To cut or not to cut?

There is an on-going discussion about whether people in the public sector should have their pay cut, to make sure that they share some of the pain of those in the private sector who have lost jobs or are working for much reduced incomes.

As the public sector workers generally have better pensions (-final salary) and greater job security, there is an equity issue here. Until the last four years on average wages were greater in the private sector, but now wages are greater in the public sector, so the justification for better pensions, etc., has gone. At the moment public sector wages are still rising, while prices are falling, - the RPI is in negative territory, so they gain in two ways.

In addition under Blair/Brown employment in the public sector has risen by 17%, while in the private sector it rose by 10%. There are now 4.56 million workers in the public sector, so what happens to them has a significant effect on the economy.

Public sector union leaders cannot answer the moral case, so they fall back on "We are in the middle of a three year agreement, which cannot be changed midway" type of argument. This is valueless - private sector workers thought that they had a legal deal but that collapsed in redundancy.

At the very least public sector pay should be frozen, but there does also seem to be a case for temporary cuts.

With over four and half million workers in the public sector, any reduction in the wage bill will help the government achieve expenditure cuts, which everyone except G.Brown now seems to regard as vital to save us from a worse fate.