In one survey it is reported that something like 80% of people support performance related pay for teachers. Of course there will have been some manipulative bullshit leading question to arrive at that statistic. But it is depressing how all-pervasive the so called 'common sense' of market values of the private sector have become.
As someone who spent many years working in the private sector - some of them in the peculiar position of being both trade unionist and boss - I can testify that the idea that by some magical process hard work is rewarded is a myth.
For the vast majority of private sector workers who aren't bankers - their pay packets simply bear no relation to relation to how hard they work or even how successful the companies they work for are. In a good year a company might splurge a bit more on the Xmas party and that's about it - and a few more sausage rolls makes a pretty poor incentive for the next twelve months.
In most businesses the only people who get significant bonuses are the sales people. Collective bargaining tends not to be in the DNA of this species. So the best rewarded of this obnoxious elite group are as a rule the pushiest and the greediest, and when it comes to improving their sales figures - often simply the luckiest. In most companies this situation is grudgingly accepted by their colleagues because ultimately the rest of the workforce depend on the sales these reptiles generate.
How did it happen that this 'necessity' has been elevated into a virtue? And how the fuck does it translate to a supposedly caring profession ?