Cuts, strikes and such…

Again, I’m trying to my thoughts together in one place.

I’ve been on strike a few times this year and I was on the big march in London yesterday. I feel instinctively that this is the ethically correct choice but, if I’m to argue for it (which I must as I’m challenged on these choices regularly) I need to figure out why I’m doing this. So…

Here I am trying to get my thoughts together. Note that, for the most part, I’m comparing my position with an equivalent in the private sector. When I talk about career progression obviously I’m limiting the job families that discussion pertains to.

1. The public sector is a not a safe playground protected from the recession.
   
   I keep being told that I “don’t know how hard it is out there“, that I have “been given immunity from this economic climate“… and so on. We have taken a hit like “the rest of you“. That’s clearly evident as my colleagues are made redundant around me, my pay is frozen and my pension already reduced (note that it was already renegotiated in 2008).  It’s just silly and uninformed to state that nobody in the public sector is feeling this squeeze or suffering from the impact of the recession.
2. The public sector is not a commercial company – it’s an essential service.

   It can’t take hits like the private sector can (and should) because everything it does is essential (or should be – there are, of course, activities that should be lessened in scale or stopped altogether – I would never argue that there aren’t).

   This is a crude comparison I admit, hospitals need to stay open and working to a certain standard / web design agencies don’t. A capitalist society should go through periods of boom and bust – commercial services like pubs, web start-ups, estate agents and banks should be allowed to prosper and fail accordingly.

   But it is irrational to assume that public services should grow and fail in the same manner. These services are public and not private because we need them to keep going no matter what – that’s the basic function of government and its associated services.

   I’m not stating that spending should not be reduced during recessions – it should of course. But there is a core service that is essential and the quality of that service is now lessened. That means worse healthcare, more kids with nothing to do, less police, more potholes in the roads, increased crime and worse education. And so on and on and on. That’s not okay.

   A friend of mine yesterday phrased it very well – “When a toilet is cleaned in a hotel it is to earn that hotel more money / when a toilet is cleaned in a hospital it is simply because that toilet needs to be clean“.

3. There is deal – less pay and progression for better security and pension.To follow on from the previous point – those working in the commercial world should also be allowed to prosper and fail in times of boom and bust. Have routine nights out and expensive holidays paid for by your company, have your company car and have your bonuses. But accept that, with these things, comes an greater risk of redundancy. That’s the deal.So there’s a trade off. I have, to a degree and only for now, more job security and a better pension that my equivalents in the private sector. (I also feel more enthusiasm about the value of my job to society but that’s perhaps a tangential point). But with that security comes some trades.
   • I have less opportunity for progression than my equivalents in the private-sector. A specialist in the public sector (for the most part) will be unable to progress past a certain pay scale. So I’ll earn less in than my friends who continue to progress.
   • I cannot renegotiate my contract. I’m on a national payscale and that’s that.
   • I don’t get perks. No beers after work or parties or bonuses. Now I’m told that commercial companies won’t provide these when times are tough – fair enough. But they will return when times are good again.
   • I am highly specialised in a relatively small industry. I can’t jump jobs and companies. I work in a university – there aren’t very many of them.

   Now that’s all okay – I made my choices. But so did those in the private sector.

   I’m told on Twitter that I should just leave and look for work elsewhere rather than take strike action. I do see the logic of this but it’s not one that works in the public service. As said, it’s an essential service. It’s suggested to me that staff of quality “should look elsewhere <because> if there’s nobody of worth left, Government will improve conditions to draw you back”. Now that’s sound logic in a capitalist society and in a commercial role. But we can’t think like that because we can’t allow our services to have no one of quality. A generation of poor teachers (for example) doing damage while the government tries to draw them back back (as it did relatively recently with homeshare schemes and such) will have terrible consequences for society.

   So, for the reasons that I chose to work where I work I don’t want to leave. So it’s a long-term thing.

   Which is where the pensions argument comes in. People being hit by the pension reduction now made an agreement decades ago with their employer that they would work for less than their private sector counterparts in return for a better pension – essentially a deferred wage. If the government reneges on that deal not only is it morally wrong it also makes the public sector far less attractive to quality graduates in the future. Even if the government does try to draw teachers (to continue with the example) back – the employer won’t be trusted to hold to that promise in the long term. And by ‘long term’ I mean decades. So with little short term reward and less and less long term reward – it’s a less attractive deal.

   Now I’m also told that none of this should matter because health, education, etc. are vocations and we shouldn’t care about money. First off, that’s easy to say and secondly that’s true… To a point… but we have all begun to weigh our extrinsic motivators to do social good against the intrinsic motivator of a good reward for working.

 

 

…. An additional to the post…

To add to that… I do understand that, in the private sector, if you’re unhappy with working conditions you go elsewhere. I’ve done so in the private sector and do understand how it works.

But please understand that things work differently in the public sector. Partially for the practical reasons I mention above but also because of desire and motivation.

When I talk about “quality staff” I’m not only referring to skills, I’m talking about a desire to have a job in the service of society.
Again, I’ll use a teacher as an example again. A ‘good’ teacher would rather not teach in a private school. That’s not where they do the most good. But, if pushed enough, they’ll have to switch for purely financial reasons.

This isn’t okay. Good teachers who care in private schools while those who can’t find work elsewhere keep teaching the less wealthy? Not a good thing surely?

Please understand that many of us striking yesterday did not just lose pay to protect our pensions. We’re worried about broader social consequence.

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