In the public sector, there are a million people in the health service. There ought to be a couple of dozen or more on the Labour side, who learned their trade in different parts of the health service, and the public sector, and local government. And bus drivers, and people on the Underground.
I'd like to have another opportunity to serve. I believe in service. I enjoy it. I also like coming and going, you know, because I think that my private-sector life has contributed to how I think about public-sector challenges and what I do in the public sector.
Private sector unionization is down to practically seven percent. Meanwhile the public sector unions have kind of sustained themselves [even] under attack, but in the last few years, there's been a sharp [increase in the] attack on public sector unions, which Barack Obama has participated in, in fact. When you freeze salaries of federal workers, that's equivalent to taxing public sector people.
New Labour has systematically alienated section after section of our natural supporters - teachers, health workers, students, pensioners, public service workers, trade unionists and people committed to the environment, civil liberties and peace.
Private sector labors unions continue to suffer losses in their membership while public sector and service unions grow.
There are all kinds of different forms of public service, but there's no form of public service that can make more difference for more people than partisan political activity.
The health-care sector certainly employs more people and more machines than it did. But there have been no great strides in service. In Western Europe, most primary-care practices now use electronic health records and offer after-hours care; in the United States, most don't.
SBI Caps has a distinct advantage because most of our people are market recruits. We have a public sector heritage. Our challenge is to bring the best of both - public sector heritage and private sector talent - and provide a unique offering.
Most private sector workers can only dream of getting the generous lifetime pension and health benefits typical of government service.
Living standards in both the public and private sector have to be brought down. The private sector has to sell more abroad and consume less at home. The government sector has to get closer to just spending what it can collect in taxes.
People share a universal behavioural trait: if there are profits to be made, the effort to get that money will attract investment. This is true in the private sector, the market sector, as well as the public sector.
I think we should, as the public sector or politicians, stop creating an illusion that it is the public sector that drives growth and jobs. It is not. It is the private sector that does it. There is no growth without entrepreneurship.
I favor a system where students in publicly funded institutions make a commitment: if they do well in the private sector, they will revert a certain percentage of their income to the education sector; and if they devote some years to public service, their debt will be forgiven.
The financial sector has so distorted salaries that physicists are getting drawn into the financial sector. All that has led to an undersupply of people committed to the public sector.
The biggest difference between the private sector and public sector is in the private sector, there's a sense of urgency because you have customers and you have competitors. Whereas in government, one of your major objectives is to not make any really big mistakes.
We would be foolish and silly not to unite with people in the public health sector, the environmental community, [and] unions, to try to challenge corporate agriculture.
Careful economic research has shown public-sector workers receive a level of compensation, pension benefits, and retiree health coverage in excess of what comparable workers in the private sector enjoy. In some instances, the total premium can be 30 percent or higher.