UK Coastguard Pay

I fully suport the coastgaurd but the problem is that it is dificult to get a job in the marine industrie - this is a dream job for lots of people and most if not all do it because they love the job not for the money the simple truth is that there are always people willing to work for low pay but high job satisfaction money isnt everything quality of life is worth far more (I should know) - if they can find competent people to do the job for lowish wages why should they pay more?
 
When comparing the CG with other emergency services there seems one fundamental difference. The police will (or should) come to your aid as do firemen thereby putting their lives at potential risk. The CG on the other hand sit at a desk and coordinate a self funding charity in the name of the RLNI to take the risk of rescuing you or whoever. Or am I missing the point somewhere here.
 
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Maybe some of the increased duty we all face on red diesel could be used towards funding the CG pay claims? Would people feel happy about that?

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Change that to all of the duty & yes, I wouldn't mind paying the extra. Whereas at the moment most of the extra money raised will be wasted on central government inadequacies.
 
DaveG45 makes a good and valid point..

The guys that man the RNLI boats should be paid handsomly..

The faceless desk drivers at the coastguard get the same as the majority of Civil Servants I would imagine.. which may well be not enough, but if they want big bucks..
don't work for the government..

CB
 
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In view of this I would suggest that we should give them our wholehearted support. Having said that I am not in the least surprised to see the usual carping whingers coming out of the Scuttlebutt woodwork.

Shame on you - go and sign the petition.

[/ QUOTE ]I certainly won't sign a petition unless I understand the case. They talk about a £12,500 'base salary' but that's utterly meaningless in today's world. What we need to know is what they earn, gross. A relative of mine (in a different field) has a far lower 'base' salary - around £10,000 pa - but she earns around £60,000 pa after shift allowances and overtime (built-in, as a right). She has also had £50,000 in profit sharing over the last five years. I'm not saying that the CG are necessarily anywhere near that level but we need to know more about their complete remuneration package before we can judge - and certainly before I sign any petition.
 
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"and to hear our calls for them provide
assistance should things go wrong and we need help."

Er, we all may need an ambulance, or a fire brigade, but should leisure sailors insist on the taxpayer shelling out? I'm not so comfortable with the idea.

[/ QUOTE ]So what you mean is that if you break a leg playing football or have a heart attack hill walking then we should pay for the ambulance ourselves?
 
Yes I agree with CJ ! Having said this I have not seen the current coast guard rates against roles.
There are many workers on shameful rates of pay who because they are not in the public eye are not able to get leverage by going on strike.
Comparisons with front line workers in the emergency services and often dont have the right to strike may not be entirely valid.
 
The coastguard watchkeepers dont claim to be "front line" emergency service workers.

Part of their discontent is that they are paid much less than ambulance operation room staff who are also not front line and who do a comparable job.

I signed the petition when it first came out .Hopefully a better deal may emerge for them at some point.
 
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The police will (or should) come to your aid

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'Should' - Anyone remember the two coppers who stood by and refused to go after a drowning child 'because they hadn't done the course'????

[/ QUOTE ] I think you will find it was PCSO's that stood by.


Coastguards as with all workers are paid a market wage. I assume there is no problem recruiting them so any coastguard is unhappy with his or her wage can leave and find another job. If there is a problem with recruitment then the wage will have to be raised.

One has to remember, as with all public service workers, that the benefits of working for the public sector add considerably to the value of the wage.
 
The market is only one factor, and not a perfect instrument in pay and reward issues. Any employer can depress pay while still being able to recruit (particularly during an economic slowdown), provided they are prepared to employ a demotivated, and, over time, a less skilled workforce. Neither seems attractive.

I rather hope that the coastguard service maintains a high standard of professionalism; that needs to be paid for, imho.
 
I'm amazed at some of the sheer ignorance on display - comments like "faceless desk drivers" really don't help.

This dispute is about far more than pay - manning levels in many MRCCs are well below what they need to be, and other issues are involved as well.

Understand previous comments about "policing" attitudes, but this is one of the problems with merging the MSA and HM Coastguard years ago. It's a bit like the fire service prosecuting for arson - of course they don't, the do the job then hand over to the police. In my view, there should be the same "arms length" between HMCG and enforcement - but then that wouldn't satisfy those who complain that they reported a near miss to the CG who then "did nothing"! You can't please everyone!

"Market forces" for pay is one of the problems - a few years back, watch officer pay was better in real terms, and watch officers were recruited from sea-going backgrounds. We now have the non-sea going recruited "watch assistants", many of whom are now coming through to watch officer / watch manager grades. They are procedurally good, but lack the working experience of what goes on out there - which you can't blame them for, it's the "faceless desk drivers" within MCA management that decided sea-going is no longer needed to be a CG... and have in effect "dumbed down" the job...

This approach is starting to show - instances like the sailor "rescued" against his will - show MRCC staff working to what the computer says, not what their instinct and experience tells them to do.

Interestingly, I work a lot with the French CROSS (CG equivalent) who's attitude to their people is very different, who pay almost double the UK rates, and who fund the service properly (visual watch stations, etc) - but then the French haven't forgotten they're a maritime nation!
 
I still feel that the big issue in this country is we all want everything for nothing. Of course the emergency services deserve better pay, so do many other workers, but are we prepared to pay for it? If you had to buy a car type road tax disk for your boat, and the money went to supporting the coastguard, RNLI etc, and we all had to shell out (say) £200 a year for it, people would soon be writing petitions to stop it. We'd have everyone shouting about how all the money was being wasted by beaurocrats and the like.

I do feel that a nation with such a proud maritime tradition such as the UK should have well funded marine services, world leaders, even, but there are two sides to the coin.
 
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(I should know) - if they can find competent people to do the job for lowish wages why should they pay more?

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Unfortunately they can't. Many skilled coastguards are leaving the job because they can't live on the pay and many coastguard stations are undermanned - potentially dangerously so if they get several bad situations to deal with at the same time.

What is "fair pay"? I would say it is sufficient pay to attract and retain the necessary number of people with the necessary skills to get the job done properly. That is no longer the case with the coastguard service.
 
"I rather hope that the coastguard service maintains a high standard of professionalism; that needs to be paid for, imho."

But this is demonstrably not the case.

Have a look at vacancies in the coastguard service - there are very very few.

Is there a shortage of skills and professionalism now? - I would say no.

If there was a problem in either area then a substantial pay increase would be a justifiable solution to that problem, but the fact is that recruitment is not a problem and there is no discernable fall of in performance standards.

Why should the taxpayer spend a considerable sum of money on solving a problem that does not exist? Do you spend your money on things you don't need and don't want?

The main problem is that if you give the coastguards the sort of rise, almost 25% then the public service unions will immediately use it as a "standard" at which all the rest of them will claim to be entitled. As they have done repeatedly in the past. Which is almost certainly how ambulance service control room staff come to be paid more than coastguards.
 
Yes they were PCSOs. They arrived after the child had dissapeared for several minutes and the two anglers present where not able to indicate the position. (why did the anglers do nothing?)
PCSOs are specifically told not to jump in water though most of the ones I have spoken to say they would.
PCSOs dont get paid much either!!
 
PCSO`s get a raw deal in my opinion to go off thread for a second, in my job i have got to know two of them quite well they pop in for a cup of tea some days where i work, quite often they are patroling alone in rough areas with no powers of arrest apart from what joe public has, they take a lot of stick off the local yobs in their day to day walks around and are promised "promotion" to the regular police force only to be knocked back every time by cut backs ect, i know their moral is at rock bottom and they are being asked to do more and more of the regular coppers work which they didnt sign up for..
 
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