Right enough, I always felt when I was a public sector worker that as a teacher I was overpaid. Like police officers, doctors, nurses and paramedics, fire staff, council staff. Of course, there were bits of the job we loved but the hours and the pay were not the reason we signed up.
I mean, I got paid for being a principal teacher in a secondary school. Spent my days trying to make sure the department was working smoothly, managing staff and resources - and taking my own personal work (preparation, marking) home to do Monday to Thursday evenings between 6 and 9. I had Friday night off to unwind and Saturday to do the essentials like the shopping and cleaning, and then wound myself up for the new week by working on Sunday from 12-6 and sometimes later. I did the school shows and the school trips abroad in my own time.
When I went to work in a local authority job, I worked on improvement with school managers, wrote and ran training sessions for school staff, arranged study visits to and from European partners, interviewed people for jobs, supervised staff, got working parties together to provide teaching material for pre-5 to Higher and arranged cooperation with colleagues in other councils to save council tax payers' money. The pattern I'd started in school just carried on. Except email was now available and the council IT department had arranged that people could get me any time, and my Sunday routine sometimes had me working from 11am till 11pm, depending on what was happening.
I remember our boss telling us on one occasion that he didn't think he was getting 'value for money' from us, although he was unable to tell us what it was he wanted us to do to prove we were doing a good job. A travel agent who had been unable to get hold of me for 3 days was annoyed to be told I was 'out in schools' and didn't like being interrupted when I was doing pre-inspection checks, and then went on to tell me how easy life was for people like me because we weren't 'in the front line.' (Tell that to colleagues who dealt daily with impossible parents - not to mention HMI). I'd just put thousands of pounds of business his way but he seemed to think working in the public sector was a skoosh. If only.
Now it's Phillip Hammond who thinks public sector workers are overpaid. Let's just make sure we all understand what's going on: The Tories resent the fact that public sector workers sometimes (not always) have permanent contracts, agreed terms and conditions and sometimes the backing of a trades union which will defend their rights. They also have pensions which they pay into all their working lives.
In other words, they're not part of the 'gig' economy in which workers have no status and few rights. The 'gig' economy suits the Tories just fine. When we are out of the EU, our rights as workers will be further eroded. The UK will join some of the poorest countries in the developed world as a place where we have no protection. Already, we see education is now out of the reach of many young people in England (and to an extent in Wales). Workers with a grievance, including women sacked or forced out of a job because they get pregnant, now have to find huge amounts of cash to take their case to an industrial tribunal. Many people have workplace pensions that won't give them any kind of decent life in retirement. People are now expected to work longer - the state pension age will shortly go up to 70. And pensioners face the prospect of having their financial situation - not all that great if you look at other countries' provision for the elderly - damaged further when the 'triple lock' is abandoned. The Tories are also rumoured to be trialling 'cash for GP appointments.' They are running down the NHS, starving it of cash, so that they can then tell us it doesn't work (though it did till the Tories took it over) and privatise it.
So what do we do? I can't say this often enough or vehemently enough: stop voting Tory! Stop being conned by the Tories' attempt to blame the poor, foreigners and public sector workers for everything that's wrong in the UK. Ignore their claims that the only way forward is austerity. That just plays into their desire to have a workforce desperate for work and living on the minimum wage, with no rights and no hope of improvement. Don't let the Tories continue this 'dumbing down' of society in which working people get no respect from anyone, are kept short of housing so as to force rents up (do any of the private renters vote Tory, I wonder?), and where homelessness is now an epidemic among young people in some parts of the UK. And only those who start with money can make money.
Have a good look at the Tory cabinet. Do these people represent us? Have they any understanding at all of what's it's like - for instance - to lose everything - absolutely everything - in the Grenfell Tower fire or to be living fearfully in a tower block with the same cladding or to be shuttled around from hotel to B&B - and end up on the streets?
Most of all, are these politicians competent to do the jobs they've been given? Take a look at them and get back to me.
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