Salaries, A6 and other unknowns

I can agree with your argumentation insofar as this situation arose through no fault of their own. However, here there was cheating and lying, and for me it is clear that the little guy is not to blame.

Turn on the money printing press, because the little guy is not to blame...

Primarily, the company screwed up. The company has to face the consequences and sometimes that also affects the little guy because there simply isn’t anything to give away this year. But the state and the works council have apparently ensured that the fat employees get BONUSES rather than thinking about the company.

It is often the same in my industry: when things go well, everyone pats each other on the back and gladly collects the bonus; when things go badly, the management has failed and should preferably be hanged.

Often, however, both are simply caused by external influences that can only be cushioned or amplified to a limited extent. In Germany, we have a very high quality of managers who generally do a good job. Some serious misconduct by a few top managers that rightly makes it into the media cannot be taken as a reason to label an entire profession as criminal.

I assume that I do a good job and am appropriately compensated for it. That some professional groups are poorly paid is a real problem that needs to be addressed, but it is hardly related to the former.

Primarily, the company messed up.

There is no such thing as "the company"; it is always the people working there! In most cases, it is the top management that determines whether things go well or badly (of course, taking into account external influencing factors*). * RWE, E.On, but also Deutsche Bahn are, in my opinion, examples where management can only win or lose to a limited extent. External constraints dominate here.

Regarding the topic of public service, only this much should be said: for example, I work in a federal agency (Flächenamt) with 300 employees, of which 20 are civil servants, and certainly not all in A12+.

The middle service (skilled workers, administrative employees) is mainly in E6 and E7 with a few exceptions in E9a; the elevated service is usually E10 or E11 (FH engineers/bachelor graduates).
The higher service (university degree/master) only includes the department heads, that is exactly 5. (E13 and higher usually civil servants)
Since every authority has a pyramid structure and the site oeffentlicher-dienst.Info/tvoed/ has already been mentioned here, everyone can easily do the math and independently come to the conclusion of how many employees and civil servants there are in the public service with a net salary of 2500 at StKl 1.

Regarding the entry levels, it should be said that employees always start at level 1, advancement to level 2 after one year, to level 3 after two years, to level 4 after three years of professional experience. Meanwhile, levels 4 and 5 can now also be denied level 6 if the work performance is not adequate.

Employees are paid according to the actual work performed, meaning that theoretically a skilled worker can also become a department head (E15) and be compensated accordingly.
Civil servants are paid based on qualification and presence, meaning technical college/bachelor in non-technical administration A9 to A13, university degree and master A13 to A15.

To briefly stay with Dirk, a Dipl.Verm.Ing (FH) is classified with E10 in the cadastral office, the department head with E13 (university degree).
If you are lucky and work in an authority with construction activity like Straßen NRW, Landesbetrieb Bau or similar, you can get into E12 if you perform demanding engineering surveys (structure monitoring, baseline surveys, settlement measurement, etc.).
There are currently many long-serving engineers (not only in surveying) who, due to the transition regulations (BAT to TVöD), have moved up one level and are therefore comparatively highly classified. New hires after 2005 with the introduction of TVöD, TV-L only reach these classifications with the goodwill of the management, which can be interpreted as one wishes.

Civil servant teachers are outliers in the pay scale...

That was a small very rough excursus into the pay structure of the public service.

It turned out to be a bit more after all.

No offense, but I’m not going to respond to the rest of your reply. It’s pointless.

Oh dear, oh dear... yep, definitely better if you say no more. It’s fine to have different opinions, but your way of trying to twist arguments or deliberately misunderstand is not acceptable at all. Therefore, I won’t write anything more to you either.

That is very impressive, especially because you were previously around rank 850,000.

I am already looking forward to Santa Claus.

Well, some are also following the strange envy debate intensely.