irresponsibility Cameron and Osborne are supposed to oppose with every fibre of their being. Which, in practice, they don’t. In fact, the Eurostar sale is all of a piece with their announcement of one unfunded tax cut after another aimed at the well-off – scheduled for well before the deficit they made their lodestar is due to be paid off.
That at least has the advantage of opening up room for economic manoeuvre if Labour wanted to take it, and of eroding the fetishisation of the deficit, which is only a reflection of wider economic failure. Despite all the talk of recovery, the economy is simply not delivering for the majority – even if it’s still filling the pockets of the wealthy.
The credit-fuelled recovery is already showing signs of faltering and the budget and balance of payments deficits are both growing, while investment and productivity are stagnating. In fact, one of the key reasons Osborne has failed to hit his borrowing and deficit targets is because the new jobs are so low-paid they are squeezing tax receipts.
Turning round the living standards crisis demands a radical programme of public intervention and investment, not a slower programme of austerity. But this week’s strikes – and the TUC’s pay march at the weekend – offer a chance to shift the political focus from Westminster infighting and the arch privatiser Nigel Farage, to the crisis actually faced by the majority. It’s Care UK, health and public service workers who represent the real Britain.
Britain Needs...Better Unions (18 October 2014)
The TUC and other trade unions seem to be stepping up today their campaign of opposition to pay restraint in the public sector.
Under the theme of "Britain Needs a Pay Rise" rallies are taking place in London, Glasgow and Belfast and the Scottish TUC is taking part as well highlighting the fall in real terms wages since 2008.
Good luck to them I say and I might even wander along to Glasgow's George Square later to hear what the speakers at the rally have to say because what I'd like to know is what the STUC and its member trade unions haven't been holding similar protests in relation to equal pay - years ago.
Because the sums of money involved in equal pay are much more significant and the pay gap has been known about for years, yet the trade unions have been largely silent which is a very staging state of affairs.
For sure there have been no big TUC or STUC campaigns in support of equal pay over the past 10 years and that makes the trade unions look ridiculous, as if they only get 'brave' and start to pull out all the stops when the Conservatives are running the show at Westminster.
So if you ask me, as well as a pay rise Britain needs better, more progressive, less partisan and pro-Labour trade unions.
Ed Miliband and Equal Pay (4 September 2014)
The Labour leader, Ed Miliband, is in Scotland today, God save us!
Well that's a load of old bollix if you ask me, because I heard Ed burbling away on the radio this morning, on his way from or to Blantyre in South Lanarkshire - the heart of darkness when it comes to equal pay.
Because this Labour led council fought the mother of all battles against equal pay for 10 whole years - in defence of male council jobs being paid much more than their female colleagues - until they were finally defeated by Action 4 Equality Scotland.
The resulting settlement as reported in the press and media allegedly cost the Labour council over £70 million - and yet the Scottish Labour Party had nothing of substance to say on what amounts to a national scandal.
Yet Ed Miliband was the UK Labour leader throughout that period and his Scottish leader, Johann Lamont, has been in charge of events north of the border since 2011.
"So what's changed?" I ask myself, somewhat cynically.
Now if any readers of the blog site get the opportunity, I would ask Ed Miliband what he has to say about Labour's track record on equal pay and South Lanarkshire Council.
In fact I'd also ask him about North Lanarkshire Council as well, another Labour council which has made a complete mess of equal pay and has had to admit that senior managers have made fundamental 'mistakes' and 'errors' with the evaluation of thousands of female dominated jobs, such as Home Carers.
"So what do you say to that, Ed?" I would ask Mr Miliband given half a chance, but I suspect that a deafening silence would follow.
