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Old 22-04-2012, 22:49   #12
Chris
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Re: Lower pay for NHS staff in poorer areas

Quote:
Originally Posted by haydnwalker View Post
Chris: Don't you think a Paramedic/Nurse in Newcastle deserves the same pay as somewhere like Hertfordshire? (I specifically didn't mention London) They do the same job...deal with very ill/dying people?.
I think the question is deliberately two-dimensional and substitutes an honest appraisal of hard economic fact with an appeal to emotion.

Medical professionals don't have a monopoly on difficult jobs and I'm afraid I don't think they have a right to an exemption from the same basic rules of a market economy that govern the rest of us. The current situation is an anachronism, an overhang from the days when over-mighty trade unions used socialist dogma to override basic economics. National pay bargaining is as daft as State-controlled bread prices.

---------- Post added at 21:49 ---------- Previous post was at 21:41 ----------

Quote:
Originally Posted by martyh View Post
All that will happen is the wage to reflect the lower cost of living in the north will be set lower restricting growth in the north and as i already said it will exacerbate the already existing north south divide .How about the wages stay the same in the north and increase in the south .The economy needs people to have some disposable income and taking that away from northerners is the wrong thing to do.
I think the more pressing problem is that there should be any region of the UK where State employment levels are high enough that State pay levels would 'restrict growth'.

The fact is, employers in these areas already face wage pressures because the State is artificially inflating levels thanks to national pay. The idea that wages in the south should be lifted, rather than lowered in the north, is insane. Where do you propose we find the money to pay for that?
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