They’ve only received a fraction of their old salaries. Many have missed out on months of work. And their pension contributions and holidays have been completely scrapped. So it is perhaps understandable that teachers, town planners and tax officials are feeling a little aggrieved. Except, er, no, sorry I made a mistake there. That was a description of what happened to the self-employed over the last eight months, not the average public sector worker.
Instead, it now looks likely that the government will impose a pay freeze on everyone who works for the government this year, and possibly next as well. The 5.5 million affected will reportedly include the police, armed forces, teachers and civil servants. Predictably, the unions are up in arms, as are the Labour Party, and we will be hearing a lot in the coming days about the sacrifices made by ‘frontline workers’. But the truth is, the public sector has already been largely insulated from the economic impact of this crisis, and there is no reason it should not share some of the burden of getting out of it.
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