Letter: Pay should reflect the job’s value to society
Friday 11th March 2011, 8:15AM GMT.
Will you allow me to make a comment on how the “powers that be” have sat by and done nothing about in relation to certain people’s income?
I get very annoyed when reporters say “earnings” instead of “income”.
“Earned” is all about perspective.
Have our armed forces “earned” redundancy while in Afghanistan?
The BBC paying millions in wages to their presenters and newscasters is out of order.
People in banking get obscene amounts of money, the country acts as guarantor with no proper return for taking all the risk.
Can politicians not understand that every pound we pay out is a pound less for us to spend.
It is very simple; we have no choice.
If we do not pay income tax, council tax or television licence fees we will end up in court, fined or even in jail.
The inmates are running the asylum.
I used to ask the question who is most important to society, the water worker on about £30,000 or the doctor on about £100,000?
Most people get it wrong by saying the doctor as he is more important to the individual.
It is time wages reflected the importance of the worker to the society in which we pay them.
Telford & Wrekin Council can advertise for a care worker on a salary of £13,000 but they do not care about paying £157,000 to the authority’s chief executive.
Who says that one person is really 12 times better than another?
Peter W Breeze
Wellington
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Very well said and rather spot on .
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What a load of drivel.
No disrespect to water workers, but if one quits they’re not that hard to replace and no lives are likely to be in jeopardy while the position’s being filled.
You can’t really say the same about doctors.
Again, no disrespect to care workers, they do a fantastic job and have my utmost respect, but I have a sneaking suspicion that no council would attract the calibre of candidates it needs for leadership by advertising the post at c. £13k p.a.
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That’s a bit of an arbitary analysis. Perhaps the comparisons aren’t good, but the fundamental logic is. When investment bankers and their CEOs are paid more than our Prime Minister – we have a problem – and we DO have a problem. The banks are now in a position to hold the government (and the Tory party) to ransom and effectively dictate policy. If Care workers were valued more highly, standards within Care homes would improve because there wouldn’t be such high turnovers of staff creating staffing shortages, but no, there are the Gods of Equality and Diversity to be worshipped and some of those appointed to such positions in this field are utter morons who simply know how to tailor their CVs to impress. The salaries however, are massively overinflated for returns they provide, but tick all of the right politically correct boxes. This viewed from your perspective, is more important than the likes of the Care home recently shut down in St Georges. The priorities of our society have been turned upside down over the last 30 years and I would agree absolutely that there is indeed a huge gulf between salaries “earned” and salaries “paid”.
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Refer to post #4. It’s summarised pretty succinctly, I think.
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‘People in banking get obscene amounts of money, the country acts as guarantor with no proper return for taking all the risk.’
I work for a well known bank, and have done for the last 7 years. My income does not even come close to £20,000.00. Is that what you class as getting an obscene amount of money?! I don’t.
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“Who says that one person is really 12 times better than another?”
The market. Now run along to your Socialist Worker meeting.
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Well H its the first time I agree with you if everyone cancelled sky premiership players would not be on obscene salaries simple!
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What Peter is describing in his letter, not very articulately, is the unfairness of capitalism – which is why he’s had this backlash from people like you H, who would rather call him a socialist (only derogatory from the perspective of the ignorant person ascribing it) – and, to expand on this unfairness, it’s what Robert Tressel coined as ‘The Great Money Trick’: Very few hold all the power and the wealth and do nothing to deserve it; the effect, misery and poverty for the rest of us, or at best comfortable 9-5 slavery. Even for those adding real value to society.
And because of this, as you pointed out, yes the Market dictates. Tough, as you suggest. But even if, as i supect, you think you have a decently paid job (perhaps you’ve got some ‘magic IT’ job, you’re doung your bit to change the world!). One message: Still, the market is screwing you over H, yet you, like most, are happy not to give a shit. At every level except the top, everyone else is a wage slave and will happily stamp on those below them, undermine thier own position and desperately grapple for the impossibility of a scrap of small social mobility upwards. Perhaps you voted conservative, which for anyone below the super rich is an act of sado-masochism. But as Tressel found trying to explain this to most, is like blowing smoke in one ear and out of the other with people like you. Whatever you think, you’re a slave! It’s called social conditioning.
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“The market. Now run along to your Socialist Worker meeting.”
The jobs for the boys, at the council market would that be then or the real world market?
No degree needed to suss that one out.
It’s sad when public sector workers can only think of jobs with two pay scales…13K or 150K, in the real world there is a vast range of pay scales and something along 60-80K would suit the CEO better for the work done, I would guess.
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AHH it does not say the one person is 12 times better than another person , the market says we just need more of or are short of these people etc .
However when working in one business for 17 years the company needed cleaners for 14 of those years and they were in desperate need. However they would only pay minimum wage , spent a fortune on advertising and no not one came through the door even the JC said perhaps if you pay more you will get one as cleaners are in short supply these days. That was a fine example of a hard working sector not being rewarded fairly with decent pay but they were desperately required as could be seen from the vast amount of complaints made by the general public over those 17 years.
A cleaner is important ask the NHS but they do not do anything about it but just say pay min wage because the individual is not qualified in anything carrying or catty many qualifications, this may be true but they DO the job many would not do , as with a care worker,road sweeper, bin man, postie,and I am sure many other low paid jobs, take these people away and what would happen ahhhhhhh we flood the country with eastern Europeans and then the problem is solved ?? or have we created a major problem for our children.
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So do you agree or disagree with the letter writer, Andrew? As ever, I find it difficult to work out what you are on about.
Not sure about the water worker / doctor comparison but I generally agree with the original point. If we started from scratch to assess who should earn what, I suspect salary levels would look very different from the way they are now.
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thats a stupid idea
you want bin men and care workers on £100,000 a year and bankers would have to pay to come to work
well it seems fun but the who would then train hard to do well paid jobs in banking, IT, research, medicine and management etc??
You cant pay unskilled people well just because they are nice and work hard
sorry but thats not logical and the market wouldnt have it
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Well paid IT workers? well paid in medicine a nurse?I would not class these as well paid but paid a decent wage for what they do . However just above minimum wage should not do for people who do jobs many of us would not do, and I would not suggest 100k either and don’t think anyone including the letter writer is suggesting this but paying them a few quid extra I am sure would help.
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In the private sector, pay is usually baed on your cash generating potential – in other words, those who go out and bring money in for the company, make the most salary. Bonus is always linked to profit – no profit, no bonus, no profit, no pay rise etc.
In the public sector, the chips on teh shoulders have made it such that those in power award themselves inflated salaries whilst paying the least possible to their staff so that their budgets look better and so they can claim to be the best and get a bonus for their efforts. As for pay rise, award yourself inflation plus a bit every year and blame the private sector, poor public sector pay, poor pensions, poor this, poor that. Sorry, we no longer believe you. The public sector is the soft option full of chancers on over inflated salaries who could not get a job in the real world. Sadly, the true public sector workers have to work for these types and get a rough deal as a result.
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Private sector pay is based on the earning potential of the person to the company. A water worker can only earn the company the work he does in a day. A manager can earn the company the amount that all of his gangs of workers can earn plus follow on work and can ensure prompt payments, resolution of disputes etc. A director can earn the sum of all teh managers they control, negotiate big contracts and settle disputes and set the company strategy. The bonus structure follows this link too.
In the public sector, this link doesn’t exist. The senior maangers and directors of councils do not drive earnings and from my observations, do not seem to be able to drive efficient organisations. The front line workers pay the price for this when they could and should be paid a little more although my experience is also that the public sector working week is dramatically shorter than the private sector (I currently do 55 to 60 hours per week plus travel time) whereas my customer (a council) does a 35 hour week for probabaly similar pay.
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George,
If you are working 55-60 hours per week week in week out, and haven’t signed an opt out, then your emplouyer is breaking the law, and you should be pursuing this – it’s part of Health and Safety law, so not only would your employer be potentially liable, but so would some of the individual managers who are involved.
If you have signed an opt-out – then i’m afraid I’ve no sympathy for you.
Perhaps if more people worked a reasonable working week, we’d have lower unemployment?
There was a recent proposal that public sector managers ahould not earn more than 20 times the salary of their lowest worker.
I’m in favour in principle of such restrictions, built sadly this hasn’t been adopted, not least becuase the salary differentials and multipliers in the private sector are so much higher than that, and the public sector would struggle to recruit people at those high levels.
If you take the lower UK salaries in the comapny I work for and comapre them to the last published figure for the CEO remuneration, you’d have to multiply the lower salary by around 2000 to reach the CEO level. No one is worth that much…
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I wasn’t wanting sympathy. I have indeed signed an opt out and will receive overtime should my hours remain at 60 per week. My basic week is 48 hours. The council I report to work a basic 35 hour week. My comparison was aimed at hourly rates which will be similar if not a little higher in the council for similar role. However, my salary will be more as I work longer. Everything is relative but since we as a nation annualise our salary for comparisons, I think the Public ector forgets that they work such drastically shorter hours.
As a point though, I would prefer not to work 60 hours but the job I am on and the economic basket case that is the UK deems that I do everything needed to keep my job and the job going.
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Ah but peter a way around your opt out example milkman /postman etc you tell them the working week is 37 hours so they have to do the job in 37 hours , however as with most of these roles the job will last 50 hours so they are not being forced to work 50 hours they just need to work faster.And if they complain about it we have 3 million who will not.Oh have we not gone back to 1984.
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Andrew,
Did you watch that Panorama documentary a couple of years back, when a super-fit ex marine was unable to complete a postal delivery round in the time being stipulated by Royal Mail?
And this was just a round delivering leaflets, with no tower blocks or steps to climb.
Royal Mail were demonstrably making impossible demands of their staff, while issuing warnings and threats of dismissal.
As Peter points out, although the legislation may be there, this does not stop unscrupulous and unethical employers exploiting and bullying their staff.
As for this comment
‘And if they complain about it we have 3 million who will not.Oh have we not gone back to 1984.’
I can only hope you intended it to be read laden with the heaviest irony.
Surely you cannot justify employers treating their employees with contempt and disrespect on the basis that more desperate people would (probably temporarily) endure it?
Are people not entitled to make their living with dignity?
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Andrew,
You’re wrong. Those who fashioned these laws were well aware of all the tricks employers might use.
The legislation requires employers to record all hours worked – paid or otherwise. So it doesn’t matter what your contracted hours are – all of your hours engaged in work duties have to be recorded. And if you’re working more than 48 hours per week over a 17-week period, and haven’t signed an opt-out, your employer is breaking the law.
You can’t get round this by forcing employees to take leave either – if you work 55 hours in week a, take a week off in week b, and then return to work in week c, again doing 55 hours, then week b also counts as 55 hours – it’s calculated on the average of the weeks surrounding the holiday.
If an employee is made to sign an opt out under duress that’s against the law too…
All the rules and regs are available on line – since you’re an employer I’d strongly advise you read them unless you want to find yourslef on the losing side at a tribunal.
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I think your point about the public sector bosses not having to make profits is where the Private V Public “Boss” argument breaks down. Of course the workers are the ones who pay in both sectors.
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It’s also worth pointing out that many of the profits made by large companies in the UK do not benefit us at all, since we make it very easy for companies to ‘offshore’ much of their profit, and thus avoid paying UK tax on it.
Vodafone, Cadbury, Top Shop, Boots and doubtless many others – they’re all at it, and meanwhile while they avoid hige sums in tax, we subsidise the low pay that many of them offer by giving top-up benefits to allow their staff to exist on such a low minimum wage.
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That might be the case Peter but we are constantly told that we live in world market. Political agreements and ECJ rulings actually assist companies to avoid UK Tax and prevents the UK Government from collecting tax. There have been several court cases in the ECJ that found against the UK Gov on just this point, costing this country billions in lost revenue.
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Ken,
Sorry, you can’t blame Europe for this one – the coalition government have just announced plans to make it easier for big firms to ‘offshore’ profit – this flies in the face of current EU policy which is heading in the direction of limiting such loopholes.
Nobody forced the government’s hand in this – they simply wanted to help the rich.
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This of course is well of topic and has absolutely nothing to do with my original point about public sector bosses not having to make profits.
ECJ rulings have forced the UK exchequer to allow companies who make a loss offshore to get tax relief in the UK on those losses, at the same time they have prevented the UK from taxing profits made offshore. It is far to simplistic and tribally centred to blame the Tories for everything, they like the previous government must work the EU rules as they are decided by test cases in the ECJ and they have to ensure that UK company tax law complies with the rulings of the ECJ.
One instance; March 2005 Advocate General Mr Poiares Maduro agreed with Marks and Spencer
that under Article 43 of the European Union Treaty, it should be allowed to offset losses of around 160 million euros made by its French, Belgian, and German subsidiaries between 1997 and 2001
against UK profits, claiming a tax refund of £30 million.
I do not know of any EU move to close this particular loophole and doubt such a move exists as it is against the ethos of the union to protect the nation state or its tax regime.
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according to the new economics foundation, the people who collect your recycling contribute 100 times more to the economy and society than an average banker!!!
the create £12 of wealth for every £1 spent on recycling whereas a banker DESTROYS £7 of wealth for every pound spent on them
http://www.neweconomics.org/press-releases/hospital-cleaners-worth-more-society-city-bankers-says-new-nef-research
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“There was a recent proposal that public sector managers ahould not earn more than 20 times the salary of their lowest worker.
I’m in favour in principle of such restrictions,…”
Peter, was that a misprint or are you having a laugh?
Are you seriously saying that someone managing workers on the minimum wage should be able to “earn” only just short of £120 per HOUR, you really need to get a reality check, mate.
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So are you really in favour of people being paid more than £120 per hour in the current climate?
Based on a 40 hour week that’s £4800 per week, or £249600 per year. Seems like a lot to me!
Do you not consider that to be good pay for a year’s work? Do you not think there should be some relationship between what the people at the top are paid and what those lower down the greasy pole are paid? After all – they all contribute to creating wealth don’t they?
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I think you will find that several council chiefs are indeed on 120 times minimum wage as this equates to £220k per year as a salary.
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Peter, I think that you need to re-read what I have printed. I was questioning your statement of “I’m in favour in principle of such restrictions,…”,
which means to me, that you are happy with someone earning 20 times the minimum wage….I’m certainly not.
geaorge, you need to rethink your maths, 120 times minimum wage would equate to about £700/hour or £1,274,000 per annum for a 35 hour week.
I’m sure some council bosses feel that they are worth over a million a year but hope they aren’t really on that.
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At the moment a CEO on £180K, a year would be about 14 to 15 times what someone on minimum wage, doing 40hours a week, would earn (far too much in my opinion) and they are turning their noses up at being restricted to 20 times minimum wage, according to Peter.
The world’s going mad.
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