Wednesday, Dec 12, 2007
Ello, ello, ello - We need to pay our mortgages too!
BBC: Police call emergency pay summit
Oh yes, lovely-jubbly.
An act of Parliament bans police officers from taking strike action because of the critical role they hold in society. But Jan Berry, chairwoman of the Police Federation of England and Wales, said its members would stand firm in their battle to have their pay rise backdated to September, like their colleagues in Scotland.
She told the BBC: "The police service is united, police authorities are united, and a growing number of politicians are also saying that she's made the wrong decision. "Now it takes a big person to stand up and say 'I made a mistake'. And I really think Jacqui Smith should be doing that now."
Posted by stevie dee @ 07:26 AM (431 views) Add Comment
13 Comments
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1. Minx_man said...
I suspect that the police will be the first in a number of public sector groups to make more and more noise about their pay deals. Its all very well for the government to say "but its in line with inflation" but that argurment won't silence anybody.
The fact that most people probably couldn't even tell you what inflation is let alone how its calculated will be irrelevant..bottom line is, if you haven't got enough coming in to pay your mortgage you're going to start complaining...
The potential outcome is looking more and more like the US picture..devaluing currency (which cannot be hidden) with rising inflation...regardless of what the official figures say.
2. tick tock said...
This is a cruel way to 'control inflation' indeed.
Unfortunately, politicians continue to peddle the grand lie of business, that it is wage 'growth' that is inflationary rather than growth in debt, tax, and other general rises in prices. If this inflation did not exist, there would be no need for pay rises to 'keep up' would there?
The police are not asking for a pay rise here, they are asking not to be forced to take a real terms pay cut. How is that inflationary?
Rather, the Government is seeking to lower the inflation that they have allowed (and even encouraged) via the non-regulation of other things (house prices particularly) by reducing the pay of public servants.
New Labour's whole policy of 'controlling inflation' seems, at best, based upon a misunderstanding as to what actually causes inflation, and at worst is a deliberate hoax (sadly involving the Trade Unions) to mislead workers into accepting pay cuts, while employers, landlords, and business contributors to party coffers, make extraordinary profits at their expense
Wage inflation is NOT the cause of inflation, it is the CONSEQUENCE of it.
3. planning4acrash said...
This is the beginning of the inflation backlash. What AMAZES me, is that nobody sees that, through their less than inflation pay deals, people are subsidising homeowner's artificially low interest rates that are driving up inflation in the first place. Maybe its the circular, complex nature of the issue that the media don't quite understand, the police see the symptoms unfortunately unions aren't putting 1 & 1 together and asking for higher pay deals or higher interest rates.
4. Hpwatcher said...
''This is the beginning of the inflation backlash''
Very good point planning4acrash. Huge mortgages will spill over into every single part of the economy and drive up wages and inflation everywhere.
Does G Brown really know what he is doing? He maybe a great leader etc, but is he competent?
5. Stevie Dee said...
Hi P4C,
The government need the police on their side for next year, and the strong words will be enough. There will be some deal struck, work less for same money, but something will be done.
Question for you P4C, when things do go tits up, have you got any plans?
6. techieman said...
If you want to have a fully funded pension at 55 (yes i know the funding issues involved) and supplement your pension as a security guard or ASBO enforcer for the council then fair enough. If you want to be part of a public sector and reap the rewards of that then fair enough. If you decide you want to go on a work to rule because of a 2 month loss of a pay reward then fair enough. If you want to be part of a federation and participate in collective barganing then fair enough. If you want to go shooting people that are drunk in charge of a table leg, or Brazillian electricians or fit up some people or be corrupt then fair enough.
But dont be surprised when i dont support you because EVERY time i or my friends and relatives have dealt with the police they have been rude, condescending and ineffective. Perhaps they are not to blame but the last one I dealt with (when someone hit and run my car) was patronising and sarcastic. If I get a small rise or a pay cut I dont go running around asking people to sign a petitiion (yes i got one yesterday) to my employers to get them to reconsider.
Yes the police are a special case!! As for everyone else I agree with the general concept of not taking out cost inflationary pressures on wages.....but the police is about the worst example of a body deserving of support that i can think of - apart maybe from idiotic Baliffs that decide to obstruct a heart hospital by lifting up a car with a few hundred quid outstanding parking fees...but thats a bit off subject i suppose. Right spleen vented.
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8. Jimmy_joe said...
Listening to the comments on 5live today was disheartening: "I work 70 hours a week for a crust of bread and a cup of dirty water; people should accept what they're given". I didn't get where I am today by accepting what I was given! (except when dealing with the police, when you don't have any choice).
"EVERY time i or my friends and relatives have dealt with the police they have been rude, condescending and ineffective"
I can't vouch for the first but have experienced the second and definitely agree with the latter. If the police can't be bothered to do their job then should they retain their monopoly over the prevention of crime?
What would you do:
1) 3 young men in a car throw eggs at people as they drive down a city street. At traffic lights the passengers get out and pelt shoppers with more eggs. The license plate number is given to police and someone asks if they can press charges for criminal damage to their clothes, if the egg cannot be cleaned out.
A) Go roung the car owner's house and give him a beating, ban him from driving and sell the car to pay compensation to the victims
B) If you need to speak to the car owner in the future then you'll mention the egg incident. Discourage anyone from pressing charges for damaging clothes because it's a bit sad.
2) Some personal property disappears from a bedsit at the same time as one of the residents. A forwarding address is known.
A) Go to the address and give the guy a beating. Return the property to its owners.
B) Nothing. There's too many different fingerprints in a bedsit.
3) A car door is bent outwards from the top in an attempt to gain entry. The car is a 60 second walk from the police station.
A) See if you can get a fingerprint and promise the car owner that you'll find the b'stard and give him a beating.
B) Have another cup of tea. It's raining and the fingerprints will be washed off by now.
4) People smoke under the no smoking signs outside the entrances to train stations and other public buildings; people allow their dogs to foul pavements and parks; people drop litter and fly tip.
A) Emigrate
B) Nothing at all
Mostly A: you're a human
Mostly B: you're a copper
About 3: when we went back from the cop shop to the car we could clearly see a fingerprint inside the top of the door frame, sheltered from the weather and in a position that made it unlikely to be from anyone pother than the criminal. Because of the attitude of the police we didn't bother going back.
9. Warren Buffetcar said...
Are we now going to see the spectacle of striking police being "policed" by miners and print workers? I think not.
10. mrmickey said...
I think the point here is that the only people with any leverage when it comes to wage negotiations is the public sector, the government know this and are desperately trying to privatise as much of the public sector as possible. Most people in the private sector live in constant terror of redundancy so are less likely to create any agro. It's also funny how the government see this as inflationary, but don't say a word when train fares go up by 7%, food & fuel prices shoot up above inflation and house prices have been hyperinflating for the last 10 years.
11. p. doff said...
I'm afraid the Police lost all credibility with me when some years ago I was fitted up for a driving offence by two coppers who lied repeatedly in court. Luckily, I think the magistrate accepted my viewpoint as I received a derisory £2 fine and no endorsement. It still urks me to this day that the magistrate took the easy option of finding me guilty, as the alternative would have been to accuse the traffic cops of perjury, which, lets face it, was not going to happen.
I did have the satisfaction of speaking privately to the Chief Constable afterwards, and I think he got the message.
12. talking rot said...
@lierbag said "If any volunteers are needed to baton charge through illegal police picket lines, on horseback - I am that man."
Of course, in 1926 the Government of the Day used the Armed Forces to quell public disorder when the Police were not able to respond. This option is not available for Gordon Brown as: (1) He has sent the under-funded, under-manned, under-equipped Armed Forces around the world to fight illegal wars. (2) After being totally and utterly shafted, I doubt the Armed Forces will allow themselves to be used as a political tool to break a strike, and so wouldn't follow the Government's instructions.
Looks like it is @lierbag afterall then!
13. handle_it said...
Doing the sums, I think pay demands in general will not be met. Standards that we've become used to can not be sustained. There simply isn't going to enough money. The economy has been driven by wooden dollars. We'll have inflation but no pay rises to counter it, imo.