Professor Terrence McDonough:

The problem is not so much the level of public sector wages as that the level of wages in the private sector did not follow those in the public sector. That is, we needed a wage-led regime. It would have been better. Public sector wages establish a benchmark, although I hesitate to use that word, for the private sector. I do not think we should be benchmarking the public sector on the private sector, but we should be benchmarking the private sector on the traditional labour protections that public sector unions have been able to achieve for their members.