BLUEMOMENT

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Brand new, not many sigs yet . . .

Sign up to it here:

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/CoastguardPay/

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Here is what some of those erudite gentlemen on TOP are saying about the Coastguard:

The faceless desk drivers at the coastguard get the same as the majority of Civil Servants I would imagine . . .

if they can find competent people to do the job for lowish wages why should they pay more?

I'm not sure that too many leisure boaters would be so enamoured of the Coastguard if the said Coastguard were to treat them similarly to how they presently act towards owners of commercially coded craft.

There are many people both inside and outside the marine industry who work both the same lousy hours and same lousy pay. I can certainly think of more deserving causes.

the coastguard workers's claim for a decent wage is no more deserving than many other public sector workers. It doesn't make a jot of difference what work it is that we do, we are all entitled to a fair pay for the work that we do.

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 . . .

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).

Out of 21 replies less than a quarter were wholeheartedly in favour of the Coastguard. And this was on PBO, not in the Lounge. All they were asked to do was sign a petition.

It makes my mum and dad look a bit soft for popping in to Clyde Coastguard to introduce themselves with a box of biscuits for them to have with their coffee as a thankyou.

That relative on £10000 needs to take a bed to work. To top your income up to £60000 even with attendance allowance is pushing it.

Some of these Sales people could, I believe they prefer to have a low or non existant basic and a good comission package. Oh to have a good package!

Nick wrote:Out of 21 replies less than a quarter were wholeheartedly in favour of the Coastguard. And this was on PBO, not in the Lounge. All they were asked to do was sign a petition.

Well .. gaining automatic entry to the PCPS state pension scheme which has a 20% employer contribution does go a long way to augmenting their wage? They could well ask, though, the connection between Astbury's voluntary retirement under compulsory retirement terms and the additional employment cost of £3m (in a total wage bill of £30m). Astbury is doing OK; joined quite quickly the Emergency Command System (part of Vector Command) as a Strategic Command Advisor. Rather like Storey who also jumped into a post very much connected with his previous post and I thought civil servants had to wait a bit before joing private companies who might find his previous employment useful ....

bit of an eye opener this Vector Command crowd. what else has this gov farmed out in this line of work I wonder?

Was thinking about this on sat after listening to some boaters sending best wishes to Clyde CG.
Is there nothing else we can do, apart from signing petitions, to get a message across that we are behind the CG all the way in their struggle for a decent wage, ie an on the water demonstration made up of a large floatilla of boats of all kinds?
Mind you we couldent exactly get our cause directly to the door of No 10 could we, but even if we could raise an awareness of plight to non boaty folk it might be a help, or even advertise the petition web site on our boats for the rest of the season.
Correct me if I am havering.
C_W

What happened over the English bank holiday weekend? The news said they were striking on the busiest period, but they didn't until it was all over, now seem to be off for a month. Meanwhile the Irish team are still on the air if you're in range.
If they want to make a difference they should co-ordinate ( is that not their job??) their outages, and stop answering obviously unneccessary calls (telling a radio checker they're on strike suits him fine).
I have to say that the quality of weather/safety broadcasts is far from professional so if they did it better they may get more votes.
Why not do it like the Spanish - record a CD in "studio conditions" and play it on time. Instead, one operator comes on, announces the broadcast then switches off. Another then does his/her bit with all sorts of noise in the background, and many on-off clicks of the mike key. not smooth, especially if you're in a fringe reception area. (mini rant over)
BTW, it's not just RNLI that do their work - that's afloat. There's van loads of them up and down the seaside ~ guarding the coasts.
Maybe they should be given more enforcement power and tools, then they could justify more wages. Anyone know the average take-home after shift allowances etc.?

I have on a number of occasions listened in to the Coastguards co-ordinating an emergency and I have always been very impressed by the professionalism and dedication of the service.

I once listened to a coastguard identifying the position of a distressed and panicking yacht by the colour of the rocks they had run onto. Mind you that was in the days of Oban coastguard when the local knowledge was so important.

Those comments that Nick published were obviously from a bunch of selfish Tories, by the way where is TOP.

sahona wrote:Anyone know the average take-home after shift allowances etc.?

There are 1,100 employees in the MCA who are paid £34m. The average wage is £30,000. Slightly more than half are employed in CG/SAR roles, the rest are office based managing UK's commercial shipping, surveys etc. The board are not overpaid by industry standards.

However, and as I said before, £3m walked out the door on 2 legs in May 2007 to make room for Cardy. The PCS pension scheme will not fund early retirements, never mind those on permissive terms. Whether this sum could have been made available to the workforce left behind ....

Daveanmucker wrote: by the way where is TOP.

YBW's PBO forum. To be fair, from recollection of previous threads on the YBW forums, there has been quite a lot of support expressed for the coastguards.