The great public, private pay gulf distortion‏

The Daily Mail joined in the media propaganda barrage against public sector workers with its divisive and hysterical headline claiming that ‘state workers get £136 a week more than private employees in pay and pensions’http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1312079/State-workers-private-employees-pay-pensions.html

Nigel Stanley on the TUC’s Touchstone blog demolishes the Mail’s report, which is ‘is based on some new figures from ONS that compare what they call total reward in the public and private sectors. This is an exercise that looks at both pay and the value of the pension that people are building up – both today’s and tomorrow’s pay if you like – but while that sounds interesting I don’t think that the detailed figures mean a great deal. As ever from the Mail and other papers we get a crude comparison of the median figure for pay and reward in the two sectors.’
http://www.touchstoneblog.org.uk/2010/09/its-public-v-private-pay-again/

The Touchstone analysis goes on to deconstruct both the pay and pensions analysis of the ONS figures, noting the impact of privatisation in restructuring the public services workforce, driving down pay and eroding pension rights in the private sector.

This point was echoed in the UNISON response to the reports, General Secretary Dave Prentis said:

"Widespread privatisation has taken many low wage cleaning, home care, school meals and refuse collection jobs out of the public sector. Left behind are a larger concentration of professional workers. A recent ONS labour force survey reveals that professional workers now make up 24% of the public sector workforce. In the private sector, this figure drops to just 8.6%.”
http://www.unison.org.uk/asppresspack/pressrelease_view.asp?id=1981

And unions need not be too defensive about any pay and conditions differentials between public and private sectors - it is well known that union membership is significantly higher in the former and our past ability to defend and enhance pay and pensions rights of public sector workers makes the case for union membership. However , conversely, our collective failure to unionise 85% of the private sector workforce is leading to the current ‘great levelling down show’.

Predictably, there’s no mention in the Daily Mail article of the obscene reality of excessive pay in the private sector. According to a recent LRD facts service survey ‘earning over £500,000 a year seems par the course in Britain's boardrooms nowadays’. See the link for the latest batch of thirty-three directors, including 10 on over £1 million a year.
http://www.lrd.org.uk/issue.php?pagid=1&issueid=1405