To the public sector bashers, I refuse 2 be made feel guilty for making a good choice

Tim Robbins

gerry28 wrote: »

That might be a stretch!! I accept I may have to help the country, much like I mite help pull a drunk from the ditch. I don't feel I played any part in the mess we are in. Also, I think money should be taken from the well off and the tax exiles.

Jim McDaid TD said last week on the radio that the government needed to drive down wages. So he let the cat out of the bag with that statment.

Forget about the recession for a sec, do you think Ireland can be competitive within the broader European economy if it pays the highest public service pay in Europe?

And if so please explain why?

gerry28

Forget about the recession for a sec, do you think Ireland can be competitive within the broader European economy if it pays the highest public service pay in Europe

No I don't have a problem with a reduction in wages in this country. So long as it is applied fairly.

What I do have a problem with is the government bull****ting us. Telling us we are contributing to our pensions when the levy money is going straight to the dept of finance rather than into our pension fund.
That it takes a loose cannon like Jim McDaid to tell us while the main players are taking us for fools.

Why don't they take decisive steps to lower prices and then we can accept a corresponding reduction in pay.

grahamo

Boggle wrote: »

I have heard this and in theory you may be right.

Trouble is, from what I have seen and been told, for whatever reason it doesn't seeem to work.
Some examples:
- my own brother got his first job in the public sector thanks to a neighbour
- he subsequently went for a fulltime position and only got it through a mixture of serious networking, preparation and excellling at the interview stage (his opinion is that if he didn't know the people then he wouldn't have done so well)
- there was war about the guy who cae second on the list as he was known to have done a rubbish interview but he conveniently made it high up enough to get a job (he had a well placd relative)
- that neighbours son also got a job because of his contacts, even though he is always on the doss
- my gf has gone for a number of interviews in teaching and despite the arduous 15 minute interview (thats right, the person who we allow teach and care for our kids and who cannot be subsequently fired is picked based on a measly 15 minute interview with a panel of 3 people!!) has seen a number of jobs go to those who are related to or are friends with suitable people (these places are like gossip circles so you always hear the dirt afterwards)


Its only a couple of examples I know, and hardly a decent survey of hiring practices, but it does not bode well and does not inspire confidence that the best people are hired for the job.
Could they be isolated examples? Of course.
Could I be biased? Of course.
Does that make my complaints less valid? No way of knowing, but it must surely be worrying.

And of course Canvassing and Nepotism absolutely does NOT ever go on in the private sector.:rolleyes:

Tim Robbins

gerry28 wrote: »

Why don't they take decisive steps to lower prices and then we can accept a corresponding reduction in pay.

Can you be a bit a clearer? Is there some magic nob to reduce prices I've never heard about?

Boggle

And of course Canvassing and Nepotism absolutely does NOT ever go on in the private sector

It does absolutely. Doesn't make it right but at least I dont have to give those compannies my money.
Same cannot be said for the public service so I'd prefer higher standards and better transparency.

That might be a stretch!! I accept I may have to help the country, much like I mite help pull a drunk from the ditch. I don't feel I played any part in the mess we are in. Also, I think money should be taken from the well off and the tax exiles.

Not much of a stretch from my point of view. Anyone who, despite their AWFUL performance in a boom, still gave FF their vote is DIRECTLY responsible for the mess we are in.
As for your second bit, I agree in that there are plenty of areas which should be targeted before we start targeting wages but that staffing levels and wages (although I would prefer they started the cull at the top levels) need to be part of the package.

gerry28

Can you be a bit a clearer? Is there some magic nob to reduce prices I've never heard about?

I'm not a politician but i'm sure there is something they could do. They could start by reducing vat, allowing ESB reduce prices, forcing wholesalers who trade into this country to allow sterling and euro tansactions, start a campaign to highlight blatant rip off's and increase competition.

We are one of the most expensive countries in the europe for everyday items.

Naz_st

Boggle wrote: »

Not much of a stretch from my point of view. Anyone who, despite their AWFUL performance in a boom, still gave FF their vote is DIRECTLY responsible for the mess we are in.

I agree - this government have been p*ssing away taxpayers money for years (PPARS, Voting Machines, etc), coupled with consistant massive budget overruns on state projects (Port Tunnel, LUAS, etc) and constantly raising the public expenditure on wages, social welfare etc with little regard for coping with changing financial circumstances.
We simply "got away with it" because of an illusory property bubble and tax evasion amnesty windfalls brought in revenue faster than the government could give it away.
I mean ffs, we had ~15 years of "boom" - why isn't this reflected in a functional, efficient healthcare system? A well-funded, effective and technologically up-to-date secondary education system? And first-class public transport infrastructure? The list goes on...

Tim Robbins

gerry28 wrote: »

I'm not a politician but i'm sure there is something they could do. They could start by reducing vat, allowing ESB reduce prices, forcing wholesalers who trade into this country to allow sterling and euro tansactions, start a campaign to highlight blatant rip off's and increase competition.

We are one of the most expensive countries in the europe for everyday items.

Are you taking the mick?

dan_d

A a civil engineer, who wants to work as a civil engineer, such jobs in the public sector are few and far between. And you only tend to get interviews by knowing someone inside.
So OP, I didn't exactly have a choice.
The minister for Finance said recently that the publice sector pay bill is a third of ALL Government spending.ALL spending.That is a massive bill.At this point in time, to maintain that is next to impossible and totally impractical.
Speaking as person in the private sector, who pays into a pension (which has recently lost a lot of money, due to what it was invested in), I see no reason whatsoever why public service workers shouldn't pay this levy.We are not asking you to bear the brunt of anything.We are asking you to shoulder the burden too.Public service workers frequently say they are being targeted for this recession. You're not.You don't seem to realise that private workers are paying this price every day and have been for months. I know 1 person let go last summer, 1 in nov, 2 in the last 2 weeks, 3 who have had 5-10% paycuts (and there was no negotiations or strikes or anything else), and in my own job, I'm aware of 10-20 people who have been let go. A member of my family is facing redundancy in April. All of these people are highly educated university graduates.
So you'll have to excuse me if I don't have a lot of sympathy.Your biggest problem is a pension levy. To be honest, all those people I mentioned above, I can guarantee you they'd happily take that levy and keep their jobs if they were in that position. You don't have to worry about losing your job.
My point is that I couldn't care less whether you work in private or public sector.I just don't see one being better than the other.Like everything else, it balances out.But in the current economic climate, looking at the amount of money being paid annually to the public sector versus the amount of jobs lost (since last summer), pay cuts taken in the private sector and the amount of money we need to save, it's actually not much to ask of you.

population

Dan D

It is actually asking a fair bit for those on around 20K. The bands need to be adjusted so that the low paid workers feel little to no impact and the people on the upper end of the scale take more of the share.

This is all that should be done though. Benchmarking works both ways so if you sign up to it you have to accept the agreement can reflect up or down. This should have been explained very clearly by the Union Reps before balloting. If it was not then the Reps let their people down and should be removed post haste.

I would also say that I find it somewhat irksome when Jack O' Connor says that this levy affects the most vulnerable in society. Surely the most vulnerable in society are the unemployed???

irish_bob

Martyr wrote: »

gerry28

i recall a story from IT contractor who was working for HSE.

He told me they were upgrading the operating systems of all the computers in a department.

The first thing they had to do was visit each employee and gather data like serial number, asset tag, applications list, hardware inventory..etc - since there was no software keeping track of all this at the time (or atleast thats what they were told)

After 4 months of gathering the information and working on the systems, they were eventually told that an "audit" company had already been paid to gather this data...

So, the HSE already had the information my friend+co were spending time gathering again before migrating the users, but didn't bother to mention it.

he also noted that in 1 job role, 2 people worked.
Their job was to find out medical insurance information from patients who had been in the hospital.

The only thing was, they already had the information...but still spent time phoning patients requesting it.
When asked why they did this, the response was "we've always done it like this" and that any change in procedure could
only mean receiving a bonus.

Also, the finance department instructed IT employees to replace hardware during an upgrade, rather than add more.

For example, if a computer system had 512MB RAM, the HSE would buy 1GB of RAM, and either dispose of the "old" 512MB RAM, or give it to the employees for free.

They would also mark down.. ~30 euro for a module even if it only costed 15 euro.

if you did ANY of these things in private sector, you'd be fired, simple as that.
no pension, no job buddy.

i spent a week in hospital at the begining of 2008 , i gave my insurance details to someone at casualty when checking in , a few days later when i was in a ward , another person came round and asked me for my insurance details again