Michael

The Guardian indicates the same but just different headlines.

Spanish air traffic controllers to strike | World news | The Guardian

If electricians, carpenters, plumbers, and/or brick layers were being paid a minimum of €200,000, how could the average person afford to buy or even rent a house? Some seem to think it is ok that Spanish air traffic controllers get paid that amount since they don't see a direct link to their pocket book.

In the US, the same occurs with the medical profession where most people aren't concerned that medical specialists can easily make over a million dollars per year since they have company provided medical insurance and don't have to directly pay for medical costs. However if people had to directly pay the full price of their medical services, I suspect they would become far more concerned.

In the 1970s, 747 pilots were making $250,000 because it was a regulated industry and pilots, airline mechanics, and other airport workers had a strong union but today, the best paying 747 pilot makes less than $250,000. The difference is that domestic ticket prices have actually dropped in price during the last 50 years. If the airline industry was the same as the 1970s, a US transcontinental round trip ticket price would likely be over $2,000 today instead of about $400 for economy class. In the 1970s, it was rare that I flew since ticket prices were so high in relation to my income.

Dismissing excessively high salaries as unimportant for certain professions just ignores a serious problem that effects everyone.

BristolUK

Yes, that's fairly representative of my time in a government department along with the extra callers the work backlog generates and their abuse, assaults and threats.

To be fair, jsmth has covered this a lot. Without wishing to sound condescending they make a very good job of their difficult circumstances.

scrubbedexpat091

Most airline employees who have survived the layoffs and outsourcing made more 20 years ago then they do today. But not many left because of the amount of lay offs and outsourcing that the industry has seen.

I know a guy who worked for Air Canada for 30 years from 1970 to 2000, and retired with retirement benefits. Now that really isn't possible as the pay sucks royally bad.

Air Canada currently pays 11.35/hr to 16.60 per hour for the maximum pay. The contract lists 6 levels from hire pay to top out pay, how long it takes to get to the top level, it doesn't say.

Starting pay does increase to 11.69 April 1st, but top out pay remains the same.

Westjet contracts out as much as possible and are non-union but their pay isn't much better overall from what I can find.


Now either these jobs were overpaid in years pays or they under paid today. The employees do more with less which doesn't entirely make a lot of sense.


Wages in the private sector even in union jobs are not doing well in more and more industries and most people don't seem to care about that but throw a fit if anyone dares mention lowering government employee pay.

After all if the private sector is making less and less, they can't pay as much in taxes and government can't keep raising them and expecting things to stay rosy.

My mom was a paramedic for 20 years and unionized in California, the starting pay in 1990 was higher then the starting pay today. Takes over 4 years of education both in college and on the job in California to become a paramedic, (its not degree as a portion of the education is done working as an EMT) so they are well educated, but the companies are private in most regions still and the pay isn't good.

Government paramedics who work for the city (generally fire dept) are well compensated.

See the trend, government employees some how are more valuable when doing the same job vs a private sector.

Either one group is overpaid or the other is underpaid.


I really don't care if government employees are compensated well, but we can't ignore how poorly the private sector is going wage wise for similar jobs and sometimes the same exact jobs. (I do realize that some government jobs have no real private counterpart and cannot be compared.)

Michael

In California, Vallejo is a middle class city that was paying police officers and firemen in excess of $100,000 per year and can retire with up to 90% of their pay at age 50.

Public safety workers who retired in the last five years have average annual pensions of more than $101,000.

With the average family in Vallejo making less than $50,00 per year with no retirement benefits, the obvious had to happen which was the city filed for bankruptcy.

Once bankrupt, Vallejo still can't afford its pricey pensions - Mar. 10, 2014

Going through bankruptcy, the city negotiated reduced wages and benefits for newly hired public safety workers, drastically cut government services, and laid off government employees but couldn't renegotiate public safety workers pensions. Today the city's finances are in far worse shape than prior to bankruptcy due to increase pension payments which is expected to rise 42% over he next 5 years.

The case in Stockton CA is similar.

Stockton bankruptcy judge calls California pension fund a 'bully' | Reuters

Judge Approves California City’s Bankruptcy-Exit Plan - WSJ

Both cities are now in shambles with deteriorating infrastructure, extremely limited government services, and increasing crime. These are just two examples of a government letting costs get out of control well beyond what it's residents could afford to pay. It would be nice to raise all family incomes in the cites to have similar pay and benefits of public safety workers but who would pay for the high cost of products and services that those employees provide.

The recent granddaddy of them all is obviously the country of Greece. It has a credit rating of B- which is 6 ratings below junk status and therefore has to pay high interest rates to attract capital to pay for government services, has a debt to gdp ratio of 175%, an unemployment rate of 26%, and unless the Eurozone, EU, IMF, World Bank, banks, and bond holders forgive the debt, Greece will likely go into default giving a haircut to all including bank deposits.

Michael

That is probably the one of he big differences between public sector and private sector jobs. In the private sector, if costs are too high to allow a company to make money and/or remain solvent, it often outsources jobs to reduce costs and often to foreign countries. In the public sector, often there are laws on the books that forbid outsourcing government jobs.

Another difference is that many governments pay at least a "living wage" no matter what the private sector pays for an equivalent job. It may seem that everyone deserves a 'living wage' but in public sector in the UK, 5 million workers are paid below a 'living wage' but likely have to pay via taxes for government employees that are all making at least a 'living wage'.

Low pay UK: 5 million Britons earn less than living wage — RT News

BristolUK

However, if you look at large government departments in the UK you will find massive outsourcing has taken place over the last 30 years.

Something tells me that North America might not be totally different. Or, perhaps there were plenty of areas outsourced to begin with.

Michael

In the public sector, employees salaries and pensions (including government state pensions to all) are often guaranteed inflation indexed but that is not the case for the private sector. If the last 35 years was like the previous 35 years in the private sector, that would not be an issue since median incomes in the private sector were growing beyond inflation so therefore an equal or smaller percentage of taxes were taken from private sector paychecks to pay for government employees salaries and pensions as time passed. However over the past 35 years, there hasn't been private sector in any western country where the median income has kept up with inflation (real income declines).

Since the last 35 years shifted increased income from the middle class to the rich, it also wouldn't be too bad if taxes on the rich increased by the amount of increased income to pay for the government services but when the rich has power, they won't let the government increase their taxes and cry claiming class warfare is being waged against them. Therefore often politicians increase consumption taxes which primarily affect the poor and the middle class the most.

scrubbedexpat091

It just boils down to one simple thing in BC, unless you move to some middle of nowhere small town (then your SOL for jobs) there is no longer any decent sized city on the mainland that offers any substantial savings if your renting.

It's really not worth moving to save 100 or 150 a month on rent if any savings were to even be found since the cost of other things would go up such as car insurance, we get a lower rate in this region because there are less claims, less thefts etc, we would probably pay 20-40 more in more populated regions.

Now the Island could bring some savings, but they would be smaller city's and there then is the job issue again since small = fewer employment opportunities. Since we both have jobs compatible to what we need here, it makes far more sense to stay put.

If we could save a substantial amount by moving we would, but we just can't so we stay put.

Renters don't see the same cost savings owners do by living in the burbs, rents don't vary a whole lot for 1 bed room apartments around the LM.

caretaker

It was that damned Mulroney. The rebate probably works in my favour for gst anyway but the liquor tax kills me.

BristolUK

Michael

OK I was wrong on that one for US federal workers. I don't know if that is different for other countries or state governments.

Pay increases for current federal employees and cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) for retired federal employees often differ because they are based on changes in different economic variables. Increases in pay for civilian federal workers are indexed to wage and salary increases in the private sector, as measured by the Employment Cost Index (ECI), whereas federal retirement and disability benefits are indexed to price increases as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Both the ECI and the CPI are calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor.

Federal Employees: Pay and Pension Increases Since 1969

Tirytory

Yes Bristol, I must have missed that inflation linked pay rise in my salary... My government pay was frozen for three years which in reality yr after yr meant a real time pay cut...

Of course when I did have a small below inflation payrise just before we moved here, they had brought the pension changes in so I actually had less again in my payslip... That was a new one too.

My husband likewise saw similar but more pronounced pay cuts/pension changes... In one month he saw £300 of money (and every month thereafter) taken off him...

scrubbedexpat091

Still affects government employees less to not receive a raise as they already make more.

Take someone making a low income and they may not see a raise for years, but as they make too little to begin with it hurts them more.

Someone making 40k+ a year can cut back to reduce costs, someone making 15,000 a year likely sends every penny to essential needs and has nothing to cut back on.

As long as government employees on average earn more then their private sector counterparts, people won't feel much sympathy if they don't get a raise.

Tirytory

I wasn't looking for sympathy merely pointing out misinformation...

BristolUK

Fair enough
I worked for DHSS/DSS/DWP from 1973 to 2004

We used to have "pay review" where our pay was compared to the nearest comparable workers. Every year the review showed us to be behind and every year we got about a quarter of the shortfall that was already out of date when it was done so we fell further behind.

One year in particular we needed 22% to catch up and we got 4%. Eventually Thatcher got fed up of the comparisons and simply abolished the review.

Most staff with 2 kids qualified for Family Credits and other low income benefits. Even I, as a single person, qualified for low income exemption from NHS charges back in the 80s when I was one of the higher paid employees at local level.

Yeah, we never once had a pay rise anywhere close to any kind of indexing, although I do remember a "cost of living adjustment" in the early 70s that made my net pay vary by a few pence. Trouble was we never noticed it as pay was in cash and rounded to a £, so for three or four weeks we'd get maybe £12 and then it would be £13 and then back to £12 again

That "extra" £ went a long way, relatively