Re: Is this fair? : Sat Mar 17, 2012 12:02 pm  

Horatio Yed wrote:

I know this place is more left wing than a seagulls port side but how naive do you have to be to think this is a bad idea?

If a card carrying leftwing nut job nurse in Hull thinks it's unfair get her to move to London or Kent or Surrey and pay her the same, see what she says after a year.

Besides if the nurse is unhappy up north on the pitiful wages move down south, it would seem the English are the least mobile work force in the world and refuse to work further than 6 miles from where they were born.

So in HY's world every single public sector worker who is unhappy about this should just up sticks and do the same job down south? Then you'd be moaning that the Northerners are taking all your jobs! Your short sightedness amazes me.

Re: Is this fair? : Sat Mar 17, 2012 12:33 pm  

It's a personal choice, different places will mean different pay, different expenses and different quality of life - make your decision and if you are unhappy then change

I moved to Gateshead and it was cheaper but the place is miserable, I might move down south shortly, it will be expensive but there are some jobs you just can't get in your home town. Personal choice.

If people are fed up of the divide then do something about it, the Scots want independence and one of the reasons I have heard cited is the supposed imbalance between spending on "the English" and "the Scottish" but the Scots get more central funding than us Northerners

Re: Is this fair? : Sat Mar 17, 2012 1:31 pm  

It's just basic supply and demand and opportunity cost. It shouldn't be a suprise that rates of pay for similar roles differ across a country than it is that they differ across the world.

Re: Is this fair? : Sat Mar 17, 2012 1:34 pm  

I haven't read the article but it is a Tory policy therefore automatically wrong, and automatically aimed at screwing over poor people. The End.

*fingers in ears*

Re: Is this fair? : Sat Mar 17, 2012 1:35 pm  

London weighting has been around as long as I've worked, and that's all private sector. It's common sense.

However, my current job is the first time I've ever been paid a little extra for 'Manchester weighting'. Enough for a decent night out including meal, let's say.

2 years after starting they 'fessed up they'd underpaid my weighting and chucked me a few hundred quid extra in a lump sum. So that's all good then.

Re: Is this fair? : Sat Mar 17, 2012 2:44 pm  

Ajw71 wrote:

*fingers in ears*

We'd all noticed that that was your core approach. But thank you for admitting it.

You'll feel better now.

Re: Is this fair? : Sat Mar 17, 2012 2:48 pm  

Oh sorry, I was being sarcastic. I thought you of all people would have recognised that.

Apologies in advance if I have made any spelling errors.

Re: Is this fair? : Sat Mar 17, 2012 2:55 pm  

London Weighting Allowance for civil servants moving from Northern Ireland to London: £4000pa for Inner London, £2690pa for Outer London UNISON's document describing London Weighting for public sector jobs in 2005: Inner London: £6k for police, £3k local government, £4k fire service, etc. Note also that regions outwith London receive additional weighting. I'd get a ~£3k weighting if I moved to London to do the same job. My issue isn't with differential salaries depending on the prevailing costs of the local region, but there's more than enough irrationality in Osborne's pronouncement to wonder what's really going on: The cost of living - depending on how you define it - isn't necessarily greater in London or the South-East than elsewhere. Compare, for example, the cost of fuel (or necessity of heating) in, say, Inverness (£1.45/l when I checked) to London (£1.42/l). I picked Inverness because it's a relatively well-served and prosperous area - fuel (and food) prices increase rapidly once you head out of population centres, up here. Inflation is a nationwide phenomenon. Parts of London and the South-East are also rather poor (depending on your definition), which would seemingly contradict the need for a regional weighting or public sector salary increase in those parts of the South-East, depending on the definitions adopted. How granular should this be? If it's a 'simple matter of supply and demand', then wouldn't we expect those poor areas with high unemployment to be driving salaries down because there's a ready and available workforce to step into the jobs on offer? Is the problem actually something more fundamental than the influence of public sector salaries in the region? If the 'higher public sector wages' are preventing private sector companies from hiring staff, doesn't that suggest a shortage of potential employees, rather than an excess, and shouldn't the private sector companies then be competing in terms of the salaries that they offer to a scarce workforce? We'll probably not see a grading of MPs'/Lords' salaries depending on where their constituencies lie on the map. If the differential is justified by actual differences in costs of living, why not? Is it sensible or a positive move to, in effect, reduce centralised funding (through public sector salaries) to poorer regions whose private sector is more highly-dependent on that funding? Will the relative drop in pay result in more demand for tax credits and other state help? Do the plans intend to wait until the 'average' wage catches up, a wage for a 'comparable job' catches up, or something else? We could, for example, freeze MPs' pay until everyone else in London (or the UK) catches up with them, but that would be stupid and unreasonable. Is this proposal any less unreasonable, or better-defined? I've no issue with the principle of pay matching what you need to pay your staff to live - which takes into account the cost of living, and may vary from region to region. That doesn't seem to be the motivation for this, to me.

London Weighting Allowance for civil servants moving from Northern Ireland to London: £4000pa for Inner London, £2690pa for Outer London UNISON's document describing London Weighting for public sector jobs in 2005: Inner London: £6k for police, £3k local government, £4k fire service, etc. Note also that regions outwith London receive additional weighting. I'd get a ~£3k weighting if I moved to London to do the same job. My issue isn't with differential salaries depending on the prevailing costs of the local region, but there's more than enough irrationality in Osborne's pronouncement to wonder what's really going on: The cost of living - depending on how you define it - isn't necessarily greater in London or the South-East than elsewhere. Compare, for example, the cost of fuel (or necessity of heating) in, say, Inverness (£1.45/l when I checked) to London (£1.42/l). I picked Inverness because it's a relatively well-served and prosperous area - fuel (and food) prices increase rapidly once you head out of population centres, up here. Inflation is a nationwide phenomenon. Parts of London and the South-East are also rather poor (depending on your definition), which would seemingly contradict the need for a regional weighting or public sector salary increase in those parts of the South-East, depending on the definitions adopted. How granular should this be? If it's a 'simple matter of supply and demand', then wouldn't we expect those poor areas with high unemployment to be driving salaries down because there's a ready and available workforce to step into the jobs on offer? Is the problem actually something more fundamental than the influence of public sector salaries in the region? If the 'higher public sector wages' are preventing private sector companies from hiring staff, doesn't that suggest a shortage of potential employees, rather than an excess, and shouldn't the private sector companies then be competing in terms of the salaries that they offer to a scarce workforce? We'll probably not see a grading of MPs'/Lords' salaries depending on where their constituencies lie on the map. If the differential is justified by actual differences in costs of living, why not? Is it sensible or a positive move to, in effect, reduce centralised funding (through public sector salaries) to poorer regions whose private sector is more highly-dependent on that funding? Will the relative drop in pay result in more demand for tax credits and other state help? Do the plans intend to wait until the 'average' wage catches up, a wage for a 'comparable job' catches up, or something else? We could, for example, freeze MPs' pay until everyone else in London (or the UK) catches up with them, but that would be stupid and unreasonable. Is this proposal any less unreasonable, or better-defined? I've no issue with the principle of pay matching what you need to pay your staff to live - which takes into account the cost of living, and may vary from region to region. That doesn't seem to be the motivation for this, to me.

[DaveO]

Re: Is this fair? : Sat Mar 17, 2012 3:40 pm  

Looking around the internet at reaction to this I found some info that a cleaner on a public sector grade one pay scale in Manchester will currently get an average pay rate of £6.88 per hour. Max is just over £7.

Is that moron Osborne seriously suggesting that this rate of pay is reduced because the cost of living is less in Manchester than London?

Re: Is this fair? : Sat Mar 17, 2012 3:57 pm  

DaveO wrote:

Looking around the internet at reaction to this I found some info that a cleaner on a public sector grade one pay scale in Manchester will currently get an average pay rate of £6.88 per hour. Max is just over £7.

Is that moron Osborne seriously suggesting that this rate of pay is reduced because the cost of living is less in Manchester than London?

Thats how I see it would work

It has been suggested on the news today that the Yorks & Humber region public sector workers get on average 13% more than private sector (which is just rubbish in my husbands case as he has applied for 2 jobs in the private sector, one starting salary was slightly less than what he is on now and one is quite higher, for the same job he is doing now just in a different environment).

If Osborne uses the same figures as the BBC were reporting and he gets a 13% pay cut, after just having gone through a 3 year pay freeze and me losing my ESA (my only income) in September I will lose my home. I don't understand how this government thinks workers who have earned the same salary for years doing a job, won't be angry over this. My hubby expects to be striking over it in the next few months but obviously that is upto the Unions to finalise.

Using the same figures, what will happen to a grade 1 worker who works in this area who earns a few percent over minimum wage? Would they get paid below minimum wage?