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Pay freeze
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
in Work & Study
Just had a letter from Personnel dept that we're not getting any rise in salary this year.
That's bad when petrol going up, food so expensive, my landlord keeps increasing rent and inflation soaring ahead about 5%
How am I going to make ends meet without using bank credit?
And the government says public sector employers should impose a pay freeze for the next two/three years
Some folks working for successful private firms I know are still getting wage increases
That's bad when petrol going up, food so expensive, my landlord keeps increasing rent and inflation soaring ahead about 5%
How am I going to make ends meet without using bank credit?
And the government says public sector employers should impose a pay freeze for the next two/three years
Some folks working for successful private firms I know are still getting wage increases
0
Comments
Them's the choices. I'll be on strike.
It's shit, and in real terms we all know it amounts to a pay cut, but it's happening everywhere.
Unless I become a Tube driver then my union is guaranteed to strike for more money
Shop employees work hard- constantly watched by customers and often hard hitting top managers in the store. A year on year pay freeze must be demoralizing, especially most retail work borders on National minimum wage
You should be able to base tax credits on this years' income.
As for unions, it depends on your union. Unison are about as much use as a chocolate fireguard but I'm in a far more obstroperous union, UCU, and we have already been out on strike about reduncancies, pensions and pay.
I was part of Unite, but at the time there was no talk of strike. That may have changed now.
I think it's something to do with this global economy issue thing that may have been mentioned once or twice?
The richest have gotten richer in the last three years. It's just the saps at the bottom who are losing out. It was ever thus, but don't pretend there's no money. There's plenty of money- just look at the bumper profits from your own employer.
Oil companies can make massive profits at the moment because the oil price is high, and believe it or not, that actually has very little to do with them. The consumer end of oil & gas is making very very very little money - it's all in what is essentially commodity trading. Which is essentially where the problems came from in the first place.
Food and oil prices are high due to commodity trading, definitely, but the manufacturers and producers have as much interest in prolonging it as the commodity traders do. The problem is not the global economy being in a mess, the problem is that the rich bankers have lost money and are being allowed to reclaim it from the poor. There's nothing wrong with the economy, the problem is the thieving scum being allowed to steal from you and I.
I'd personally like to see the CEOs of Vodafone and Goldman Sachs be treated like the common thieves that they are, Sharia style.
How is the 'theiving scum being allowed to steal from you and I' not a feature of the economy? I'd say bankers being allowed to reclaim money from the poor (as you put it) is a pretty big problem with an economy.
Of course producers have an interest in keeping the price high, and that can be seen by the action of OPEC, but what we've actually seen recently is producers acting to try and keep prices down by increasing production. That suggests the bulk of the problem lies with trading rather than producers.
I suppose it depends what you mean by "the current economic climate". If you mean it in the Conservative Party sense- i.e. there's no money, so STFU- then you are wrong. If you mean that the rich are being allowed to get richer at our expense then you're right. There's plenty of money, plenty of companies are making plenty of profit. It's just becoming ever more concentrated in fewer and fewer hands.
But never fear, we're all in this together. Unless you're a posh Tory wanker. I'm dying to use the c-word but I promised GWST I wouldn't.
On a related note - my favourite website when forecourt fuel prices are being discussed. http://www.whatprice.co.uk/petrol-prices/cost-litre-breakdown.html
Oil companies are bad, don't get me wrong, but OPEC are worse, governments are worse, and an economy that mainly functions on trading futures is a recipe for disaster.
However the real question is how much money BP and Shell and ExxonMobil make in profit out of that 32% that is "refinery petrol costs". It's rather rich of the oil companies to say that they have no say in how expensive their product is. They very much have a say in it, it's just in their interests to keep their prices inflated. You see the same thing with de Beers and the diamond trade.
However, I agree, the real issue is commodity trading. That's why grain prices are so high too. I don't know how those people can sleep at night, but hey. I expect they just see it as their job, as being professional.
If they bypassed commodity trading, and put their own oil from the rock into their own refineries, shipped on their own ships - then they'd keep control. As it is, you can be confident of pretty much only one thing - that the Joe Bloggs refinery will be refinery pretty much everyone elses produced oil (which they've bought in) and very little of their own.
At which point, refinery costs are massively dictated by commodity trading, and so the pointy finger comes back. It could of course be fixed, by fiscal regiemes making it more attractive to keep the value chain in house and thus reduce the steps - but as it is, fiscal regimes massively favour the trading route - so that's what we get.
Which, if true, does start to limit any sympathy one might have for public sector workers complaining about pay freezes and changes to benefits, if in reality it just makes public sector reward conditions move towards those available in the private sector.
Public sector workers tend to be more highly skilled and highly skilled people get paid more than low skilled people. The statistics show that there are more low-skill workers in the private sector and that the highest skilled workers generally don't figure- bonuses and self-employment (e.g. company directors) don't figure in the statistics. The lowest skilled public sector workers were outsourced to G4S and Compass and the like a long time ago.
Traditionally, working in public sector has been seen as more status
I seriously suggest you try and make ends met without using bank credit. Simple things like budgeting and monitoring what you spend can make a huge difference. If you are not doing those things, start now.
I know folks working in the private sector who haven't had a wage increase for years.
yeah, in my late teens I ran up hugh credit card debts and thought taking out loans was solution. Fortunately I have some funds saved up now and do weekly list of spending- love it. Gives sense of control in money management
Thanks
I'm on less than £20K and will be paying an extra £600 a year in to my pension, working until I'm 68 (in theory, I don't like my job and am looking to move asap) and getting less in the end (I think people currently retired on my grade get about £5k pension, how DECADENT).
We went out on strike though and I was picketing. No point complaining... Either fight, or haul ass.
£21K won't pay for that much if you live on your own in London. £21K isn't a lot if you're a lone parent, or if you're in debt... If you have a car, or if you have had to take a £20K pay cut because you lost your job and your sector is screwed... £21K won't be enough to rent your own place in most of London.
And as you said before... The price of living goes up, so you're getting a pay cut. If your pension scheme is changing, you're getting a pay cut.
In the past year, the country's richest people increased their wealth by 18%. It's a fucking joke...
But as AR said earlier, join a union. If you want to strike because of pay (and many people would support that) then go through your union's processes to do so (for example, at national conference). There will be many strikes to come. I was told today that maybe even Unison will be in on it (almost passed out I did ).